What do you use for tooltips in web projects?

For a simple hint, a small CSS component can be enough. It stays lightweight and you can style it exactly how you want. CSS anchor positioning is also worth looking at, though check support against the browsers your project needs.

The catch is that positioning is only part of the job. You still need to think about keyboard focus, touch, and what happens near the edge of the viewport.

Floating UI is a good option when placement and viewport collisions get tricky. The DOM package can work well with TypeScript and gives you positioning tools for tooltips and popups.

It's not a complete tooltip component though. You'll still need to implement the trigger and interaction behavior, so a ready-made component may be quicker if that's what you need.

If you're already using a component library, check what it offers before adding another dependency. Base UI, Ark UI, shadcn and Ant Design all came up as options for tooltips.

Before picking a library, decide whether the content is actually a tooltip. Keep a tooltip to non-essential information and make sure it works with keyboard focus, not just hover.

Touch is the awkward part. If people need to deliberately open and interact with the content, a button that controls a popover may be a better fit than a hover hint.

Tippy is another name you may run across, but check its current maintenance status before choosing it. That can matter as much as the feature set if your project has security or dependency policies.