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Material Design vs Material Design Lite

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Material Design
595
886
+ 1
14
Material Design Lite
690
394
+ 1
62
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Material Design vs Material Design Lite: What are the differences?

  1. Purpose: Material Design is a comprehensive design system that covers various platforms such as Android, iOS, and the web, providing a cohesive visual language for all. On the other hand, Material Design Lite is primarily focused on the web, offering web developers a set of guidelines and components to create websites with a Material Design look and feel.

  2. Components: Material Design includes a wide range of components, animations, and transitions to be used across different platforms, offering a rich user experience. In contrast, Material Design Lite features a smaller set of components tailored specifically for web development, providing a more lightweight option compared to the full Material Design system.

  3. Integration: Material Design can be seamlessly integrated into Android and iOS apps as well as web applications, ensuring a consistent design language across platforms. Material Design Lite, however, is specifically designed for web developers and integrates easily with existing websites, allowing for the quick adoption of Material Design principles on the web.

  4. Customization: While Material Design offers a comprehensive set of guidelines and components that can be customized to fit specific needs, Material Design Lite provides a more limited range of customization options, focusing on simplicity and ease of use for web developers.

  5. Performance: Material Design Lite is optimized for performance on the web, offering a lightweight framework that helps in reducing page load times and improving overall website performance. In contrast, Material Design, with its broader scope and more extensive set of features, may require more resources and have a potentially higher impact on performance.

  6. Community Support: Material Design has a larger community and ecosystem, with more resources, documentation, and support available for developers looking to implement the design system across different platforms. Material Design Lite, being a more specific tool for web development, has a smaller but dedicated community focused on web design and development.

In Summary, Material Design and Material Design Lite differ in their scope, components, integration, customization options, performance, and community support, catering to different needs in design and development.

Advice on Material Design and Material Design Lite
Ashish Sharma
Sr. UI Associate at Daffodil Software · | 5 upvotes · 721.6K views
Needs advice
on
BootstrapBootstrapMaterial DesignMaterial Design
and
Tailwind CSSTailwind CSS

I am a bit confused when to choose Bootstrap vs Material Design or Tailwind CSS, and why? I mean, in which kind of projects we can work with bootstrap/Material/Tailwind CSS? If the design is made up on the grid, we prefer bootstrap, and if flat design, then material design. Similarly, when do we choose tailwind CSS?

Any suggestion would be appreciated?

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Replies (4)
Luis Martinez-Suarez
| 4 upvotes · 287.5K views
Recommends
on
Tailwind CSSTailwind CSS
at

I don't know about material design.

You would go with Bootstrap if you want to prototype / build something without bothering about the design at all and you are OK if everything looks kinda template-y, using bootstrap out of the box components.

Go with Tailwind if you need a sleek design, a user interface where building with components will be important (because tailwind strongly favors component-based UI), and you know you will need to extend the built-in classes with your own (because tailwind is very easy to extend)

I would personally recommend tailwind over bootstrap any day of the week.

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Raj Chandrasekaran
| 4 upvotes · 298.1K views
Recommends
on
BootstrapBootstrapMaterial DesignMaterial DesignTailwind CSSTailwind CSS

Hi Ashish,

If you need minimal work to be done from your end and like most of the components / design available out of the box - go with Bootstrap. This is the oldest and has the widest adoption and a whole range of components built out by others.

If you like Material design, this is a good choice too. Please note that Bootstrap also has a Material theme, though it is not as native.

Both of these above frameworks are bulky and has more than what you may need.

If you like to build micro-components in a elegant way, TailwindCSS is the way to go.

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Drew Ronsman
| 2 upvotes · 183.2K views
Recommends
on
Tailwind CSSTailwind CSS

Tailwind is great you don't have to mess with naming things and it is so much more flexible than the cookie cutter bootstrap, but I don't know about material UI. I recommend tailwind it's super simple to learn and has great code snippets.

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Siwei Mu
| 1 upvotes · 172K views
Recommends
on
Tailwind CSSTailwind CSS

Put simply, you should use Tailwind regardless. It is a great addition to whatever you use because it removes the hassle of writing CSS.

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Decisions about Material Design and Material Design Lite
Ryan Wans
at Project Aeolus · | 3 upvotes · 213.8K views
Chose
Ant DesignAnt DesignBulmaBulma
over
BootstrapBootstrapMaterial DesignMaterial Design
at
()

Ant Design offers the most components with JS and CSS taken care of. They look clean, professional, and usable.

We paired this with Bulma for making the containers and structure reactive. Bulma (for react) make it easy to just add a section, container, and content and have it work on all platforms.

We also use Geist UI, though not recognized by Stack share, for its simple and modern feel. Highly recommend Geist if you want modern components for complicated UI's

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Pros of Material Design
Pros of Material Design Lite
  • 5
    They really set a new bar in design
  • 4
    An intuitive design
  • 3
    Simply, And Beautiful
  • 2
    Many great libraries
  • 0
    Composants
  • 23
    Material Design straight from the original creators
  • 11
    Based on bem philosophy
  • 9
    Nice animations
  • 7
    SCSS
  • 5
    Simple Material Design
  • 5
    Doesn't depend on JavaScript
  • 2
    Custom color palette generates CDN

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Material Design
Cons of Material Design Lite
  • 2
    Sometimes, it can hang the browser
    Be the first to leave a con

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is Material Design?

    Material Design is a unified system that combines theory, resources, and tools for crafting digital experiences.

    What is Material Design Lite?

    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.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use Material Design?
    What companies use Material Design Lite?
    Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
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    What tools integrate with Material Design?
    What tools integrate with Material Design Lite?
      No integrations found
      What are some alternatives to Material Design and Material Design Lite?
      Bootstrap
      Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.
      Flat UI
      Flat UI is a beautiful theme for Bootstrap. We have redesigned many of its components to look flat in every pixel.
      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.
      Material
      Express your creativity with Material, an animation and graphics framework for Google's Material Design and Apple's Flat UI in Swift.
      iOS
      It is the operating system that presently powers many of the mobile devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. It is designed to make your iPhone and iPad experience even faster, more responsive, and more delightful.
      See all alternatives

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