Smart Flexbox Generator

Build modern responsive flexbox layouts visually with live previews, Tailwind export, React support, and production-ready CSS.

Live Flex PlaygroundResponsive LayoutsTailwind ExportReact ReadyVisual Alignment

How to use

1

Pick a template (optional)

Start with Navbar, Hero, Pricing Cards, Dashboard, Sidebar, Card Grid, Toolbar, or Feature Section — or build a layout from scratch with 3 default items.

2

Configure the container

Choose flex-direction, flex-wrap, gap, justify-content (main axis), align-items (cross axis), and align-content (only relevant when wrap is enabled).

3

Edit individual items

Click any item in the playground to select it, then adjust flex-grow, flex-shrink, flex-basis, align-self, order, width and height. Add or reorder items as needed.

4

Test responsive & copy code

Use the Desktop / Tablet / Mobile viewport buttons to verify your layout reflows. Copy the CSS, HTML, Tailwind markup, or React JSX — or grab the full pack.

When to use Flexbox

Navigation bars

Logos, menus and sign-in buttons in a single row — justify-content: space-between handles the layout perfectly without any floats.

Hero sections

Column-direction flex with justify-content: center vertically centres headline, subhead and CTA in a single block without absolute positioning.

Equal-height cards

Pricing tiers, feature cards and product lists — align-items: stretch automatically gives every card the same height regardless of content length.

Responsive grids

flex-wrap: wrap combined with flex: 1 1 200px creates card grids that automatically reflow on smaller screens without a single media query.

Sidebar layouts

Fixed-width sidebar + flexible content area is one line: <Sidebar style='flex-basis: 240px'/><Main style='flex: 1'/>. Trivial with flex.

Toolbars & footers

Logo on the left, actions on the right — justify-content: space-between makes this layout pattern a one-property solution.

How it works

Container engine

State stores direction, wrap, gap, and the main/cross axis alignment values. The playground container's style updates reactively whenever any of these change — you see the layout reflow immediately.

Per-item editor

Each item carries its own grow, shrink, basis, align-self, order and optional explicit width/height. Click an item in the playground to make it active and edit its properties live.

Responsive viewports

Desktop / Tablet / Mobile buttons constrain the playground container's max-width to 100% / 768px / 375px, letting you preview wrapping and stacking behaviour without resizing your browser.

4-format export

Every change regenerates CSS (container + per-item rules), semantic HTML, Tailwind markup using the right utility classes, and a complete React component — all simultaneously.

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Frequently asked questions

Quick answers about this free online tool.

Flexbox (the Flexible Box Layout) is a one-dimensional CSS layout system designed to distribute space along a single axis — either a row or a column. You enable it by adding display: flex to a container; its direct children become flex items that can grow, shrink, and align using a small set of intuitive properties. Flexbox is the modern, responsive replacement for the float / clearfix hacks that dominated CSS layout for two decades.

justify-content controls how flex items are distributed along the main axis — the primary direction of the layout. For a row-direction container, that's horizontal; for column-direction, it's vertical. The six values are flex-start (default), flex-end, center, space-between (gaps only between items), space-around (equal padding around each item), and space-evenly (equal gaps everywhere including ends).

align-items controls how flex items are aligned along the cross axis — the axis perpendicular to the main axis. The values are stretch (default — items fill the container's cross size), flex-start, flex-end, center, and baseline (aligns text baselines across items). For a row-direction container the cross axis is vertical, so align-items controls vertical alignment.

They control opposite axes. justify-content distributes items along the main axis (the direction set by flex-direction). align-items aligns items along the cross axis (perpendicular to the main axis). Switching flex-direction from row to column effectively swaps which axis each property affects. A common gotcha: to vertically centre items in a row-direction container you need align-items: center, not justify-content: center.

Two key tools: flex-wrap and flex item grow/shrink. Setting flex-wrap: wrap allows items to flow onto multiple lines when they don't fit. Setting flex: 1 1 200px (grow: 1, shrink: 1, basis: 200px) lets each item start at 200px wide, then expand to fill leftover space and shrink as the container narrows. Combined, these produce responsive card grids that don't need media queries. For larger structural changes (sidebar collapse, mobile menu), media queries flip flex-direction from row to column.

Yes — Tailwind has dedicated utilities for every Flexbox property: flex (enables flex), flex-row/flex-col (direction), flex-wrap, justify-start/center/between/around/evenly, items-start/center/end/stretch/baseline, gap-{0–96}, grow/shrink/basis-*, order-*, and self-* for align-self. Responsive prefixes (md:, lg:) let you change any of them at specific breakpoints — e.g. flex-col md:flex-row makes a column stack on mobile that becomes a horizontal row on desktop.

Use Flexbox for one-dimensional layouts — distributing items along a single row or column (navigation bars, toolbars, card lists, button groups). Use Grid for two-dimensional layouts — anything where you need to align items into rows AND columns simultaneously (dashboards, page layouts, image galleries with fixed positions). They're complementary, not competing: it's normal to use Grid for the page skeleton and Flexbox for the contents of individual grid cells.

Three common ones: (1) Confusing the axes when changing flex-direction — remember that justify-content and align-items swap which direction they control. (2) Forgetting that flex-shrink defaults to 1, so items will shrink below their stated width unless you set shrink: 0. (3) Using percentages for flex-basis without understanding that they're calculated relative to the container's main-axis size — which can produce surprising results inside nested flex containers. The flex shorthand 'flex: 1 1 0' is a safer default than 'flex: 1' for predictable equal-width columns.