Forem: smallSohoSolo

Create AI Tools like building with blocks

smallSohoSolo — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 08:00:22 +0000

AI development has reached a point today where it's no longer a novelty, but rather widely applied in various fields. However, for most people, AI remains a high-barrier technology, requiring a significant amount of time and effort to learn before it can be applied effectively in practical work.

Each of us has our own unique needs, such as building text-to-image tools or writing tools specific to our work chains. There are numerous interesting models on HuggingFace, allowing us to quickly create our own AI tools based on these models, thereby making our work more intelligent!

Here is a recommended tool that allows users to build AI tools like assembling blocks:

ILLA Cloud

The official website is: https://illacloud.com

Github: https://illacloud.com/illacloud/illa-builder

This open-source low-code tool's slogan is: Build AI Driven Business Tools. It focuses on helping users quickly build AI-driven tools. Users can construct pages through drag-and-drop. Then, by using three major functions, they can connect to AI:

ILLA AI Agent
Models from HuggingFace
RestAPI to call OpenAI's interface

This allows for the quick creation of personalized AI tools.

Building Smart Applications

Here we use OpenAI's text-to-image interface to build our own text-to-image panel, using tools built with ILLA Cloud, which offers certain advantages:

Example here: https://illacloud.com/image-generator

The generated images can be sent to any system or SaaS using the ILLA Flow feature.
The models used later can be called via RestAPI or through HuggingFace's models.
Built-in prompts can be added to ensure that the generated content is sufficiently customized.
The ILLA AI Agent feature can enrich the content's prompts, as not everyone is familiar with writing prompts.

I used several components here, quickly creating my own web panel through drag-and-drop, and then connected the logic through JavaScript, making it available for use by my team.

I built two examples; another is an AI voice processing panel.

Example here: https://illacloud.com/ai-voice-generator

This panel has the following functions:

Meeting minutes transcription
Generation of meeting minutes
Translation and dubbing of meeting minutes

It primarily uses OpenAI's Whisper capability. There are thousands of AI capabilities, but the most important is to find what suits you. Using ILLA Cloud, you can quickly build AI applications like building blocks. Start using it now!

Conclusion

From the above introduction, we can see that using ILLA Cloud, you can quickly build your own AI tools, and ILLA Cloud has a rich array of components, basically meeting a large number of everyday business needs.

ILLA's self-developed component library has made the above functions flexible enough. Come and use ILLA Cloud to build your own AI tools!

Best Developer-Friendly Tool for Automating Message Sending to Slack

smallSohoSolo — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 09:45:23 +0000

Slack, as a primary communication tool for many people's work, has become one of the essential tools that must be opened daily. Supporting powerful text and media formats, Slack allows us to send various messages. As developers, we have a multitude of tasks that need to be automated, such as:

Code Compilation and Building: Automating the process of code compilation, especially in large projects, can significantly improve efficiency.
Test Execution: Automatically running unit tests, integration tests, and performance tests to ensure code quality.
Code Deployment: Automating code deployment to production or test environments, a common practice in Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) processes.
Data Backup and Recovery: Regularly automating database and application data backups, and restoring them when needed.
Monitoring and Alerts: Automating the monitoring of system and application performance and sending alerts in case of issues.
Log File Management: Automating the collection, analysis, and archiving of logs.
Environment Configuration: Using configuration management tools to automatically set up and maintain development, testing, and production environments.
Documentation Generation: Automatically generating documentation from code comments or database structures.
Batch Processing of Data or Files: Automatically performing data transformations, migrations, or other batch processing tasks.
Dependency Management: Automatically managing project dependencies to ensure the latest and compatible versions of libraries and frameworks.

These tasks are usually automated through various tools and scripts, such as using Jenkins or GitHub Actions for CI/CD processes, or Ansible, Puppet for environment configuration and management. Developers use many tools to accomplish these tasks, but these tools are usually independent. After completing their tasks, I believe everyone would appreciate a comprehensive notification for updates.

Studies show that if an issue is notified via Slack at the time of creation, the resolution time can be reduced by 50%. Therefore, we need a tool to help us automate message sending to Slack, allowing us to see all messages in one place, rather than checking various tools.

How to Solve

Here we choose a tool to solve this, named ILLA Flow. It is a connector tool aimed at developers, helping them quickly build various automation tasks, including automating message sending to Slack.

ILLA Flow offers various integrations, including but not limited to the most commonly used RestAPI, GraphQL, and a vast number of database connections and various SaaS platform capabilities, allowing you to quickly connect your products with those used by your customers. ILLA Flow also supports scheduled tasks, Webhooks, and parameter passing.

The most unique feature of ILLA Flow is the ability to incorporate an AI Agent into the workflow. This allows you to use an AI Agent, created by OpenAI's model, to process your notifications before sending them, making the notifications smarter and more interesting. You can also use the AI Agent for complex analyses, simplifying previously challenging summaries.

Achieved Results

We can create a workflow in ILLA Flow and then call Slack's Webhook in the workflow to achieve automated message sending to Slack.

After the completion of CI/CD tools, or after daily scheduled tasks, we can see messages in Slack.

We can also connect ILLA Flow to GitHub, allowing us to see messages sent by ILLA Flow in GitHub Issues.

We can also connect ILLA Flow to the alert monitoring system, so when an alarm or anomaly occurs, we can see messages in Slack.

Finally, another product of ILLA, ILLA Builder, supports building custom panels, allowing us to jump directly to ILLA Builder to view more information through the links sent in Slack, making notifications very smart and detailed.

Conclusion

In daily work, there are numerous automation scenarios, and ILLA Flow is a tool aimed at developers. Most other automation connection tools are geared towards general users, which can make configuration more complex for developers.

Using ILLA Flow, you can integrate AI Agents and various SaaS with one click, making internal team processes more automated and notifications smarter.

10,000 Stars! This open-source low-code tool is wildly popular.

smallSohoSolo — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 12:18:44 +0000

Open-source tools are common, but it's rare to see one with 10,000 stars. I'm sharing a product that has seen a crazy growth of 10,000 stars overseas. There are many low-code tools, but few are truly useful. This tool is primarily used by developers in North America, and their Discord community is very active.

The community indeed has some good reviews.

What ILLA Cloud Can Do

Github: https://illacloud.com/illacloud/illa-builder

Official Website: https://illa.cloud

The main users of ILLA Cloud are backend engineers, which might be different from what most people think. A large number of backend engineers have used ILLA Cloud to build numerous data panels and management backends. After all, web development has always been a headache for backend engineers. The tools built with ILLA Cloud are indeed quite aesthetically pleasing and fast.

ILLA also supports collaboration, allowing multiple people to edit a project together. Backend engineers no longer need to worry about building various internal backends. We all know the pain and tears of relying on front-end engineers.

The official website also has some solutions, which currently seem to focus mainly on management backends, data panels, etc.

AI text-to-image panel
AI voice processing panel
Data analysis panel
Content management CMS
Custom CRM
Management backend

They also support building workflows, and it seems they have done a lot of work in the low-code field, looking like a well-rounded product. It basically meets various common cases.

For instance:

Sending a message to Slack when a new user registers
Daily reporting of the number of stars on GitHub
Daily booking of meeting rooms

Engineers use ILLA Flow to automatically execute many tasks, such as:

Reading business data from a database daily and sending it to Slack
Building CI/CD reporting systems
Sending emails when certain warnings occur

User Experience

I briefly experienced it, and they have really put a lot of effort into the editor's smoothness and overall experience. The overall editing experience is quite good. It includes smooth drag-and-drop capabilities and also supports collaboration.

Various database integration capabilities are also supported, allowing quick data reading and writing from various data sources and databases. For backend engineers, integrating various services is indeed a nightmare. In this case, ILLA has already done the work. They also support integration with Huggingface, which seems like an official collaboration. It allows for quick use of the model capabilities on Huggingface, which is indeed interesting. You can quickly create some AI-driven tools.

Conclusion

There are many low-code tools, but few can be practically used and implemented. ILLA seems to have been maintained for two years now, and their company is currently fully committed to this one thing. Unlike some low-code tools produced for certain purposes, they are directly addressing the needs of developers. Everyone can try it out!"

ILLA Flow: A javascript-driven, developer-friendly product for creating automate workflow

smallSohoSolo — Fri, 05 Jan 2024 10:32:07 +0000

Hi everyone, I'm Owen, and we are a startup company focused on low-code solutions. Our team is quite small, consisting of only 7 people.

Today, we launched our new product: ILLA Flow.

Website: https://illacloud.com (You can find it after login, at the left of dashboard -> Flow)

ILLA Flow

ILLA Flow is a workflow product that allows you to construct a complete workflow in a manner similar to mind mapping, thereby enabling connections and scheduling with various databases and APIs.

You can build your own workflow through a drag-and-drop interface, and then execute your workflow by scheduling triggers or Webhook triggers.

The smooth drag-and-drop experience allows you to quickly build workflows without worrying about any integration issues. The entire system is driven by JavaScript, ensuring flexibility while also being developer-friendly.

Integrate Everything

ILLA Flow can connect to any

RestAPI
MySQL
MariaDB,
PostgreSQL
...

We will strive to expand support for more connectivity features.

Some examples

ILLA Flow supports multiple trigger types, including scheduled triggers and Webhook triggers.

We use ILLA Flow to do lots of things, like:

Send a message to Slack when a new user registers
Report the number of stars on GitHub every day
Book a meeting room every day
...

Our engineers use ILLA Flow to automate many tasks, like:

Read some business data from databases and send to Slack every day
Build a CI/CD report system
Send email when some warning occurs
...

Conclusion

ILLA Flow supports scheduled triggers and the use of Webhooks for triggering. As a low-code tool, ILLA also enables the construction of panels to drive multiple workflows, forming a complete business process. Currently, the product is entirely free and requires no costs.

Our initial intention in creating this product was to address the lack of developer-friendly workflow products on the market. We aim to build a complete low-code matrix product to provide a better experience. Moreover, we have achieved multi-person real-time collaboration, similar to the experience of editing in Figma, ensuring that a team can edit workflows together.

As an early-stage product, there are still many features that are not perfect, and we hope everyone can provide valuable feedback to help us optimize it.

I made a project to let golang engineers build Web UI at light speed!

smallSohoSolo — Tue, 02 Jan 2024 14:20:21 +0000

Hi everyone, I'm Owen, a full-stack engineer. I used to work at TikTok, where my daily tasks involved building this amazing product to bring joy to users through browsing short videos.

However, as a Backend Engineer, I found myself constructing numerous data dashboards and admin panels for my colleagues, meeting their various customization needs. Displaying data from different business aspects, visualizing tasks for CI/CD, and creating an Admin Panel for a Christmas event took just 14 days.

The abundance of scattered UI-related tasks made my daily work quite challenging. In the end, I resigned. Now, I am fully dedicated to a project that helps server engineers using various languages rapidly build the aforementioned tools

Github: https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder
ILLA Cloud: https://illacloud.com

ILLA is an open-source low-code tool. As both a developer and user of ILLA, it allows you to quickly build websites through drag-and-drop. In just a few minutes, you can create a beautiful dashboard or admin panel. Who says server engineers can't build UI? No more relying on others to swiftly construct aesthetically pleasing UIs.

ILLA also supports RestAPI, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and other mainstream databases for direct CRUD operations. No more developing a microservice just for a data field.

Now, I can provide my colleagues with the data dashboard they desire in a matter of minutes. I can quickly build a dashboard for some peculiar event or even create a cool task assignment system for our interns.

I recommend giving it a try. From now on, you can become a happy engineer like me.

Low Code vs Traditional Development: Optimal Efficiency in Choice

smallSohoSolo — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 11:50:11 +0000

With the continuous evolution of development practices, the advent of low-code tools has introduced innovative solutions to various development scenarios. This has alleviated the need to initiate projects from scratch, saving considerable time for more pivotal business endeavors. However, it's crucial to recognize that while low code accelerates development, it does so at the expense of some flexibility. As a result, not all solutions are well-suited for low-code development. Let's delve deeper into the analysis of scenarios that favor low-code tools versus those where traditional code development remains more appropriate. Throughout this exploration, the key comparison of low code versus traditional development remains paramount, emphasizing the critical importance of choosing the most efficient approach.

When Launching a Transient Business Initiative

In the dynamic landscape of frequent holidays and special occasions, creating distinct online experiences becomes imperative. Each company may have its unique marketing days, requiring engaging activities. Crafting these online marketing campaigns inevitably poses a development challenge, necessitating substantial resource allocation. While the need for visually captivating designs is evident, the overall complexity may not justify significant development costs, especially when the lifecycle is limited to 1-2 weeks. In such cases, opting for low-code tools emerges as a financially prudent decision. Here, we advocate for a specific low-code solution.

Addressing User-Facing Components: Webflow

Webflow, with its intuitive drag-and-drop interface and designer-friendly adjustments, facilitates the creation of visually stunning landing pages. This approach allows users to interact with an aesthetically pleasing website, and remarkably, only requires the expertise of a single designer. Furthermore, Webflow offers an array of templates that can be easily customized, enabling the swift construction of an exquisite website.

Managing Business Operations: ILLA Cloud

Regardless of the frontend technology used, an effective management tool is indispensable for overseeing business operations.

ILLA Cloud, as an out-of-the-box low-code tool, empowers developers to rapidly construct internal tools using straightforward JavaScript, eliminating the need to create new projects.

Web & App Admin Panel
Data Dashboard
Customized B2B Tools

Compared to scenarios relying on component libraries, ILLA Cloud boasts a 10x faster construction speed for the aforementioned tools. Additionally, ILLA Cloud supports collaborative editing among multiple team members, fostering efficient teamwork.

The synergy of these two tools expedites the creation of business requirements in marketing scenarios. This synergistic approach minimizes the need for extensive development resources while addressing the demand for quick response and deployment. Consequently, it propels the business iteration speed to new heights.

When Initiating a Novel Business Venture

The commencement of a project necessitates a thorough evaluation of its characteristics. For comprehensive toC products such as social platforms, gaming applications, or IM services, the recommendation leans towards traditional development methodologies. This ensures a high degree of flexibility in adapting to evolving requirements.

For ventures centered around retail or services, the utilization of Shopify for frontend presentation proves advantageous. This choice guarantees widespread distribution of products while curbing development costs. Furthermore, Shopify supports customization, catering to diverse business needs effectively.

In instances where a swift development of an app or website is paramount, direct coding may offer a faster solution. Therefore, the selection of an appropriate solution heavily relies on the unique attributes of the scenario.

If the backend functionality of Shopify falls short of requirements, the integration of ILLA Cloud can bridge the gap, providing a platform for customized management.

Conclusion

In the decision-making process for selecting development tools, a multifaceted approach is recommended. While direct coding provides unparalleled flexibility, it does come at the cost of development speed. The strategic integration of low-code tools and SaaS solutions can yield substantial gains in productivity.

For operations demanding flexibility and essential to the core business, traditional development methods remain the preferred choice. The agility and control afforded by traditional development methods result in products that are highly tailored to specific needs.

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution; the best choice is the one that aligns most closely with the unique requirements of the scenario at hand.

Quickly create a personalized data dashboard for your boss.

smallSohoSolo — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 11:30:44 +0000

Every company has its own exclusive online business, and as the business continues to update and iterate, the complexity of the business will continuously increase over time.

After the business complexity reaches a high level, internal teams need to view various data to make decisions for future strategies. Therefore, we need a flexible tool to create personalized data dashboards to meet the diverse customization needs of internal team members, especially the boss, and help the team iterate quickly.

Using efficient tools to leave work early every day.

Some issues in the construction

The business of each company is distributed across different systems, and there are some connections between these systems. Some data needs to be queried using databases:

Postgresql
Mysql
MongoDB
...

Some data comes from different types of microservices, possibly obtained from a specific API:

User Detail API
Product Detail API
...

The most challenging thing is that some data requires merging and secondary processing of both database and API data.

These issues make it very troublesome to build a personalized data dashboard. If starting development from scratch, we need to adapt to different data sources, leading to a steep increase in engineering costs.

Therefore, we need a flexible tool for displaying data dashboards, as "development" is not the most important; "display" is.

This tool needs some objective advantages:

Rich charts to display data from different dimensions.
Support for various mainstream data sources.
Simple installation and usage.

How to solve

Here, I recommend a user-friendly open-source project called ILLA Cloud. ILLA Cloud is a low-code tool specifically designed to address scenarios with personalized requirements.

📙 Official website: https://illacloud.com

⏬ Github repository: https://github.com/illacloud/illa-builder

⭐ Github Stars: 9k

Below is a demo using fake data, depicting the sales situation of a product in a company, including:

Monthly sales growth trends
Monthly revenue
Total revenue obtained
Number of purchasers
Detailed information about each purchasing user

This chart uses several components:

Data Grid
Chart
Statistic
Menu

It was quickly built through drag and drop. The data sources come from:

Supabase: A Serverless Postgresql
API

ILLA supports various data sources, allowing quick retrieval of data from a wide range of mainstream sources.

AI-driven

ILLA not only provides a dashboard but also allows the queried data to be processed further using LLM (Language Model). For example, a set of messy data can be processed into another format as required, enabling alignment of data from multiple sources.

Advantages

Building a beautiful dashboard is quick and easy using drag and drop within a few minutes.

Moreover, compared to various traditional BI tools, ILLA Cloud:

Supports data querying from both databases and APIs
Simple installation, directly usable on the web page without any downloads
For secondary data processing, uses Javascript for direct and simple processing
Supports various mainstream charts, meeting most requirements
The Transformer feature effectively solves the problem of merging and processing data between multiple sources, eliminating worries about data format issues

As an open-source project, ILLA Cloud also supports secondary development, with an active community for collaboration with other developers. No need to worry about maintenance issues.

Additionally, ILLA Cloud can not only build data dashboards but also quickly create exclusive management dashboards, accelerating your business iteration.

As a low-code tool, ILLA Cloud also supports collaboration among multiple people, allowing them to build dashboards together.

Conclusion

After using ILLA Cloud, there's no need to worry about the boss's personalized requirements. Within a few minutes, you can build a personalized data dashboard for the boss, becoming a highly efficient employee. Why not give it a try now!

Elegant Use of nvm for Node.js Management on Mac in 2024

smallSohoSolo — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 08:58:23 +0000

Node.js, as the foundation of frontend capabilities, is no longer just a "JS Server Runtime." Numerous tool libraries, local package management, mock environments, and more are built on Node.js, making it truly the infrastructure of the frontend world.

The flourishing ecosystem has made it essential for everyone to install Node.js when building frontend projects. However, with the long history of products, versioning becomes a common issue—some projects require new versions, while others need older ones. Managing multiple versions of Node.js has been a persistent challenge for developers.

Currently, the open-source tool nvm addresses this issue. With simple command-line usage, developers can quickly switch between different versions of Node.js, allowing them to focus on development rather than wasting time on environment configuration.

The predominant machines for frontend development are still Macbooks. Therefore, this article will explain how to elegantly install and use nvm on Mac to efficiently manage Node.js versions.

Recommending an Open Source Project for Backend Development

ILLA Cloud is an out-of-the-box low-code tool that enables the rapid construction of internal tools using simple JS, without the need to create new projects.

Web & App Admin Panel
Data Dashboard
Customized B2B Tools

Compared to scenarios built with component libraries, ILLA Cloud allows for 10x faster construction of the mentioned tools. Additionally, ILLA Cloud supports collaboration among multiple users, facilitating teamwork for rapid customization of backend capabilities.

Introduction to nvm

⏬ GitHub Repository: https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm

⭐ GitHub Stars: 72.4k

💪🏼 First Release Date: Dec 22, 2014

nvm is an open-source project that has been maintained for nearly 10 years. Positive reviews have kept this project robust and, through continuous maintenance, it has become a perfect solution for "Node.js version management."

Installing nvm

Since we are using a Mac for development, I strongly recommend using Homebrew for package management and then using Homebrew to install nvm.

To install Homebrew, it is recommended to use the installation script. It requires minimal configuration and allows immediate use. Moreover, Homebrew makes it easy to uninstall repositories cleanly if needed.

> /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Running this command will install the latest version of Homebrew, automatically handling the installation of Xcode Command Tools in the MacOS environment.

Of course, all of this is automated. Below is an installation process example.

After a short wait, we can proceed with the installation of nvm using the installed Homebrew.

> brew install nvm

After confirming agreement, nvm will be completely installed. If you decide you don't want it anymore, you can use the following command to uninstall:

# delete nvm if you don't need it.
> brew uninstall nvm

Using nvm

Once nvm is installed, here are some commonly used commands to help you get started. These commands should fulfill your daily needs.

> nvm list

The "list" command displays various mainstream Node.js versions. You can install versions according to your needs, and it will also show the currently used Node.js version on your machine. It will display some codenames.

For example, "lts/gallim" is the version name for Node.js v16. To install using this codename, nvm will automatically install the latest version of v16. It's quite convenient. You can also use this command to check the currently used version.

Another command allows you to check the current Node.js version:

> node --version

After entering this command, you can verify whether the Node.js version has been successfully switched.

> nvm install stable

The second command installs a specific Node.js version; "stable" refers to a specific version number. You can also use the codename for a particular version. For example, to install "Node.js 18," you would use "nvm install 18." Here, I'm installing the "stable" version. nvm will automatically determine the latest Stable version and install it for me. After successful installation, it will automatically switch to the installed version.

Where there's an installation command, there's also an uninstallation command. Use:

> nvm uninstall stable

To delete the corresponding version.

Once you've learned how to install and uninstall, the next important step is version switching.

> nvm use stable

The "use" command allows you to quickly switch between Node.js versions currently in use. You can also use the "stable" codename. This way, you can quickly switch between versions for different projects.

Conclusion

This article has explained the entire process for a beginner, from installing to using nvm. You can quickly try it out and better manage your Node.js versions.

Node.js version management is a long-discussed issue, and nvm is an excellent open-source project that effectively addresses this problem. Of course, no project is perfect. If you have other recommendations, feel free to leave a comment and let more people know about outstanding projects—that's the mission of open-source enthusiasts!

2024 has arrived, should I choose MUI?

smallSohoSolo — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 09:34:50 +0000

2024 has arrived, and the ecosystem of React component libraries remains highly prosperous. This article will dissect two currently popular component libraries from various perspectives, providing an objective analysis to help users make more informed choices.

Why Choose a Component Library?

In general, every company building web applications tends to select a component library. These libraries address a significant amount of repetitive work, offering readily usable components such as Select, Input, CheckBox, and more. These components, customizable through styles or pre-existing attractive styles, enable the rapid creation of beautiful websites without the need to build extensive foundational features from scratch.

To summarize, component libraries are typically used in two scenarios:

External tools: Directly targeted at company users, usually adhering to the company's style, more aesthetically pleasing, and responsive.
Internal tools: Aimed at internal use by company employees, focusing on aesthetic design while prioritizing rapid functionality implementation.

Next, we will analyze two component libraries based on the following points:

Design
Richness of Features
How to Choose in Different Scenarios

Other Choices for Internal Tool Scenarios

ILLA Cloud is an out-of-the-box low-code tool that allows quick construction of internal tools with simple JS, without the need to create new projects.

Web & App Admin Panel
Data Dashboard
Customized B2B Tools

Compared to building with a component library, ILLA Cloud enables 10x faster tool construction and supports collaborative editing within teams.

Features of MUI

Some detailed data about MUI:

⭐ Github Stars: 90k
⏬ NPM Downloads: 3,263,852 downloads per week
💪🏼 First Release Date: Nov 6, 2014

MUI, as a longstanding project maintained since 2014, boasts almost a decade of stability. Its high star count and weekly download numbers ensure that the community remains consistently active.

Design

In terms of design, MUI strictly adheres to Google's renowned Material Design. MUI's customization capabilities are extensive, catering to a wide range of internal and external scenarios. Many well-known open-source projects use MUI for front-end development. For most functionalities, MUI provides comprehensive support.

In addition to common features like:

Colors
Border radii
Dark mode / Light mode

MUI supports complete configurations of fonts, font sizes, colors, and margins, making it a powerful tool as a project with ten years of development.

Regarding CSS support, MUI has its custom system, utilizing emotionjs for style adjustments in the overall layout. This may come with a learning curve and may not be as developer-friendly for direct development, requiring documentation consultation for certain style modifications.

Richness of Features

MUI's component types are highly complex, divided into several dimensions:

These include:

MUI Core: Basic functional components of MUI, including a multitude of foundational components and a style system.
MUI X: High-performance and complex components of MUI, including high-performance tables, charts, etc.

If you are developing a highly complex system, you can use MUI's full suite solution. However, MUI X is a paid component library, and a subscription fee may be required.

MUI is a heavyweight repository with extensive code and a long maintenance history. Its high customizability makes it suitable for large projects. In the MUI repository, you can find a wealth of features.

How to Choose

✅ Advantages

If you want to develop large projects, have high customization requirements, and wish to use high-performance data components and chart components, especially in scenarios with high business complexity and are willing to subscribe to MUI X, it is recommended to use MUI for development. Its flexible configuration and plethora of components can fully meet your requirements.

❌ Disadvantages

If you need a lightweight framework and prefer to use a CSS-only solution for layout adjustments, it is not recommended here. MUI has a comprehensive proprietary design system, comes with a certain learning curve, and Material Design's aesthetics may not suit everyone. In such cases, exploring other open-source repositories might be more suitable.

It's 2024, should I choose Shadcn UI?

smallSohoSolo — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 09:32:46 +0000

2024 has arrived, and the ecosystem of React component libraries remains vibrant. This article will dissect two currently popular component libraries from various perspectives, providing an objective analysis to help users make more informed choices.

Why Choose a Component Library?

In general, companies choose a component library when building web applications to streamline repetitive tasks. Component libraries offer a range of out-of-the-box components like Select, Input, CheckBox, etc. These components, with customizable styles or built-in attractive styles, enable rapid development of aesthetically pleasing websites without starting from scratch.

In summary, we typically use component libraries in two scenarios:

External tools: Directly facing company users, usually aligned with the company's style, more aesthetically pleasing, and responsive.
Internal tools: Aimed at internal use by company employees, emphasizing design aesthetics and rapid functionality implementation.

Next, we will analyze the Shadcn UI component library based on the following points:

Design
Richness of Features
How to Choose in Different Scenarios

Other Choices for Internal Tool Scenarios

ILLA Cloud is an out-of-the-box low-code tool that allows quick construction of internal tools with simple JS, without the need to create new projects.

Web & App Admin Panel
Data Dashboard
Customized B2B Tools

Compared to building with a component library, ILLA Cloud enables 10x faster tool construction and supports collaborative editing within teams.

Features of Shadcn UI

Some detailed data about Shadcn:

⭐ Github Stars: 37k
⏬ NPM Downloads: 23,962 downloads per week
💪🏼 First Release Date: Mar 8, 2023

Shadcn UI is a relatively new project that gained 37k stars in less than a year, indicating its rapid recognition in the open-source community.

Design

In terms of design, Shadcn UI leans towards a business style with a clean UI, suitable for internal tools and serious application scenarios. Shadcn UI supports custom themes, but it seems to offer customization only for:

Colors
Border radii
Dark mode / Light mode
Predefined "Default" and "New York" styles

In terms of fine-grained control, such as font and font size, it appears to lack flexibility. However, for internal tool scenarios, this level of control may be sufficient, but for external tools, it might be somewhat limiting.

In terms of CSS, Shadcn UI supports both traditional CSS and CSS-in-JS, using Stitches for the CSS-in-JS solution. Traditional CSS is supported by default, but additional configuration might be needed for less and sass, and it's not out-of-the-box.

Richness of Features

The library's feature richness completely satisfies daily development needs, with most capabilities supported and comprehensive callbacks. Shadcn UI supports crucial capabilities, including but not limited to:

SSR
Accessibility
Animation

However, for more advanced requirements like extremely rich charts and high-performance tables, it seems not to be supported. With the continuous development of the project, it is expected that the project will evolve over time.

How to Choose

✅ Advantages

If you are a curious open-source enthusiast, not requiring highly customized UI, and without complex data processing needs, Shadcn UI is recommended for development. It is lightweight, with simpler configuration, ready to use out-of-the-box, allowing direct development without worrying about details.

❌ Disadvantages

If you have a high need for UI and component customization and plan to use Shadcn UI for large projects, it is not recommended. Shadcn UI's customization capabilities are not as robust, and it does not provide out-of-the-box charts and high-performance data components. In such cases, you may need to look for other open-source projects to supplement these features.

Shadcn vs MUI: A Comparative Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses

smallSohoSolo — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 09:09:16 +0000

2024 has arrived, and the ecosystem of React component libraries remains thriving. This article will dissect two currently popular component libraries from several perspectives, providing an objective analysis to help users make informed choices.

Why Choose a Component Library?

In general, companies choose a component library when building web applications to streamline repetitive work. Component libraries offer ready-to-use components such as Select, Input, CheckBox, etc., allowing users to create beautiful websites quickly without the need to build extensive foundational features from scratch.

To summarize, component libraries are typically used in two scenarios:

External Tools: Directly facing company users, often with a company's distinct style, emphasizing aesthetics and responsiveness.
Internal Tools: For internal use by company employees, focusing on aesthetic design and rapid functionality implementation.

Next, we will analyze two component libraries based on the following criteria:

Design
Richness of Features
How to Choose for Different Scenarios

Other Options for Internal Tool Scenarios

ILLA Cloud is a ready-to-use low-code tool that allows for the quick construction of internal tools using simple JavaScript without the need to create new projects.

Web & App Admin Panel
Data Dashboard
Customized B2B Tools

Compared to building scenarios with component libraries, ILLA Cloud enables 10x faster tool construction and supports collaboration among team members for simultaneous editing.

Features of Shadcn UI

Some detailed data about Shadcn:

⭐ Github Stars: 37k
⏬ NPM Downloads: 23,962 downloads per week
💪🏼 First Release Date: Mar 8, 2023

Shadcn UI is a relatively new project that gained impressive recognition, achieving 37k stars in less than a year. It seems that outstanding open-source projects can easily gain widespread approval.

Design

Shadcn UI leans towards a business style in its design, featuring a clean UI suitable for internal tools and serious application scenarios. Shadcn UI also supports custom themes, although it seems limited to:

Colors
Rounded corners
Dark mode / Light mode
Predefined "Default Style" and "New York Style"

In terms of design details such as font and font size, the control appears limited, satisfying basic design needs. However, for external tool scenarios, it may have some limitations.

Shadcn UI supports both CSS and CSS-in-JS solutions. The CSS-in-JS solution uses Stitches, and while CSS defaults to traditional CSS, additional configuration may be needed for less and sass, and it is not out-of-the-box.

Richness of Features

The library's richness of features is sufficient for daily development needs, supporting and providing complete callbacks for most capabilities. Shadcn UI supports essential capabilities, including but not limited to SSR, accessibility, and animation. For more advanced requirements like extremely rich charts and high-performance tables, it seems not fully supported, but ongoing project development is likely to address these needs.

Features of MUI

Some detailed data about MUI:

⭐ Github Stars: 90k
⏬ NPM Downloads: 3,263,852 downloads per week
💪🏼 First Release Date: Nov 6, 2014

As an established project, MUI has been maintained since 2014, boasting almost 10 years of stability. The high number of stars and weekly downloads ensures a continuously active community.

Design

In terms of design, MUI strictly adheres to Google's well-known Material Design. MUI offers extensive customization capabilities to meet most internal and external scenarios, with many well-known open-source projects using MUI for frontend development. For most functionalities, MUI provides comprehensive support.

In addition to common features like colors, rounded corners, and dark/light modes, MUI supports complete customization of fonts, font sizes, colors, padding, and margins. As a project with ten years of development, MUI's functionality is powerful.

In terms of CSS support, MUI has its custom system, using emotionjs for style adjustment in the overall layout. This may involve a learning curve and may not be as developer-friendly, requiring documentation consultation for some style modifications.

Richness of Features

MUI categorizes its components into several dimensions:

MUI Core: Basic functional components and a style system.
MUI X: High-performance and complex components, including high-performance tables, charts, etc.

For developing a complex system, you can use MUI's comprehensive solution. However, MUI X is a paid component library, requiring a subscription fee.

MUI is a heavyweight repository with extensive code and a long maintenance history, offering high customizability, making it suitable for large projects. The repository contains numerous features.

How to Choose

If you are a curious open-source enthusiast who does not need highly customized UI for product development, and there are no complex data processing requirements, Shadcn UI is recommended. It is more lightweight, simpler to configure, but less powerful. However, it is sufficient for internal tool scenarios.

If you need a component library for developing large and complex projects, require intricate charts, high-performance data components, and are willing to invest in a fee without looking for additional solutions, you can choose MUI. Its powerful capabilities make it an excellent choice for developing medium to large projects.