Best Material Design UI Component Libraries

Best Material Design UI Component Libraries

25 Jan 2023

6 min

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Gleb Goncharov

UX/UI and Graphic Designer

Material Design Principles

When we speak about material design, we mean the specific design system developed by Google. Web designers and developers can create apps for different platforms that have a crisp and high-quality look on all of them. The set of material design principles was developed, and now all professionals who deal with web design follow them to make their apps more beautiful and consistent. All devices and operating systems showcase these apps in the same way due to the material design toolkit officially accepted by Google. It can provide developers with many helpful assets, such as color palettes, icons, components, and guidelines. They make any web design look professional and unified.

Nevertheless, the best material UI design examples contain something else that goes beyond the assets provided by Google. The matter is that third-party developers see their task as getting the most from the open-source nature of this project. It means that they have already started to develop their own instruments that comply with the basic material design principles from Google and efficiently complement them.

Therefore, we have analyzed these brand-new developments and newly created libraries to help you choose the material design UI library that mostly accurately corresponds to all your development needs. If you are going to start a mobile or web app development project for your individual business needs, you will be able to make good use of them.

Before you attempt to find the best material design UI for web applications, let’s recollect the most important principles of it developed by Google. You can consider the following:

1. Choose the appropriate colors - they should show the components’ position, state, and relationships between their separate parts.

2. The typical material color palette consists of two colors - a primary and a secondary one.

3. Pick out the components that can be reused.

4. Consider legibility standards for icons and texts.

5. Ensure that all the icons have distinct edges and clean folds.

6. Think about only the meaningful motions on the screen.

You can also find other principles in Google’s guidelines, but the ones mentioned above are basic. If you want to obtain a highly functional material design system, look through these guidelines thoroughly. You don’t need to be an experienced material UI design expert to pick out the best solution. The UI component libraries for creating the material design will help you a lot to follow all of Google’s guidelines and requirements.

Material Design Principles

The Best Material Design UI Component Libraries

Therefore, let’s have a closer look at the most appealing material design UI component libraries. They work well for independent web development, with Web Components, and with such JavaScript libraries as Vice, React, Angular, and others, which are also component-based.

1. Material UI

This library is very popular for use with the React framework. You can utilize this unique library if your app is based on React. Its components do not require any further configuration. You may opt for layout components, different types of input elements, utilities, navigation bars, surfaces, and other features here. You can check the complete list of solutions in the Documentation section of the developer.

Material UI provides access to numerous pre-designed components and offers a pretty extensive Component API. You need it for proper customization of all other components with the help of CSS and props. All the library’s documents are easy-to-follow. They provide many helpful examples, demos, and code snippets. So you can start the prototyping process very quickly.

2. Angular Material

If you need a UI component library for your Angular app, Angular Material is a good choice. Google created it for its Angular 2 framework and continues to update and develop it. This material design UI library provides a lot of UI components and the Angular Component Development Kit (CDK). You can use this toolkit for developing such interaction patterns as scrolling, drag-and-drop functioning, bi-directionality, accessibility, and many others.

You can prototype the UI of your Angular app very quickly because Google professionally designs all the components. They can be divided into six groups: navigation, form controls, buttons & indicators, layout, data table for tabular data, and popups & modals. You can get detailed explanations from the Angular Material guides provided alongside.

3. Materialize

This highly responsive CSS framework observes the principles of material UI design. You will obtain numerous ready-to-use components here. They include icons, buttons, navigation bars, badges, cards, breadcrumbs, etc. Materialize as well includes mobile app components. You can use them for unobstructed mobile alerts and drag-out menus.

You receive all the components here with code examples. The only thing you need to do here is to add them to your HTML page. This library's CSS and HTML components go together with highly customizable elements from JavaScript. They involve parallax effects, a carousel, modals, and many others. This well-known material design library developer as well offers themes created with its component library, but they are payable.

4. Material Components for the Web

You may have heard of or even used Material Design Lite (MDL), developed by the in-house team from Google. It is often referred to as MDL v1. Nowadays, it is a limited edition working in a support mode only. You can use Material Components for the Web instead. This library is also known as MDL v2.

You can find this material design library on the material.io website, where all of Google’s guidelines are stored. The pre-designed UI components can be used for Android, Flutter, iOS, and Web platforms. You will get a wide range of solutions for grids, tabs, buttons, surfaces, cards, menus, etc. It helps create web or mobile applications that are similar to Google’s.

5. Material Design for Bootstrap

This component library is pretty versatile. It is meant for the Bootstrap 4 framework and helps create websites and mobile applications that are highly responsive. You can use this library for front-end development with the default configuration of jQuery. It boosts the app’s interactivity. The set also has setups for Vue, React, and Angular JS frameworks.

You can use either a free or a premium version. Utilize GitHub to download its free material UI kit. Nowadays, it features more than 600 material icons, over 400 UI elements, 74 CSS animations, pre-made templates, and well-structured tutorials. It’s an immense bulk of materials available for free. However, this material design library developer added even more materials in the pro version. You can find more than 4,500 premium components, over 50 premium sections, many plugins, and JS modularity there. So, you can fulfill any development task with its absolutely fantastic number of options.

6. Vue Material

This lightweight material UI design component library uses the Vue.js framework. All the components are developed in accordance with Google’s specifications. The library has a lot of pre-designed UI elements, like icons, buttons, toolbars, avatars, lists, dialogs, cards, forms, and many others.

If you have experience working with CSS, HTML, or Vue, it will be easy for you to start with this library. You can change codes online because every component is a part of a live sandbox, and the library is well-documented. The results will be observable in real time.

The library is free in the version of Vue Material Dashboard with the 16 most essential components. However, it has the full-featured fee-paying version of Vue Material Dashboard Pro.

7. MUI CSS

The task of MUI CSS is to accumulate the most important material UI design components needed for the development of a professional web or mobile application. The library is lightweight. You need to add minified CSS and JavaScript to your HTML page, which does not occupy much space on the drive. The software is easy to set up for newbies because it does not depend on any external factors.

MUI CSS also features ready-to-use elements compatible with React and Angular libraries for app design. This material design library developer has also started to create a beta version of a Web Components library. At this time, it already features three types of components - forms, buttons, and an HTML boilerplate. The program also has an attractive email UI library allowing designers to develop cool email templates according to Google’s guidelines on material design.

The Best Material Design UI Component Libraries

Final Thoughts

If you want your web or mobile app to have a professional look, choose one of the material design libraries presented here, or you may prefer to look for something else that better corresponds to all your needs and ideas. No matter your choice, your applications need to feel unique and custom-developed, especially if you want to get several apps for the same brand. Our developers and web designers can help you make the right choice or create a custom project specifically for your needs.

The best material UI design examples demonstrate the challenging nature of such customized development. You need both to follow Google’s design guidelines and to develop something absolutely new. The process may take you a lot of time and effort, especially if you do not have enough experience in this field. Hiring an expert consultant or developer is the best solution for this event.

Even if you are a qualified programmer but mostly work with back-end languages only, your task may be difficult as well. You need to learn more about the use of UI frameworks, so we are ready to provide you with a lot of information and advice on this subject matter. It is never too late to learn, and our team is ready to help you.

Final Thoughts

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