Today, I wanted to talk about classless vs. class-based CSS design systems, boilerplates, and frameworks: how they differ, which approach I prefer, and so on. Let’s dig in! What is a classless design system? A classless CSS design system, as the name implies, do not use classes. Instead, it provides base styles for native HTML elements. One of the better known classless systems is Water.css. With a system like this, you just load the stylesheet into your HTML file, then start writing code.