shadcn/ui is not a traditional component library that you install as a dependency; rather, it is a collection of beautifully designed, accessible components that you copy and paste directly into your project. Built on top of Radix UI primitives and styled with Tailwind CSS, it offers a robust foundation for building your own design system while giving you complete ownership and control over the code.
The project emphasizes customization and flexibility, allowing developers to adapt the components to their specific brand needs without fighting against rigid library constraints. It includes a CLI tool to easily add components to your project, supports dark mode out of the box, and is fully open source. It is widely used in the React and Next.js ecosystems for rapid UI development that remains scalable and maintainable.
