Vue UI Libraries

When starting a Vue project, choosing a UI component library is often the first decision before writing any code: pick the right one and you save a huge amount of repetitive work on buttons, forms, and modals; pick the wrong one and switching later gets expensive. Here's a roundup of the common Vue UI libraries I've come across, with notes on each one's positioning and my impressions, so I can come back to this when choosing next time.

First, the things I usually look at when choosing: whether the component coverage is sufficient (how polished the high-frequency components like tables, forms, and date pickers are), whether the docs and community are active, whether the design style fits the product, and whether the project is still actively maintained. Let's go through them with that lens.

View Design

An enterprise-grade UI component library and frontend solution built on Vue.js 3, serving tens of thousands of developers.

Its predecessor is iView, which built up a sizable user base back in the Vue 2 era, with a style leaning toward clean admin-dashboard aesthetics. Beyond the component library itself, the team also provides companion templates and tools, which makes it a good fit if you want a complete back-office solution rather than just scattered components.

iView / View Design — an enterprise-grade UI component library and frontend solution

Element UI

A Vue 3 based component library for designers and developers.

The Element family is probably the most frequently seen component library in Chinese Vue projects; the Vue 3 version is called Element Plus. Its strengths are thorough Chinese documentation, a complete component set, and a large community—almost any problem you hit has an existing answer somewhere. For admin and back-office systems, it's practically one of the default choices.

A Vue 3 UI Framework | Element Plus

Vuetify

Vuetify is a Vue UI library with beautifully handcrafted Material components. No design skills required—everything you need to create amazing applications is at your fingertips.

It strictly follows Google's Material Design spec, with a unified visual style that carries a distinctly Material feel. If your product is going for the Material look anyway, or targets an international audience, Vuetify is a better fit than the Chinese libraries; conversely, if you want to heavily customize it into your own visual system, the effort gets painful.

Vuetify — A Material Design Framework for Vue.js

Ant Design Vue

A Vue UI library that follows the Ant Design specification, containing a set of high-quality components and demos for building rich, interactive user interfaces.

Ant Design itself is a design system the Ant team created for the React ecosystem, and Ant Design Vue is its implementation on the Vue side. The upside is that the design spec has been battle-tested by a large number of admin products, so complex components like tables and forms are very feature-complete; and if your team runs both React and Vue projects, sharing one design language also lowers communication costs.

Ant Design Vue — An enterprise-class UI components based on Ant Design and Vue.js

Vuesax

Great styling and animations—unfortunately, it's no longer maintained.

Vuesax's components genuinely have livelier colors and interaction animations than the libraries above, making it a fit for projects going for a younger visual vibe. But being unmaintained means compatibility with new Vue versions and bug fixes are no longer guaranteed, so I wouldn't pick it for new projects—it's listed here mainly as a reference.

Vuesax - Framework for Vuejs

Pitfalls and Notes

1. Check maintenance status first. A library that's stopped being maintained, like Vuesax, is a landmine planted in your project's future; before choosing, look at the repo's commit history and how issues get answered.

2. Keep the Vue 2 and Vue 3 versions straight. Most of these libraries went through the Vue 2 to Vue 3 migration, and the package names and docs are often two separate sets (e.g. Element UI vs. Element Plus)—installing the wrong version simply won't run.

3. Import on demand. These UI libraries all have a sizable full-bundle footprint; for production projects, configure on-demand loading so only the components you use get bundled.

tip

If you're just writing a demo or an internal tool, pick whichever library's docs feel most comfortable and don't overthink it; save the cost of careful selection for production projects that will be maintained long-term.

Wrap-up

For admin and back-office systems, Element Plus or Ant Design Vue are safe picks—both communities are big enough; for a Material look or an international audience, look at Vuetify; View Design suits teams that want a full back-office package; Vuesax is unmaintained and listed for reference only. There's no single right answer—whatever fits your team's habits and your product's style is the good choice.