Which CSS Framework is Best for Your Site

Designing a website should have user experience as top priority. Even if there are tons of functions and operations running in the background, what users see on the frontend should be seamless and uncomplicated.

To develop such a website with a lot going on in the backend, you need a good frontend that makes everything functional and streamlined, from its development to implementation. A CSS framework does that for web designers and developers.

Frameworks are used for even the biggest and most complicated websites on the Internet, like Facebook, Netflix, Instagram, Twitter, and so on. Without CSS frameworks, those websites wouldn’t be possible, or at least not be as good and functional as they are.

Let’s take a look at the most popular CSS frameworks out there, what they’re good at, and which one will likely fit your needs.

What are CSS Frameworks?

Frontend web development involves what users see, namely the graphical interface of the website. It involves HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which let users view and interact with the website.

In order to organize what appears on the website, you have content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, or so on that let you post content on your website without having to create and lay out HTML files manually.

However, before that, you need a web design. Having to create one from scratch with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript can be quite difficult. That’s why CSS frameworks are used to serve as the skeletons with which to fill with the meat and skin of the design.

A framework is meant to make the design process faster and more manageable by providing pre-written code in files and folders that still has enough flexibility to be filled with what you want.

That means you don’t have to make the structure up as you go. All you have to do is follow the framework and fill it with your design.

There are three major components in a CSS framework.

• The grid that lets you lay out your design over it.
• The typography that’s defined with font styles that are chosen for their specific purpose.
• Pre-made elements like buttons, navigation bars, and side panels that can either be used right out of the box, modified to suit one’s design, or replaced with something entirely original.

The Best CSS Frameworks

Your choice of framework will depend on what kind of website you’re working on, what your company prefers to use, which component is emphasized, and so on. Each one has its strengths and weaknesses, so what may be best for some may not be that good for you.

It’s best to try out each one and decide for yourself which one works best for your web design, but that may take too long to do. Here’s a list of the best ones, along with their pros and cons.

Bootstrap

Started by Twitter, Bootstrap is the first framework to introduce responsive design on a large scale and promote the “mobile first” design philosophy. That meant designing for smaller screens was no longer a separate project, but the basis for the entire project to begin with.

Bootstrap’s approach to responsive design is based on a grid that splits the screen into columns. You can then determine how you would split up the screen and decide on which parts of the screen will be visible on mobile.

The advantages of Bootstrap include its large ecosystem due to it being the most popular framework, and how it’s backed by Twitter that gives it a tremendous amount of support. Due to how it’s designed, there’s no need to do tricky CSS positioning and worry about browser incompatibilities, making it really quick and easy to come up with prototypes.

You get a tremendous amount of components to choose from with Bootstrap because of that support. Also, since it’s backed by Twitter, it naturally has LESS and SASS support.

However, Bootstrap does have a fair number of detractors due to how monotonous its user experience can be, as well as its choice of styling that may not be agreeable for a lot of designers out there. Also, as with anything that becomes popular, it can suffer from a good bit of bloat, enough to make it a chore to sift through it.

Foundation

This is Bootstrap’s main rival. Web designers tend to divide themselves between loyalty to either Bootstrap or Foundation, and it’s not hard to see why that’s so. Foundation has a byline of “The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world.” That’s a big claim.

Foundation was developed with Ruby on Rails, guided by its “zen-like” principles that emphasizes simplicity and function. It has similarities with earlier versions of Bootstrap, making it quite intuitive and easy to learn.

However, it’s indeed less popular than Bootstrap, but it’s a great alternative for web designers who want something different, with a different way of doing things.

Foundation is extremely flexible since it was designed to give frontend developers full control over their UIs. On the other hand, that does give it a steep learning curve for beginners due to how complicated it seems.

On the other hand, it has full tooling and various things that go beyond just UI components, making it incredibly versatile and fun to play with once you get the hang of it. To do that, you get a ton of resources to learn how to develop with Foundation and scale things up.

However, since it’s the less popular option, it does have a smaller community, albeit a dedicated one who believe in its design ethos. The complexity of Foundation makes it attractive to veteran web developers who are more about being able to do everything.

On the other hand, that also means it won’t be easy to find talent who are proficient in using Foundation. You’ll have a much easier time finding designers and developers who can use Bootstrap.

Bulma

This one is relatively new, but it has been picking up steam due to its growing reputation as an easy-to-learn framework with stunning functionality. It takes a strict, CSS-only approach, which makes it easy to pick up since you’re not required to learn JavaScript beforehand.

Much of its early momentum came from the Laravel community. Laravel is a PHP web framework, which made it work pretty well with Bulma. While it’s not as popular as Bootstrap, it certainly is more popular than Foundation and is still growing.

A big part of its appeal is how it has readable classes, making it a simple yet powerful way to create Metro-style grids that it calls tiles. This system lets anyone pick up Bulma easily. As long as you know HTML and CSS, you’ll take to Bulma like a duck to water.

If you’re looking for a framework that has as little fluff as possible, then Bulma is the one you’re looking for.