Dialog is for modals, popover is for everything else

May 26, 2025

• popover
• dialog

<dialog> and <popover> are currently the only two ways1 to access the browser’s top layer. So what’s the difference between them and which one should you use when?

Source: Dialog is for modals, popover is for everything else

We’ve covered dialog and the popover API a bit here at Conffab. But when do you use which? Mayank fills us in.