Maintenance Cost of a Design System

Key Takeaways

StencilJS design systems require significant maintenance effort due to framework integration challenges and compatibility issues.

Performance and bundle size optimizations are more complex compared to framework-specific solutions.

Styling and theming face limitations due to Shadow DOM encapsulation.

Accessibility implementation requires extra development effort.

Developer experience is hindered by limited debugging tools and ecosystem support.

While suitable for standalone component libraries, enterprise-scale projects may find lower maintenance costs with framework-specific solutions.

While Web Components (StencilJS) offer a framework-agnostic approach to UI development, they also introduce significant maintenance challenges that increase long-term costs. Here’s an argument for why maintaining a StencilJS-based design system can be expensive:

1. Lack of Native Framework Integration

🚨 Problem: Web Components Don't Work Seamlessly with Popular Frameworks

Web Components, including those built with StencilJS, don't integrate smoothly into React, Vue, Angular, and other frameworks. While stencilJS does provide automated wrapper generation feature, these wrappers are not always compatible when it comes to form binding. Latest version seems to have a better support for inherent form support. However, it still does not provide seamless developer experience for forms.

Issues include:

React doesn’t support two-way binding with Web Components (value in <input> is a common pain point).
Vue's reactivity system doesn’t track property changes in Web Components.
Angular requires additional configuration (CUSTOM_ELEMENTS_SCHEMA) to work properly.

🔹 Result: Each framework requires additional wrappers, increasing development and maintenance overhead.

2. Versioning & Backward Compatibility Challenges

🚨 Problem: Breaking Changes Across Consumers

Since Web Components are framework-agnostic, a design system built with StencilJS must support multiple consumers (React, Angular, Vue, etc.).

Every time the design system updates, each consumer must ensure compatibility.

Example pain points:

A breaking change in StencilJS requires all consuming teams to update their implementation.
Dependency conflicts can arise if one team is on StencilJS v3 while another still uses v2.

🔹 Result: Teams spend more time testing, upgrading, and resolving compatibility issues, increasing maintenance costs.

3. Performance & Bundle Size Overhead

🚨 Problem: Inefficient Bundling in Framework-Based Apps

Web Components require custom elements polyfills for older browsers.

When using StencilJS components in React or Angular, bundling optimizations don’t work as efficiently.

Since StencilJS generates Web Components as JavaScript-based custom elements, tree shaking is harder, increasing the final bundle size.

🔹 Result: Teams must spend extra effort optimizing bundles and resolving performance issues.

4. Styling and Theming Limitations

🚨 Problem: CSS Encapsulation Complicates Theming

Web Components encapsulate styles inside Shadow DOM, which makes global theming difficult.

Customizing a component’s look and feel requires using:

CSS Variables (limited flexibility)
Shadow Parts (complex and limited support)
Scoped stylesheets (increased CSS complexity)

🔹 Result: Teams must spend more time debugging styling issues and documenting complex theming rules.

5. Accessibility (A11Y) and Screen Reader Issues

🚨 Problem: Native Accessibility Support is Inconsistent

Web Components often have issues with:

Focus management (especially in modal/dialog components).
Keyboard navigation (managing tabindex correctly).
Screen reader support (some ARIA roles do not behave as expected in Shadow DOM).

🔹 Result: Teams must invest extra time in testing and manually fixing accessibility issues, increasing the cost.

6. Debugging and Developer Experience (DX)

🚨 Problem: Limited Tooling and Harder Debugging

Web Components lack the powerful developer tooling that React, Angular, and Vue provide.

Issues include:

Limited debugging support (harder to inspect internal states compared to React DevTools).
Harder event handling (events in Shadow DOM don’t bubble to the main DOM by default).
Lack of hot-reloading in some setups.

🔹 Result: Developers spend more time debugging issues, leading to higher maintenance costs.

7. Dependency on `StencilJS` Ecosystem

🚨 Problem: `StencilJS` Updates & Community `Support`

StencilJS is not as widely adopted as React or Vue, meaning:

Fewer community resources and third-party integrations.
If the StencilJS team makes a breaking API change, your entire design system needs refactoring.
Companies relying on StencilJS must hire or train developers specifically for this niche framework.

🔹 Result: Vendor lock-in increases long-term costs due to limited community support and training needs.

📌 Conclusion: Why Maintenance is High

A StencilJS-based design system leads to higher long-term maintenance costs because:

Framework Incompatibility → Requires wrappers & workarounds.

Versioning & Compatibility Issues → Breaking changes affect multiple consumers.

Performance Bottlenecks → Bundling inefficiencies increase debugging time.

Complex Styling & Theming → CSS encapsulation complicates global design changes.

Accessibility Problems → Requires extra work for proper A11Y compliance.

Poor Debugging & Developer Experience → Increases time spent troubleshooting.

StencilJS Dependency → Higher risk due to niche ecosystem and limited adoption.

🚀 When Does a `StencilJS`-Based Design System Make Sense?

✅ If your team only needs a standalone component library for multiple frameworks.

✅ If you prioritize performance and framework-agnostic components over DX.

✅ If you have a dedicated team to handle cross-framework issues.

However, for most enterprise-scale design systems, React-based solutions (e.g., Storybook + Emotion) or platform-specific UI kits (Material-UI, Chakra UI), Tailwind, Shadcn etc offer lower maintenance costs.