shadcn/ui vs Chakra UI
Beautifully designed React components you copy-paste into your app
vs. Simple, modular, and accessible React component library
Pricing tiers
shadcn/ui
OSS (MIT)
$0. MIT license. Free forever. No signup. Components copy-pasted into your repo and owned by you.
$0 base (usage-based)
Chakra UI
OSS (MIT)
$0. MIT license. All core components free forever.
$0 base (usage-based)
Chakra UI Pro
$149 one-time. 380+ pre-built Pro components (figma + code). For commercial projects.
$149/mo
Pro Team
$449 one-time. Pro components + team license (10 devs).
$449/mo
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing oss on shadcn/ui vs oss on Chakra UI.
| Metric | shadcn/ui | Chakra UI |
|---|---|---|
| No overlapping quota metrics for these tiers. | ||
Features
shadcn/ui · 12 features
- 50+ Components — Button, dialog, dropdown, form, table, etc.
- Accessibility — WAI-ARIA compliant.
- Blocks — Full-page layouts ready to use.
- Charts — Composable Recharts wrappers.
- CSS Variables — Themeable via --primary, --background, etc.
- Custom Registries — Publish your own components via registry spec.
- Dark Mode — Built-in toggleable theme.
- Form Components (react-hook-form) — Integrated with react-hook-form + Zod.
- MCP Server — Query component catalog from AI agents.
- Radix UI Primitives — Headless accessibility foundation.
- shadcn CLI — Scaffold + add components.
- Themes + Theme Editor — CSS vars-based color system.
Chakra UI · 15 features
- 70+ Components — Button, Input, Modal, Menu, Table, etc.
- Accessibility — WAI-ARIA compliant.
- Animations — Framer Motion under the hood.
- Ark UI (v3) — Headless primitives layer.
- Chakra UI Pro — Paid premium components library.
- Dark Mode — Built-in color mode.
- Data Display — Table, Card, List, Stat, Tag.
- Figma Library — Matching design file (Pro).
- Form Components — Input, Select, Checkbox, Slider.
- Layout Components — Box, Flex, Grid, Stack, Wrap.
- Overlays — Modal, Drawer, Popover, Tooltip.
- Panda CSS (v3) — Build-time atomic CSS engine.
- Recipes (v3) — Variant-based component styling.
- Responsive Props — Object/array syntax.
- Theme Tokens — Colors, spacing, typography as tokens.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | shadcn/ui | Chakra UI |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | shadcn CLI | @chakra-ui/cli |
| SDK | — | @chakra-ui/react |
| REST | Component Registry | — |
| MCP | shadcn MCP Server | — |
| OTHER | Docs + Component Browser, Theme Customizer | Chakra UI Docs, Chakra UI Figma, Chakra UI Pro |
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