Show HN: Basecoat – shadcn/UI components, no React required

8 hunvreus 4 5/13/2025, 11:22:40 AM
Basecoat ports the upcoming shadcn/ui v4 [1] to plain HTML + Tailwind (no React):

- Live demo & documentation: https://basecoatui.com

- MIT‑licensed and free: https://github.com/hunvreus/basecoat/

- Works with any backend (Flask, Django, Rails, PHP, etc.) or static site.

- Fully theme‑compatible with shadcn/ui [2].

- Uses a sliver of Alpine.js only for a few interactive bits (e.g. combobox). Swap in your own JS if you prefer.

- Dead simple to use, just drop in a class here and there:

  <button class="btn" data-tooltip="This is a tooltip text">Click me</button>
Why I built it: after moving from a Next.js stack back to Flask + Tailwind + HTMX, I missed shadcn/ui and didn’t want walls of Tailwind classes (like Flowbite or Preline).

Feedback is most welcome: bugs, requests for components, criticism.

[1]: https://v4.shadcn.com/

[2]: https://basecoatui.com/installation/#install-theming

[3]: https://pagescms.org

Comments (4)

replwoacause · 56m ago
Looks nice! Can you add a CDN option? Would be nice for a quick start to play around.

Also, reminds me of https://franken-ui.dev

hunvreus · 26m ago
Yep, I've been considering adding a CDN option.

I think it may be on the heavier side though (~100k).

BenderV · 1h ago
Awesome. Using Vue/Tailwind, I'm definitely interested in this. Maybe you could try to add examples of integrations with others frameworks? I'll play with it and give you my 2 cents.
hunvreus · 1h ago
Hello there Ben. Sure thing, I'll try and expand the docs.