This one's late. August came and went without an edition, so this is a combined August and September issue of The State of React, and I'm sorry for the gap.
This edition reflects each library as of September 26, 2026 and covers everything since the July edition. The full matrix now lives on its own comparison page, and the latest edition of The State of React always has the freshest data.
This started for me in 2024, when Bulma v1 came out. I went looking for a React package that supported it. There wasn't one yet.
So you've got a React app built on react-bulma-components. It works. It also hasn't had a release since 2022, it targets Bulma 0.9, and every v1 feature you actually want (CSS variables, dark mode that just happens, the Grid components) sits on the far side of a rewrite nobody has budget for.
A form in bestax-bulma is plain React: state goes in, props come out, and nothing new sits in between. There's no bundled form library and none is coming; the library's job ends at rendering Bulma correctly, so your form state stays yours. By the end of this post you'll have a validated signup form built with nothing but useState, you'll see where the validation library of your choice plugs in, and you'll know where every escape hatch is.
Round two. Since January's batch of extra components, four more Enhanced Add-Ons have landed: original components that go past what the Bulma spec covers while keeping Bulma's helper props, CSS variables, and theming. Meet Avatar (and its stacking sibling Avatars), Badge, Reveal, and LinkButton.
Back in January, our Extra Components post ended with a promise: DateInput, TimeInput, and Colorpicker were coming. In June, v3.0.0 delivered the date and time pickers (plus a DateTimeInput we never promised) inside a release that added about 30 new components in one shot. Two out of three ain't bad.
Tailwind is first. Bootstrap is second. Bulma is third.
That's the whole leaderboard, and it has been remarkably stable for years. Every survey, every npm download chart, every "what CSS framework should I use in 2026" thread lands in the same order.
So let's talk about third place, because third place is the interesting place to be.
Congrats on being different. Now here's what to do.
Picking a React component library is one of the bigger architectural calls in a project, and the honest answer to “which one” depends entirely on what you’re building. We maintain bestax, a component library for Bulma v1, so we spend a lot of time studying the field. This post maps it out fairly and in the open: every user-facing capability across seven React libraries, with each cell linking straight to that library’s own documentation so you can check our work.
It’s a point-in-time capture — the first edition of a series we’ll refresh regularly. We’re calling it The State of React, with a nod to Armin’s long-running radio show. Over time we’d like it to grow into a wider read on the React ecosystem; for now, it stays focused on component libraries.
The table below reflects each library as of July 27, 2026. Component catalogs move fast — the latest edition of The State of React always has the freshest data.
In the ring: bestax (Bulma v1), react-bulma-components (the other Bulma wrapper), Mantine, MUI, Chakra UI, shadcn/ui, and React-Bootstrap.
We're excited to announce a major addition to bestax-bulma: Extra Components. This release adds 15 new components that extend the core library with advanced UI controls and form inputs.
We've added 12 new HTML element wrapper components that bring Bulma's helper props to everyday HTML elements like links, paragraphs, lists, and code blocks.