Before diving into the topic best CSS frameworks, a framework is a set of standard concepts, practices, and criteria for dealing with a common type of problem. Also described as a pre-prepared standard development kit.
And some may ask, What is the purpose of frameworks in website development? Let us see an example before looking into the answer. There is an instance where one of the customers is asking to make a responsive website for him/her for that just the CSS is enough in the sense there have to be some techniques that involve the responsive website kinds of stuff be added. For an amateur, it might take additional time to complete building the entire website a responsive one. Somehow we have made the responsive website. Another project in the queue is also being requested to be a responsive website as it influences the screen size and responds accordingly. To create the new website another stylesheet should be written, but it would take time since its whole another new stylesheet. To avoid such kind of situations only CSS frameworks were introduced.
The main motto of these frameworks is Design once Call Anywhere.
People like to see and surf through the responsive website than the dynamic sites - FACT
Best CSS frameworks
Bootstrap
Bootstrap is the widely used CSS framework, developed by twitter team.Bootstrap is an open source framework has been adopted by mass population and has various flavours.
PROS:
- The standard framework used by many developers and designers
- has large community support
- due to widespread adaptation bootstrap has professional templates and themes
- supports grid layout
- supported by all modern browsers
- has its own icon set (glyph icons)
CONS:
- not supported by IE version 10 below
Materialize
Materialize is another open source framework based on Google’s material design guidelines.Provides mobile like experience to the web interface.
PROS:
- Materialize Good UI/UX design
- Out of box material design support (as the name says it)
- good documentation can be understandable by newbie
- Responsive
CONS:
- not supported by old browsers.
- CSS file size is large
Pure CSS
Pure CSS is a very small sized framework, size of minified version is 3.8kb (gzipped).It was developed for mobile first development and suitable for new projects.It already has the normalizeCSS feature included so your stylesheets will be rendered properly for all browsers.
PROS:
- Mobile first interface and experience
- PureCSS is lightweight
- saves development time
- supports grid layout
CONS:
- limited design and limited templates
- no large community support (but has)
- no default icon support
Mdbootstrap
Mdbootstrap is based on Bootstrap, made with material design guidelines in mind.Mdbootstrap has 100’s of components, animations, typography, and templates.It has a free version and also has Pro version. Pro version is available for students and educators with 30% off.
PROS:
- Able to make Material design web interface
- has 600+ icon set
- multiple templates available for free
- Free tutorials including WordPress theme development
- Logo design support (text and icon)
- support for AngularJs, VUEJs, React
CONS:
- not suited for old browsers
Semantic UI
Semantic is a human-friendly CSS framework provides many peculiarities including debugging functionality to reduce errors.This is easier for developers because of its likeness to semantic
PROS:
- Best UI/UX experience
- develop once redesign infinitely
Bulma
Bulma framework is based on flexbox, it is simple to learn and simple to use.Bulma is a lightweight framework.Bulma is a better alternative for Bootstrap and Semantic UI.
PROS:
- Bulma provides Modularity
- Bulma is Simple and lightweight
- responsive design
- has numerous components
CONS:
- Very slow loading on IE
- New to market
- no community support (expected if adapted by vast developers)
Summary
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