The class-less (or no-class) CSS framework's promise is that as long as you have a valid HTML and structure your elements in a sane way, you will get a decent-looking page by including one stylesheet.
They are useful to put something online quickly. It can also serve as a starting point or as a temporary solution while you finish other aspects of your application or website.
Since they style only the general HTML elements (paragraphs, headings, buttons, etc.), you don't have to worry about adding their unique class names or removing them later.
Some class-less CSS frameworks have a distinct personality, like Bahunya or YoRHa. Others provide minimal styling, focusing on the spacing between elements and making things acceptable. The latter ones are an excellent choice for prototyping applications. The Water.css and awsm.css seem to be good ones.
CSS-Tricks has an article where you can find some popular ones. Another place to find a curated list is the Classless CSS repo.
Top comments (2)
If you're going to step away from bootstrap/tailwind to reduce size, at this point, why not just develop your own for your projects based on the designs you're working with?
You're going to end up writing a number of override rules for any of these anyway in order to create something beyond a blog.
While going over the one-line pitch statements of the no-class CSS frameworks, I have nowhere found that they would say it's a good idea to use them if you plan to have a full-fledged design eventually.
Use them if you want a bit more than the browser's default styles, and you don't want to touch the CSS at all.
From the Water.css site:
From the MVP.css site:
So, no, I don't think they are alternative to Tailwind CSS or Bootstrap at all. Did I suggest or implied that unwillingly? 🤔