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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Front End Frameworks
  5. Bootstrap vs RactiveJS

Bootstrap vs RactiveJS

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Bootstrap
Bootstrap
Stacks57.4K
Followers13.2K
Votes7.7K
GitHub Stars173.6K
Forks79.2K
RactiveJS
RactiveJS
Stacks19
Followers26
Votes21
GitHub Stars5.9K
Forks395

Bootstrap vs RactiveJS: What are the differences?

Developers describe Bootstrap as "Simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and JS for popular UI components and interactions". Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web. On the other hand, RactiveJS is detailed as "Next-generation DOM manipulation". Ractive was originally created at theguardian.com to produce news applications. Ractive takes your Mustache templates and transforms them into a lightweight representation of the DOM – then when your data changes, it intelligently updates the real DOM.

Bootstrap belongs to "Front-End Frameworks" category of the tech stack, while RactiveJS can be primarily classified under "Templating Languages & Extensions".

Some of the features offered by Bootstrap are:

  • 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.

On the other hand, RactiveJS provides the following key features:

  • Ractive.js is a template-driven UI library, but unlike other tools that generate inert HTML, it transforms your templates into blueprints for apps that are interactive by default.
  • Two-way binding, animations, SVG support and more are provided out-of-the-box – but you can add whatever functionality you need by downloading and creating plugins.
  • Some tools force you to learn a new vocabulary and structure your app in a particular way. Ractive works for you, not the other way around – and it plays well with other libraries.

"Responsiveness" is the top reason why over 1544 developers like Bootstrap, while over 6 developers mention "Lightweight" as the leading cause for choosing RactiveJS.

Bootstrap and RactiveJS are both open source tools. It seems that Bootstrap with 134K GitHub stars and 66K forks on GitHub has more adoption than RactiveJS with 5.67K GitHub stars and 440 GitHub forks.

Spotify, Twitter, and Lyft are some of the popular companies that use Bootstrap, whereas RactiveJS is used by Teleport, LeVego, and Record Bird. Bootstrap has a broader approval, being mentioned in 7045 company stacks & 1115 developers stacks; compared to RactiveJS, which is listed in 5 company stacks and 8 developer stacks.

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Advice on Bootstrap, RactiveJS

Bridget
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
Daniel

Frontend Developer at atSistemas

Jun 10, 2020

Needs adviceonNew RelicNew RelicNext.jsNext.jsReactReact

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
Syed
Syed

Jul 16, 2020

Needs adviceonBootstrapBootstrapTailwind CSSTailwind CSS

I am planning to redesign my entire application, which is currently in Bootstrap. I heard about Tailwind CSS, and I think its really cool to work with. Is it okay if I use Bootstrap and Tailwind together? I can't remove Bootstrap altogether, as my application is using the js dependencies of Bootstrap, which I don't want to disturb.

739k views739k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Bootstrap
Bootstrap
RactiveJS
RactiveJS

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

Ractive was originally created at theguardian.com to produce news applications. Ractive takes your Mustache templates and transforms them into a lightweight representation of the DOM – then when your data changes, it intelligently updates the real DOM.

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.
Ractive.js is a template-driven UI library, but unlike other tools that generate inert HTML, it transforms your templates into blueprints for apps that are interactive by default.;Two-way binding, animations, SVG support and more are provided out-of-the-box – but you can add whatever functionality you need by downloading and creating plugins.;Some tools force you to learn a new vocabulary and structure your app in a particular way. Ractive works for you, not the other way around – and it plays well with other libraries.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
173.6K
GitHub Stars
5.9K
GitHub Forks
79.2K
GitHub Forks
395
Stacks
57.4K
Stacks
19
Followers
13.2K
Followers
26
Votes
7.7K
Votes
21
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
  • 8
    Lightweight
  • 5
    Virtual Dom
  • 4
    Easy one page app templating of data
  • 2
    Components
  • 2
    Data-binding
Integrations
No integrations available
Mustache
Mustache
Node.js
Node.js

What are some alternatives to Bootstrap, RactiveJS?

Foundation

Foundation

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.

Semantic UI

Semantic UI

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

Materialize

Materialize

A CSS Framework based on material design.

Material Design for Angular

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.

TypeScript

TypeScript

TypeScript is a language for application-scale JavaScript development. It's a typed superset of JavaScript that compiles to plain JavaScript.

Pug

Pug

This project was formerly known as "Jade." Pug is a high performance template engine heavily influenced by Haml and implemented with JavaScript for Node.js and browsers.

Material-UI

Material-UI

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

Blazor

Blazor

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

Quasar Framework

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

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.

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