Show HN: Neobrutalism.dev – Just added Base UI support and added new color theme • Hacker News Board

I love it! I've been using my own styling for my various projects that I call "Soft NeoBrutalism" that's more colourful and lower contrast since I find most neobrutalist styles to be too stark. Sample here: https://frost-e.com/design-system/

Since mine is just a hacky vibe-coded single css file, I might switch to yours with a custom colour scheme.

Re: Show HN: Neobrutalism.dev – Just added Base UI support and added new color theme

#15

Post by netsharc » Mon, Sep 14, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

bradly wrote: post #8

I enjoy the look of these, but personally I wouldn't have thought to describe them as neobrutalist, so I'm thinking I don't know what it is. How is brutalism defined in this context? When I think web brutalism I think Craigslist style sites and reduction of superfluous design elements.

Yeah, I can't stand these influencer-wannabe web-devs misusing terms.

béton brut means "raw concrete" in French, and in architecture that's what brutalism is. I'd say only sites that look like they use the default style of HTML with no CSS on Netscape 1.x could be called "brutalist"...

E.g. https://stallman.org

IMO the design is more "Windows 3.1 Hot Dog Stand Theme" https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-tribute-to-the-windows-31-ho... combined with MS WordArt...

Re: Show HN: Neobrutalism.dev – Just added Base UI support and added new color theme

#16

Post by martythemaniak » Mon, Sep 14, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

bradly wrote: post #8

I enjoy the look of these, but personally I wouldn't have thought to describe them as neobrutalist, so I'm thinking I don't know what it is. How is brutalism defined in this context? When I think web brutalism I think Craigslist style sites and reduction of superfluous design elements.

It's a niche and not super-well defined, but definitely existing style, ie: https://neubrutalism.com/

Broadly, it's a move away from flat, low contrast Material-type UIs and also away from the 'gradients and curves' AI-era designs and back into something that's more like the early web.

Re: Show HN: Neobrutalism.dev – Just added Base UI support and added new color theme

#17

Post by martythemaniak » Mon, Sep 14, 2026, 5:41 PM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #15

bradly wrote: post #8

I enjoy the look of these, but personally I wouldn't have thought to describe them as neobrutalist, so I'm thinking I don't know what it is. How is brutalism defined in this context? When I think web brutalism I think Craigslist style sites and reduction of superfluous design elements.

Yeah, I can't stand these influencer-wannabe web-devs misusing terms. béton brut means "raw concrete" in French, and in architecture that's what brutalism is. I'd say only sites that look like they use the default style of HTML with no CSS on Netscape 1.x could be called "brutalist"... E.g. https://stallman.org IMO the design is more "Windows 3.1 Hot Dog Stand Theme" https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-tribute-to-the-win…

Right, hence why it's called "Neo-brutalist" and not "brutalist". It's not just plain un-styled html.

Re: Show HN: Neobrutalism.dev – Just added Base UI support and added new color theme

#18

Post by rawgabbit » Mon, Sep 14, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

martythemaniak wrote: post #16

bradly wrote: post #8

I enjoy the look of these, but personally I wouldn't have thought to describe them as neobrutalist, so I'm thinking I don't know what it is. How is brutalism defined in this context? When I think web brutalism I think Craigslist style sites and reduction of superfluous design elements.

It's a niche and not super-well defined, but definitely existing style, ie: https://neubrutalism.com/ Broadly, it's a move away from flat, low contrast Material-type UIs and also away from the 'gradients and curves' AI-era designs and back into something that's more like the early web.

I am not a front end dev. But one question I always had is why px and not em? I thought em as a relative distance would be better than hard coding px?

Re: Show HN: Neobrutalism.dev – Just added Base UI support and added new color theme

#19

Post by switchbak » Mon, Sep 14, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

raincole wrote: post #10

I just realized this is one more thing destroyed by LLM after em-dashes.

This is like the high waisted, mom-pants of browser UI design.

Re: Show HN: Neobrutalism.dev – Just added Base UI support and added new color theme

#20

Post by yieldcrv » Mon, Sep 14, 2026, 5:49 PM UTC

wps wrote: post #7

Really unfortunate how much I immediately associate this with vibe coded sites. So many models trend to this exact neobrutalist style when any semblance of Swiss design or minimalism is mentioned in the prompt. However, I really do like how the style looks on some sites, like in https://www.not-ship.com/united-nations-map/ which was on HN earlier.

I associate beige or purple extremely long landing pages with vibe coded

alongside infinite tangentially related features, because it lacks intention but the creator was stuck in a bout of AI psychosis

here, on the other hand, I’m wondering why they would even release this, as it should be a component for more intentional vibe coding. A Claude design template masqueraded as a whole framework