21st.dev vs shadcn/ui registry directory
The same 6 criteria for both, with the page each figure came from and the day it was read.
On what you get without paying, 21st.dev does not publish it and shadcn/ui registry directory is All of it. On cheapest paid option, 21st.dev is $6/month, billed yearly (Builder) and shadcn/ui registry directory does not publish it. On what it publishes, 21st.dev is 12,000+ components, templates and themes and shadcn/ui registry directory does not publish it. On how you install from it, 21st.dev is Copy a prompt, or MCP and CLI and shadcn/ui registry directory is npx shadcn add @<registry>/<component>. On how something gets listed, 21st.dev does not publish it and shadcn/ui registry directory is A documented add-a-registry route. On what it says about the code's quality, 21st.dev is Authorship, stated as the guarantee and shadcn/ui registry directory is Explicitly not reviewed, and it says so. BlockDex sells neither of these and takes no referral fee on either — it scores them. Every figure was read off the named company's own page on 2026-08-15; the URLs and the dates are at the foot of this page, and a job re-fetches each one on a schedule and fails when a figure is no longer on the page it came from.
2 compared · 6 criteria, identical for every column · every competitor figure read off that company's own page · last verified 2026-08-15
shadcn registries and block libraries compared on the same 6 criteria
| 21st.dev | shadcn/ui registry directory | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get without paying | Not published The pricing page publishes three plans — Builder, Builder + AI and Team — and none of them is a free tier. Browsing the catalogue does not appear to require an account, but the site publishes no free plan, so this is what the page carries rather than what a visitor can infer. | All of it "Discover community registries for shadcn/ui components and blocks. These registries are built into the CLI with no additional configuration required." No account and no key; what each listed registry charges is its own business. |
| Cheapest paid option | $6/month, billed yearly (Builder) "Builder — for individuals. $6 per month billed yearly." Builder + AI is $15 a month on the same terms and adds 500–2,000 monthly AI credits; Team is per seat. A yearly/quarterly toggle on the page offers "save 25%". | Not published The registry directory and the registry documentation publish no price, plan or tier of any kind. Read on ui.shadcn.com's own directory page on 14 August 2026. |
| What it publishes | 12,000+ components, templates and themes "The living library of interfaces. 12,000+ crafted React components, templates, and shadcn themes." Broken down on the same page as 2,000+ marketing blocks and 2,100+ UI components, with "used by 3,190,767 builders". | Not published The directory lists community registries but publishes no total for how many it carries and no per-registry item count. Read on ui.shadcn.com's own directory page on 14 August 2026 — which is the specific gap BlockDex crawls to fill. |
| How you install from it | Copy a prompt, or MCP and CLI The primary route is the prompt — "Copy the prompt. Paste it anywhere" — with unlimited MCP and CLI retrieval listed on every paid tier: "search components via mcp & cli", "unlimited installs via mcp & cli". The only one of the four that installs by pasting into an agent. | npx shadcn add @<registry>/<component> The canonical command, and the reason the other three all reference this CLI rather than shipping their own. The docs add that "the registry works with any project type and any framework, and is not limited to React". |
| How something gets listed | Not published Neither the pricing page nor the front page publishes a submission or contribution route for getting a component into the marketplace, or terms for authors who do. Both were read on 14 August 2026. | A documented add-a-registry route "Don't see a registry? Learn how to add it here", with "Add a registry — learn how to add a registry to the directory" as its own documentation page beside Getting started, Authentication and Namespaces. |
| What it says about the code's quality | Authorship, stated as the guarantee The claim is about who wrote it rather than about what checks it: "built by real design engineers", under a pricing-page headline that reads "Keep the web free of AI slop". No review process, test or automated check is published. | Explicitly not reviewed, and it says so "Community registries are maintained by third-party developers. Always review code on installation to ensure it meets your security and quality standards." The only one of the four that states the limit of its own vouching rather than implying there is none. |
“Not published” means that company does not state the figure on the page cited at the foot of this page. It is not a claim that no such figure exists. A company that publishes no limit most likely has none — but “most likely” is not a fact, and this table prints what was read rather than what was inferred.
- What it says about the code's quality — what the site itself claims about review, curation or automated checking of the code it lists — as distinct from what it claims about how much of it there is
21st.dev vs shadcn/ui registry directory — what you get without paying?
21st.dev does not state it on 21st.dev. The pricing page publishes three plans — Builder, Builder + AI and Team — and none of them is a free tier. Browsing the catalogue does not appear to require an account, but the site publishes no free plan, so this is what the page carries rather than what a visitor can infer. shadcn/ui registry directory: All of it. "Discover community registries for shadcn/ui components and blocks. These registries are built into the CLI with no additional configuration required." No account and no key; what each listed registry charges is its own business. Read from 21st.dev and ui.shadcn.com on 2026-08-15.
21st.dev vs shadcn/ui registry directory — cheapest paid option?
21st.dev: $6/month, billed yearly (Builder). "Builder — for individuals. $6 per month billed yearly." Builder + AI is $15 a month on the same terms and adds 500–2,000 monthly AI credits; Team is per seat. A yearly/quarterly toggle on the page offers "save 25%". shadcn/ui registry directory does not state it on ui.shadcn.com. The registry directory and the registry documentation publish no price, plan or tier of any kind. Read on ui.shadcn.com's own directory page on 14 August 2026. Read from 21st.dev and ui.shadcn.com on 2026-08-15.
21st.dev vs shadcn/ui registry directory — what it publishes?
21st.dev: 12,000+ components, templates and themes. "The living library of interfaces. 12,000+ crafted React components, templates, and shadcn themes." Broken down on the same page as 2,000+ marketing blocks and 2,100+ UI components, with "used by 3,190,767 builders". shadcn/ui registry directory does not state it on ui.shadcn.com. The directory lists community registries but publishes no total for how many it carries and no per-registry item count. Read on ui.shadcn.com's own directory page on 14 August 2026 — which is the specific gap BlockDex crawls to fill. Read from 21st.dev and ui.shadcn.com on 2026-08-15.
When should I pick 21st.dev, and when shadcn/ui registry directory?
21st.dev — You want breadth and you work by pasting a prompt into an agent rather than by running a CLI. It is the largest catalogue of the four at "12,000+ crafted React components, templates, and shadcn themes", it is the only one whose delivery mechanism is the prompt itself — "every component ships as a prompt. One copy - and it builds itself in whatever tool you live in" — and it is the cheapest recurring entry here at $6 a month billed yearly, with unlimited MCP and CLI retrieval on that tier. shadcn/ui registry directory — You want the first-party answer and the shortest possible path from finding a component to having it in your repository. This is the mechanism every other entry here sits on top of, it costs nothing, and the registries in it are "built into the CLI with no additional configuration required" — so `npx shadcn add @<registry>/<component>` works with no account, no key and no config. It is also the only one of the four that tells you plainly what it does not do.
When each of these is the right pick
BlockDex does not sell any of these and has nothing to gain from which one you choose — it scores them. Each case below is the one that option genuinely wins.
- 21st.dev — You want breadth and you work by pasting a prompt into an agent rather than by running a CLI. It is the largest catalogue of the four at "12,000+ crafted React components, templates, and shadcn themes", it is the only one whose delivery mechanism is the prompt itself — "every component ships as a prompt. One copy - and it builds itself in whatever tool you live in" — and it is the cheapest recurring entry here at $6 a month billed yearly, with unlimited MCP and CLI retrieval on that tier.
- shadcn/ui registry directory — You want the first-party answer and the shortest possible path from finding a component to having it in your repository. This is the mechanism every other entry here sits on top of, it costs nothing, and the registries in it are "built into the CLI with no additional configuration required" — so `npx shadcn add @<registry>/<component>` works with no account, no key and no config. It is also the only one of the four that tells you plainly what it does not do.
Other shadcn registries and block libraries compared head to head
What was checked, and when
Prices and limits move, and a page quoting a stale one is worth less than a page quoting none. Every source is printed here so a reader can check it against the day they are reading this, and a job re-fetches each of these URLs on a schedule and fails when a figure above no longer appears on the page it came from.
- 21st.dev — 21st.dev/pricing — What you get without paying, Cheapest paid option, How you install from it, How something gets listed. Read 2026-08-15.
- 21st.dev — 21st.dev/ — What it publishes, What it says about the code's quality. Read 2026-08-15.
- shadcn/ui registry directory — ui.shadcn.com/directory — What you get without paying, Cheapest paid option, What it publishes, How you install from it, How something gets listed, What it says about the code's quality. Read 2026-08-15.
Last verified 2026-08-15. https://blockdex.kynth.studio/compare/21st-dev-vs-shadcn-registry
