shadcnblocks vs 21st.dev
Two paid shadcn catalogues on completely different commercial models, compared on the six things that decide between them — every figure read off each site's own pages rather than recalled.
Buy shadcnblocks if you want whole page sections from one hand and you would rather own than rent: $149 one-time gets 2093+ components and 1678+ blocks with lifetime updates, and it is the only one of the two shipping a Figma kit, an admin kit and multi-page templates alongside the code. Subscribe to 21st.dev if you want breadth and you build by pasting into an agent: it is the larger catalogue by an order of magnitude at 12,000+ items, and its delivery mechanism is the prompt — "every component ships as a prompt" — with unlimited MCP and CLI retrieval on the $6 tier. Two differences decide most cases. First, the licence: shadcnblocks says "single user" on every tier, so a second developer is a second purchase, while 21st.dev prices teams per seat and says so. Second, who wrote it: shadcnblocks is first-party throughout — "hand designed and built", 50+ new components a month — where 21st.dev is a marketplace whose quality claim is authorship, "built by real design engineers", with no submission route or review process published. Neither publishes a check that a component builds, which is what BlockDex crawls both of them for.
2 compared · 6 criteria, identical for every column · every competitor figure read off that company's own page · last verified 2026-08-14
shadcn registries and block libraries compared on the same 6 criteria
| shadcnblocks.com | 21st.dev | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get without paying | Free blocks, behind a login "Try our free blocks first. Browse free blocks in the library-ready to copy/paste. Basic-tier blocks only require a login; see the full catalog for every category." The site reports 22,162 free users against 5,420 pro customers. | 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. |
| Cheapest paid option | $149 one-time (Pro, lifetime) "Pro plan — lifetime access $149 /one-time … single user, lifetime access & updates, 2093+ pro components, 1678+ pro blocks." Premium is $299 and Elite $399, both one-time, adding templates, a Figma kit, an admin kit and pre-built pages. The only lifetime licence of the four. | $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%". |
| What it publishes | 2093+ components, 1678+ blocks "2093+ pro components — pre-built React components ready to use" and "1678+ shadcn blocks — our flagship product, hundreds of premium shadcn/ui blocks", plus 18 templates and 49+ pre-built pages on the higher tiers. | 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". |
| How you install from it | The official shadcn CLI "All components and blocks available via the official shadcn CLI 'npx shadcn add'", with "all blocks searchable via the official shadcn MCP" and an IDE extension for VS Code and Cursor listed beside 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. |
| How something gets listed | Not published No submission, contribution or author route is published on the pricing page. What that page does publish is a first-party production cadence — "50+ new components each month, 100+ new blocks each month, 10+ new pages each month, 1+ new template each month" — which describes a catalogue the site writes rather than one it collects. | 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. |
| What it says about the code's quality | Hand-designed in-house The templates are "hand designed and built Next.js & Astro multi-page marketing templates built with shadcn/ui and figma files". As with 21st.dev the claim is about authorship rather than about a review step, but here everything is first-party, so there is no third-party code to review. | 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. |
“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
Is shadcnblocks a one-time purchase?
Yes. All three tiers are one-time and carry lifetime updates: Pro at $149, Premium at $299 and Elite at $399, each described on the pricing page as "lifetime access" with "lifetime access & updates". The catch is not the term but the seat — every tier reads "single user", so a second developer on the same team is a second purchase. 21st.dev is the opposite arrangement: recurring, from $6 a month billed yearly, with a Team plan priced per seat and centralised billing.
How much does 21st.dev cost?
$6 a month billed yearly for Builder, which the pricing page describes as "for individuals" and which includes unlimited component installs, unlimited code and prompt copies, and unlimited retrieval via MCP and CLI. Builder + AI is $15 a month on the same terms and adds 500–2,000 monthly AI credits, with more at "+100 for $5 (rolls over)". Team adds centralised billing, shared collections, admin controls and priority support, priced per seat. The page offers a quarterly/yearly toggle marked "save 25%". No free plan is published.
Which has more components?
21st.dev, by a wide margin, but the two are counting different things. 21st.dev publishes "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. shadcnblocks publishes "2093+ pro components" and "1678+ shadcn blocks", plus 18 templates and 49+ pre-built pages. The useful distinction is not the total: shadcnblocks' flagship unit is a block, a whole page section, where a large share of 21st.dev's catalogue is individual components. Count blocks against blocks and the gap narrows sharply.
Do either of them check that a component works?
Neither publishes a check. shadcnblocks' claim is that everything is first-party and "hand designed and built", which removes the question rather than answering it — there is no third-party code to review. 21st.dev's is authorship too: "built by real design engineers", under a headline reading "Keep the web free of AI slop". Compare that with what shadcn's own directory says about the registries it lists — "community registries are maintained by third-party developers. Always review code on installation to ensure it meets your security and quality standards" — which is the honest version of the same position. BlockDex asks each registry's item endpoint for the source, which is the same request the install command makes.
Do both install with the shadcn CLI?
Both can, and they lead with different routes. shadcnblocks leads with the CLI: "all components and blocks available via the official shadcn CLI 'npx shadcn add'", plus the official shadcn MCP and an IDE extension for VS Code and Cursor. 21st.dev leads with the prompt — "Copy the prompt. Paste it anywhere", pasted into Claude Code, Codex or Lovable — and lists "search components via mcp & cli" and "unlimited installs via mcp & cli" on every paid tier. If your workflow is a terminal, both work; if it is an agent, 21st.dev is built for it and shadcnblocks is not.
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.
- shadcnblocks.com — You want whole page sections rather than components, you want them from one hand, and you would rather pay once than subscribe. It is the only one of the four with a lifetime licence — $149 one-time for 2093+ components and 1678+ blocks — the only one shipping a Figma kit and an admin kit alongside the code, and the only one publishing a maintenance cadence you can hold it to: "50+ new components each month, 100+ new blocks each month", established 2023.
- 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.
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.
- shadcnblocks.com — www.shadcnblocks.com/ — What you get without paying. Read 2026-08-14.
- shadcnblocks.com — www.shadcnblocks.com/pricing — Cheapest paid option, What it publishes, How you install from it, How something gets listed, What it says about the code's quality. Read 2026-08-14.
- 21st.dev — 21st.dev/pricing — What you get without paying, Cheapest paid option, How you install from it, How something gets listed. Read 2026-08-14.
- 21st.dev — 21st.dev/ — What it publishes, What it says about the code's quality. Read 2026-08-14.
Last verified 2026-08-14. https://blockdex.kynth.studio/shadcnblocks-vs-21st-dev
