Style spacing between repeated elements in CSS using flex gap

It's a pretty common scenario - you have to place a few elements in equal distances. E.g. unordered list items.

<ul class="list">
  <li class="item"></li>
  <li class="item"></li>
  <li class="item"></li>
  <li class="item"></li>
</div>

The first solution that comes to mind probably is to use margins. Unfortunately - the last element must be styled separately in this case.

.item {
  width: 100px;
  height: 50px;

  margin-bottom: 40px;
}

.item:last-of-type {
  margin-bottom: 0;
}

Another idea is to use the basic flex property „space-between” and set a fixed height. There is simple math behind that. Every element has 50px height and between every two of them, we want to have 40px of spacing. 50 * 4 + 40 * 3 = 320.

.list {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: space-between;

  height: 320px;
}

.item {
  width: 100px;
  height: 50px;
}

The main problem with this solution is the lack of flexibility. By adding a new element to the list - we have to calculate height by hand. Not very cheerful though. (But maybe in your case height of the conatiner is more important for the layout than the specific spacing between elements - then this will be ideal for you).

There is also a third nice option, that I learn and started to use. Flex has property „gap” which is not reserved just to grid as I thought before. It’s a perfect use case for it.

.list {
  display: flex;
  flex-direction: column;
  justify-content: space-between;

  row-gap: 40px;
}

.item {
  width: 100px;
  height: 50px;
}