Overview

Bootstrap

Stacks55.5K

Followers13.2K

Votes7.7K

GitHub Stars173.6K

Forks79.2K

Foundation

Stacks1.2K

Followers1.2K

Votes740

Tailwind CSS

Stacks4.2K

Followers3.1K

Votes244

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Tailwind CSS: What are the differences?

Bootstrap, Foundation, and Tailwind CSS are popular front-end frameworks used for building responsive and visually appealing websites. While all three frameworks offer similar functionalities, they differ in their approach and features. In this article, we will explore the key differences between Bootstrap, Foundation, and Tailwind CSS.

Grid System: Bootstrap uses a grid system with a 12-column layout, allowing developers to create responsive web pages easily. Foundation also provides a grid system but offers more flexibility with different column layouts and customization options. On the other hand, Tailwind CSS takes a utility-first approach where developers can directly apply predefined utility classes to create the desired grid layout.
Customization: Bootstrap offers a wide range of pre-designed components and styles, making it easier for developers to get started quickly. It also provides SASS variables that can be customized to create a unique design. Foundation, on the other hand, focuses on a modular approach, allowing developers to pick and choose the components they need. Tailwind CSS excels in customization as it provides a utility-first approach where developers can easily customize every aspect of their design by modifying the utility classes.
Design Language: Bootstrap follows a more opinionated design language, providing a consistent look and feel across different projects. It offers a polished and professional design out of the box. Foundation, on the other hand, aims for a more minimalist and natural design style, allowing developers to create unique designs without imposing a specific visual style. Tailwind CSS takes a utility-first approach, providing a highly customizable design system that can be adapted to any design style.
Learning Curve: Bootstrap offers extensive documentation and a large community, making it easier for developers to get started and find support. Its classes and structure are relatively straightforward, making it suitable for beginners. Foundation has a steeper learning curve compared to Bootstrap as it offers more flexibility and customization options. Tailwind CSS also has a learning curve due to its utility-first approach, but once mastered, it allows for faster development and more efficient code.
File Size: Bootstrap has a larger file size compared to Foundation and Tailwind CSS due to its extensive set of pre-designed components and styles. Foundation has a smaller file size as it follows a modular approach where developers can choose only the necessary components. Tailwind CSS has the smallest file size as it offers a utility-first approach and generates CSS dynamically based on the utility classes used in the project, resulting in minimal CSS bloat.
Community and Ecosystem: Bootstrap has a large and active community, with a vast number of themes, plugins, and resources available to developers. It has been widely adopted and is supported by many popular front-end tools. Foundation has a smaller community compared to Bootstrap but still offers a range of themes, plugins, and resources. Tailwind CSS has gained popularity in recent years, and while its ecosystem is growing, it may have a comparatively smaller community and fewer resources available compared to Bootstrap and Foundation.

In Summary, Bootstrap offers an opinionated design language, a manageable learning curve, and extensive community support. Foundation provides flexibility, customization, and a modular approach. Tailwind CSS excels in customization and offers a utility-first approach with a small file size. Choose the framework which best suits your project requirements and development preferences.

Advice on Bootstrap, Foundation, Tailwind CSS

Bridget

Full Stack Developer at Bridget Sarah

May 29, 2020

Decided

I do prefer to write things from scratch however when it came to wanting to jump-start the frontend, I found that it was taking me a lot longer hence why needing to use something very fast.

Bootstrap was the boom when it came out, I didn't like it, to be honest, set in its way and a pain to over-ride and in addition, you can tell from a distance if you're using boostrap and as everything looks the same.

I came across Tailwind CSS as I wanted more dynamic features, you could say, I've been now doing it for a few days and I love it a lot. I've been practising with the full stack part installed but I an't we wait until I do a new project, and I'll e able to select exactly what I want. Much faster.

681k views681k

Comments

Daniel

Frontend Developer at atSistemas

Jun 10, 2020

Needs adviceon

New Relic

Next.js

React

I'm building, from scratch, a webapp. It's going to be a dashboard to check on our apps in New Relic and update the Apdex from the webapp. I have just chosen Next.js as our framework because we use React already, and after going through the tutorial, I just loved the latest changes they have implemented.

But we have to decide on a CSS framework for the UI. I'm partial to Bulma because I love that it's all about CSS (and you can use SCSS from the start), that it's rather lightweight and that it doesn't come with JavaScript clutter. One of the things I hate about Bootstrap is that you depend on jQuery to use the JavaScript part. My boss loves UIkIt, but when I've used it in the past, I didn't like it.

What do you think we should use? Maybe you have another suggestion?

1.07M views1.07M

Comments

Kexin

Mar 4, 2021

Decided

I replaced Bootstrap with Material-UI during the front-end UI development, because Material-UI adopts a component-based importing style, making it suit well in a "React programming style". This makes me comfortable when programming because I can treat importing UI components as other React components I define.

281k views281k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Bootstrap	Foundation	Tailwind CSS
Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.	Foundation is the most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world. You can quickly prototype and build sites or apps that work on any kind of device with Foundation, which includes layout constructs (like a fully responsive grid), elements and best practices.	Tailwind is different from frameworks like Bootstrap, Foundation, or Bulma in that it's not a UI kit. It doesn't have a default theme, and there are no build-in UI components. It comes with a menu of predesigned widgets to build your site with, but doesn't impose design decisions that are difficult to undo.
Preprocessors: Bootstrap ships with vanilla CSS, but its source code utilizes the two most popular CSS preprocessors, Less and Sass. Quickly get started with precompiled CSS or build on the source.;One framework, every device: Bootstrap easily and efficiently scales your websites and applications with a single code base, from phones to tablets to desktops with CSS media queries.;Full of features: With Bootstrap, you get extensive and beautiful documentation for common HTML elements, dozens of custom HTML and CSS components, and awesome jQuery plugins.	Semantic: Everything is semantic. You can have the cleanest markup without sacrificing the utility and speed of Foundation.;Mobile First: You can build for small devices first. Then, as devices get larger and larger, layer in more complexity for a complete responsive design.;Customizable: You can customize your build to include or remove certain elements, as well as define the size of columns, colors, font size and more.;Professional: Millions of designers and developers depend on Foundation. Now we have business support, training and consulting to help grow your product or service.	No default theme; No build-in UI components; No opinion about how your site should look; Doesn't impose design decisions that you have to fight to undo; Comes with a menu of predesigned widgets to build your site with; Or offers a head start implementing a custom design with its own identity
Statistics
GitHub Stars 173.6K	GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 79.2K	GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 55.5K	Stacks 1.2K	Stacks 4.2K
Followers 13.2K	Followers 1.2K	Followers 3.1K
Votes 7.7K	Votes 740	Votes 244
Pros & Cons
Pros 1582 Responsiveness 1193 UI components 943 Consistent 779 Great docs 677 Flexible Cons 26 Javascript is tied to jquery 16 Every site uses the defaults 15 Grid system break points aren't ideal 14 Too much heavy decoration in default look 8 Verbose styles	Pros 160 Responsive grid 93 Mobile first 80 Open source 75 Semantic 72 Customizable Cons 5 Requires jQuery 4 Awful site	Pros 44 Highly customizable 33 Quick setup 30 Utility first styles, its amazing 24 Versatile 23 Great docs Cons 14 Priced 5 Cluttered html structure

What are some alternatives to Bootstrap, Foundation, Tailwind CSS?

Semantic UI

Semantic empowers designers and developers by creating a shared vocabulary for UI.

Materialize

A CSS Framework based on material design.

Material Design for Angular

Material Design is a specification for a unified system of visual, motion, and interaction design that adapts across different devices. Our goal is to deliver a lean, lightweight set of AngularJS-native UI elements that implement the material design system for use in Angular SPAs.

Material-UI

Material UI is a library of React UI components that implements Google's Material Design.

Blazor

Blazor is a .NET web framework that runs in any browser. You author Blazor apps using C#/Razor and HTML.

Quasar Framework

Build responsive Single Page Apps, SSR Apps, PWAs, Hybrid Mobile Apps and Electron Apps, all using the same codebase!, powered with Vue.

Nuxt.js

Nuxt.js presets all the configuration needed to make your development of a Vue.js application enjoyable. You can use Nuxt.js for SSR, SPA, Static Generated, PWA and more.

UIkIt

UIkit gives you a comprehensive collection of HTML, CSS, and JS components which is simple to use, easy to customize and extendable.

Vuetify

Vuetify is a component framework for Vue.js 2. It aims to provide clean, semantic and reusable components that make building your application a breeze. Vuetify utilizes Google's Material Design design pattern, taking cues from other popular frameworks such as Materialize.css, Material Design Lite, Semantic UI and Bootstrap 4.

Polymer

Polymer is a new type of library for the web, designed to leverage the existing browser infrastructure to provide the encapsulation and extendability currently only available in JS libraries. Polymer is based on a set of future technologies, including Shadow DOM, Custom Elements and Model Driven Views. Currently these technologies are implemented as polyfills or shims, but as browsers adopt these features natively, the platform code that drives Polymer evacipates, leaving only the value-adds.