@fluent-ui/react vs @fluent-ui/react-northstar

Question

I'm looking for some guideline what's the difference between @fluent-ui/react and @fluent-ui/react-northstar. This documentation (READMEs) are super imprecise. I'm don't understand which one to use for what. I'm writing that react-component to be ran in webapp and the word plugin. Do you know which one to go for? They both look a bit different and feels that theming works a bit different.

Answer 1

You should use fluent-ui/react-northstar if you want to develop apps for Microsoft Teams, else you should use the normal fluent-ui.

Answer 2

If you look at a simple example of a dropdown, you will see that there is quite a lot of difference between the two. Northstar's dropdown combines the features of the dropdown with combobox.

northstar:

• https://fluentsite.z22.web.core.windows.net/0.51.4/components/dropdown

normal:

• https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/fluentui#/controls/web/dropdown
• https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/fluentui#/controls/web/combobox

Another to take into consideration is that Northstar's scope is limited to Web / Desktop at present.

• https://fluentsite.z22.web.core.windows.net/0.51.4/faq