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Add to SafariWhen comparing Rework vs Stylecow, the Slant community recommends Rework for most people. In the question“What are the best CSS preprocessors/postprocessors?” Rework is ranked 6th while Stylecow is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Rework is:
Through transforms you can modify existing properties to give them new attributes and options, so instead of managing messy mixins, you can add a simple new attribute where they make the most sense.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Extend native properties
Through transforms you can modify existing properties to give them new attributes and options, so instead of managing messy mixins, you can add a simple new attribute where they make the most sense.
Pro Unrestricted potential
Because Rework plugins are done in code, there are no limits to what they can do, and they tend to provide more advanced functionality that would be harder to implement in other preprocessors, such as file I/O and custom logic.
Pro Built around plugins
Rework isn't a language for compiling to CSS but rather a library around parsing it and transforming it. For example, a vendor prefix plugin will inject prefixes around needed properties so you don't have to muddy up your CSS dealing with it.
Because Rework is built around plugins at its core, it makes for easier plugin writing if you find you want to add in new functionality.
Pro Can work with other preprocessors
Although you don't have to, since Rework works on vanilla CSS, you could use another preprocessor that has a syntax you enjoy more before applying Rework's transforms.
Pro Allows for customized properties
Rework plugins can recognize custom properties and transform them via plugins. This allows you to keep your CSS clean and expand its functionality in a native feeling way, without having to learn a bunch of new language constructs.
Pro Easy to install and use
It's written in node, so you can install it with npm. All available plugins are installed by default and include some development tools like a watcher and a browser live-reload so it don't need more than few seconds to be ready to start to work.
Pro Advanced API and parser
The parser detects any CSS syntax error found. The output code can be customized to follow your own code style rules (indentation, spaces, string quotes, etc). It has a clean and powerfull API, which make easy to create new plugins.
Pro No need to learn a new syntax
Since Stylecow allows developers to write simple, vanilla CSS, there's no need to learn a whole new language.
Cons
Con Replaced by PostCSS
Rework basically solves the same problem as the more popular PostCSS.
Con Difficult for beginners
Rework has a more involved setup that can make it an intimidating first option for beginners to css processing. As Rework is built around plugins, the documentation can't be found in one spot. The quality of documentation also varies between plugins.
Con May be merged with PostCSS in the future
Since Stylecow is pretty small and hasn't gained a lot of traction in the past 5 or so years since it was first released but also because it serves kind of the same purpose as PostCSS which is much more popular, there have been discussions on merging the two projects together.
Con Small community
Stylecow doesn't have a very large community. This can make it difficult to find answers and increases the risk of the project being abandoned.
