Base UI

Base UI is the headless primitive layer from the MUI team, built with several of the engineers who originally wrote Radix. Stable 1.0 landed in December 2025 and it is now the default foundation under new shadcn/ui projects.

At a glance

Install	npm install @base-ui/react
Styling	none, fully agnostic
Accessibility	WAI-ARIA patterns, focus and keyboard handled
Server components	client-side, needs a client boundary
MCP server	not published
License	MIT

Install

npm install @base-ui/react

What the code looks like

Components are split into addressable parts, so every element in the tree is yours to style.

import { Dialog } from "@base-ui/react/dialog"

<Dialog.Root>
  <Dialog.Trigger className="btn">Open</Dialog.Trigger>
  <Dialog.Portal>
    <Dialog.Backdrop className="backdrop" />
    <Dialog.Popup className="popup">
      <Dialog.Title>Delete project</Dialog.Title>
      <Dialog.Close>Cancel</Dialog.Close>
    </Dialog.Popup>
  </Dialog.Portal>
</Dialog.Root>

Documentation examples target Tailwind CSS v4. On a v3 project a few utility classes need converting by hand.

Choose it if

• You already have a design system and every styled library fights it.
• One accessibility layer has to serve several visual themes.
• You are starting fresh and want the primitive layer receiving active investment.

Look elsewhere if

• You need something that looks finished today. Nothing renders styled until you style it.
• Your project cannot move to Tailwind v4 and you do not want to translate examples.