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  5. Material Design Lite vs Material UI vs Semantic UI

Material Design Lite vs Material UI vs Semantic UI

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Semantic UI
Semantic UI
Stacks992
Followers1.5K
Votes673
GitHub Stars51.2K
Forks4.9K
Material-UI
Material-UI
Stacks2.7K
Followers3.7K
Votes445
Material Design Lite
Material Design Lite
Stacks697
Followers394
Votes62
GitHub Stars32.2K
Forks5.0K

Material Design Lite vs Material UI vs Semantic UI: What are the differences?

# Comparison of Material Design Lite, Material UI, and Semantic UI

Material Design Lite, Material UI, and Semantic UI are popular front-end frameworks that are widely used for designing user interfaces in web applications. Each framework has its own unique features and design principles. In this comparison, we will highlight key differences between Material Design Lite, Material UI, and Semantic UI.

1. **Component Library**:
Material Design Lite offers a limited set of components compared to Material UI and Semantic UI. Material UI provides a comprehensive library of pre-built React components that can be easily customized. Semantic UI offers a rich collection of UI components with unique styling options.

2. **Programming Language**:
Material Design Lite is primarily based on HTML/CSS and JavaScript, whereas Material UI is specifically designed for React applications. Semantic UI can be used with a variety of frameworks and languages, making it more flexible in terms of integration.

3. **Design Philosophy**:
Material Design Lite follows the Material Design guidelines by Google, focusing on minimalistic design and usability. Material UI also aligns with Material Design principles but offers more flexibility in customization. Semantic UI incorporates a theming system that allows for easy customization of design elements.

4. **Support and Updates**:
Material Design Lite has been deprecated by Google, which means there are no further updates or support. Material UI is actively maintained by the Material-UI team with regular updates and new features. Semantic UI also receives regular updates and has a strong community support.

5. **Community Adoption**:
Material Design Lite has lost popularity over the years due to lack of updates and support. Material UI has gained a strong following in the React community, making it a popular choice for React developers. Semantic UI has a loyal user base and is known for its ease of use and documentation.

6. **Integration with Third-Party Libraries**:
Material Design Lite lacks integration with third-party libraries, whereas Material UI has seamless integration with popular libraries like Redux and Apollo. Semantic UI also offers integrations with various libraries and tools, making it easier to work with different technologies.

In Summary, Material Design Lite, Material UI, and Semantic UI differ in terms of component library, programming language, design philosophy, support and updates, community adoption, and integration with third-party libraries.

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Advice on Semantic UI, Material-UI, Material Design Lite

Kexin
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
Kwasi
Kwasi

CTO

Feb 23, 2021

Review

You can choose between Angular Material or PrimeNG, if you have experience in integrating third party javascript libs you can use SemanticUI , Bootstrap or Foundation. All above UI Frameworks support side navigation with off page canavas implementation.

9.29k views9.29k
Comments
Xinyi
Xinyi

Software Developer at DCSIL

Oct 9, 2020

Decided

As our team will be building a web application, HTML5 and CSS3 are one of the standardized combinations to implement the structure and the styling of a webpage. Material-UI comes with all sorts of predesigned web components such as buttons and dropdowns that will save us tons of development time. Since it is a component library designed for React, it suits our needs. However, we do acknowledge that predesigned components may sometimes cause pains especially when it comes to custom styling. To make our life even easier, we also adopted Tailwind CSS. It is a CSS framework providing low-level utility classes that will act as building blocks when we create custom designs.

359k views359k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Semantic UI
Semantic UI
Material-UI
Material-UI
Material Design Lite
Material Design Lite

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

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

Material Design Lite (MDL) lets you add a Material Design look and feel to your static content websites. It doesn't rely on any JavaScript frameworks or libraries. Optimized for cross-device use, gracefully degrades in older browsers, and offers an experience that is accessible from the get-go.

Build Responsive Layouts Easier;Self Explanatory;Tag ambivalent;Powerful tools for expressing groups and collections;Portable and self-contained
Tables; Forms; Snackbars; Buttons; Theming
Blog template;Dashboard template;Text heavy webpage template; Stand alone article template;
Statistics
GitHub Stars
51.2K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
32.2K
GitHub Forks
4.9K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
5.0K
Stacks
992
Stacks
2.7K
Stacks
697
Followers
1.5K
Followers
3.7K
Followers
394
Votes
673
Votes
445
Votes
62
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 157
    Easy to use and looks elegant
  • 92
    Variety of components
  • 64
    Themes
  • 61
    Has out-of-the-box widgets i would actually use
  • 57
    Semantic, duh
Cons
  • 5
    Outdated build tool (gulp 3))
  • 3
    Poor accessibility support
  • 3
    HTML is not semantic (see list component)
  • 2
    Javascript is tied to jquery
Pros
  • 141
    React
  • 82
    Material Design
  • 60
    Ui components
  • 30
    CSS framework
  • 26
    Component
Cons
  • 36
    Hard to learn. Bad documentation
  • 29
    Hard to customize
  • 22
    Hard to understand Docs
  • 9
    Bad performance
  • 7
    For editable table component need to use material-table
Pros
  • 23
    Material Design straight from the original creators
  • 11
    Based on bem philosophy
  • 9
    Nice animations
  • 7
    SCSS
  • 5
    Doesn't depend on JavaScript
Integrations
AngularJS
AngularJS
React
React
Ember.js
Ember.js
Meteor
Meteor
React
React
Emotion
Emotion
Next.js
Next.js
styled-components
styled-components
Node.js
Node.js
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Semantic UI, Material-UI, Material Design Lite?

Bootstrap

Bootstrap

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

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.

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.

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.

UIkIt

UIkIt

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

Tailwind CSS

Tailwind CSS

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.

Ant Design

Ant Design

An enterprise-class UI design language and React-based implementation. Graceful UI components out of the box, base on React Component. A npm + webpack + babel + dora + dva development framework.

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