4.3k stars · MIT · 1.0.1 (2026-06-28) · Track this in Scout
shadcn/ui's look for plain HTML and Tailwind, with no React required.
▶Repo detailsthe review · specs · pros & cons · install
What it is
Basecoat is a set of CSS classes plus a small amount of plain JavaScript, built on Tailwind CSS. It gives you buttons, dialogs, dropdowns and form controls that match the shadcn/ui design, but as ordinary HTML you write yourself. It uses the same colour and spacing settings as shadcn, so themes carry across.What it is good for. Anybody whose pages are not built in React. Django, Rails, Laravel, Astro, FastAPI templates and plain HTML all work, because there is nothing to render. It is the natural companion to the parts of a product that never justified a JavaScript framework: an admin screen, a settings page, a marketing page. For you: shadcn/ui (Ed. 12 #1) was recommended for the Grasppy front end, which is React. This is the answer for any page of yours that is not.
- It works with any way of producing HTML, because it is styling and not a framework.
- The same settings as shadcn, so a theme you already chose carries over.
- Almost nothing to load, and nothing to keep running.
- You still need Tailwind CSS in your build, and you write the HTML by hand. Somebody who does not write code gets nothing usable out of the box.
- The behaviour is much thinner than the React original. Keyboard use and screen-reader support are your responsibility, not the library's.
- It is a small project by one maintainer at version 1.0.x, and the npm package is already ahead of the newest GitHub tag, which suggests release discipline is loose.
- franken-ui/ui
The same idea of the shadcn look without React, but built on UIkit and web components rather than plain CSS classes; the project says it is moving to a new name, 0build.
Track this in Scout - saadeghi/daisyui
The same plain-HTML components as a Tailwind add-on with no JavaScript framework, but its own look and its own themes rather than shadcn's.
Track this in Scout - themesberg/flowbite
The same plain HTML plus a small script for dropdowns and dialogs, following its own visual style.
Track this in Scout
npm install basecoat-css # then in your CSS, after Tailwind: # @import "basecoat-css";
