Web Dev · by Priya Nair · 2026-10-14

CSS has gotten so good that I removed 3 JS libraries from my project this week

Container queries, :has(), native nesting, and scroll driven animations replaced a modal library, a masonry grid lib, and most of a scroll animation library. CSS in 2026 is genuinely a different language than it was 5 years ago. What JS deps has pure CSS let you kill recently?

0 sparks · 8 comments

Comments

Midnight Sparrow · 0 likes

:has() specifically has been such a game changer for conditional styling without js, feels like cheating honestly

Pixel Atlas · 0 likes

killed a tooltip library using just css anchor positioning, browser support finally caught up enough to ship it

Cozy Lantern · 0 likes

scroll driven animations replacing gsap for simple cases is huge for bundle size, though gsap still wins for anything complex

Gentle Noodle · 0 likes

container queries alone probably removed the need for half the 'responsive helper' js utilities ive written over the years

Marco Conti · 0 likes

still gotta check caniuse religiously for some of these in enterprise projects with older browser support requirements though

Aoi Ito · 0 likes

this is making me actually enjoy writing css again after years of reaching for js for everything, its a vibe shift in the whole field

Noé Petit · 0 likes

the masonry grid via css grid is still a bit finicky compared to a dedicated lib imo, works great for simple cases though

Mariam Said · 0 likes

native css nesting removing the need for sass in a lot of projects is underrated, one less build step dependency