--- title: Vendor locked | daily.dev description: A developer reflects on becoming so dependent on Tailwind CSS that they've lost fluency in vanilla CSS. The article explores how Tailwind's naming conventions... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/vendor-locked-cjtpyyhik twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Vendor locked | daily.dev og:description: A developer reflects on becoming so dependent on Tailwind CSS that they've lost fluency in vanilla CSS. The article explores how Tailwind's naming conventions... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/vendor-locked-cjtpyyhik og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/cJTpYyHik.png og:image:alt: Vendor locked og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Vendor locked **[stitcher.io](https://daily.dev/sources/stitcher)** · 4 min read · 30 upvotes · 9 comments ## Summary A developer reflects on becoming so dependent on Tailwind CSS that they've lost fluency in vanilla CSS. The article explores how Tailwind's naming conventions don't map one-to-one with CSS properties, creating a form of vendor lock-in where switching back to pure CSS feels foreign. The author appreciates Tailwind's component-based approach for keeping styles contained but wishes for a solution that maintains this workflow while using standard CSS syntax. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@jrmemeichelbeck** · 12 upvotes > Ok but that's not what vendor locked means **@joncagle** · 2 upvotes > I'm not sure that word means what you think it means. **@sh\_zee** · 0 upvotes > After using Tailwind for an year. I would agree with this. > > > Switching back and forth between tailwind and css seems a bit hactic ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Why I don't recommend Tailwind CSS](https://daily.dev/posts/why-i-don-t-recommend-tailwind-css-kqnuxrv44) · Hacker News · 242 upvotes · 73 comments --- Tags: [#webdev](https://daily.dev/tags/webdev), [#css](https://daily.dev/tags/css), [#frontend](https://daily.dev/tags/frontend), [#tailwind-css](https://daily.dev/tags/tailwind-css) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/vendor-locked-cjtpyyhik) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Vendor locked","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/vendor-locked-cjtpyyhik","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/vendor-locked-cjtpyyhik"},"datePublished":"2025-10-01T11:39:45.075Z","dateModified":"2025-10-01T11:40:03.530Z","description":"A developer reflects on becoming so dependent on Tailwind CSS that they've lost fluency in vanilla CSS. 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I would agree with this.\nSwitching back and forth between tailwind and css seems a bit hactic","datePublished":"2025-10-29T23:55:33.633Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/cJTpYyHik#c-ihvFNGbNx","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Zeeshan Iqbal","url":"https://daily.dev/sh_zee","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/28203920?v=4"}}]} ```