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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Front End Frameworks
  5. Material Design vs Polymer

Material Design vs Polymer

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Polymer
Polymer
Stacks557
Followers463
Votes122
GitHub Stars22.1K
Forks2.0K
Material Design
Material Design
Stacks594
Followers890
Votes14

Material Design vs Polymer: What are the differences?

What is Material Design? Google's Material Design. Material Design is a unified system that combines theory, resources, and tools for crafting digital experiences.

What is Polymer? A new library built on top of Web Components, designed to leverage the evolving web platform on modern browsers. 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.

Material Design and Polymer belong to "Front-End Frameworks" category of the tech stack.

"They really set a new bar in design" is the primary reason why developers consider Material Design over the competitors, whereas "Web components" was stated as the key factor in picking Polymer.

Polymer is an open source tool with 21.1K GitHub stars and 2K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Polymer's open source repository on GitHub.

According to the StackShare community, Polymer has a broader approval, being mentioned in 42 company stacks & 32 developers stacks; compared to Material Design, which is listed in 25 company stacks and 38 developer stacks.

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Advice on Polymer, Material Design

Gericke
Gericke

Jul 27, 2020

Needs adviceon.NET Core.NET CoreJavaScriptJavaScriptReactReact

Hi,

I am looking into solutions for reusable components for an existing #MVC project which is build on .NET Core. Currently some functionality is being reuses via JavaScript. I have React experience so I know I can create React components and then reference it on the MVC app. The only problem is I do not know the full extent of it as the current app uses a lot of 3rd party libraries, not sure how that will effect React components. I am currently looking into WebComponents which is also another way for creating reusable components and it is compatible with any JavaScript library based on what I have seen on the website. Also to take in consideration that it should cause a re-write of the system.

So my question is, to future-proof reusable components, which will be best React or Web Components? And which will be more reliable to use with 3rd party libraries?

49.1k views49.1k
Comments
Ashish
Ashish

Sr. UI Associate at Daffodil Software

Dec 29, 2020

Needs adviceonBootstrapBootstrapMaterial DesignMaterial DesignTailwind 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?

735k views735k
Comments
Raj
Raj

Jan 3, 2021

Review

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.

307k views307k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Polymer
Polymer
Material Design
Material Design

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.

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

Statistics
GitHub Stars
22.1K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
2.0K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
557
Stacks
594
Followers
463
Followers
890
Votes
122
Votes
14
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 52
    Web components
  • 30
    Material design
  • 14
    HTML
  • 13
    Components
  • 5
    Open source
Cons
  • 1
    Last version is like 2 years ago? that's totally rad
Pros
  • 5
    They really set a new bar in design
  • 4
    An intuitive design
  • 3
    Simply, And Beautiful
  • 2
    Many great libraries
  • 0
    Composants
Cons
  • 2
    Sometimes, it can hang the browser

What are some alternatives to Polymer, Material Design?

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.

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.

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.

UIkIt

UIkIt

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

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