Do you use Bootstrap?

#discuss #css #html #webdev

John Oerter Dec 12, 2019 ・1 min read

Not long ago, it felt like every site and app in the world was built on top of Bootstrap. Now, it feels like there are a lot of other great options and even though Bootstrap is still very popular, I feel like new projects aren't using it as much. I'm curious if you're still using the framework - especially in a newer project and your reasons for or against Bootstrap usage.

Discussion (49)

Ash Klempton • Dec 14 '19

Nope , I am not using Bootstrap anymore and I don't think I will be going back anytime soon.

Reason:Because most Bootstrap sites look really cookie-cutter and also Because stuff is easy now. Back in the day when I used Bootstrap,it was primarily for the grid system that Bootstrap offered. This was when flexbox and css grid weren't a thing and the only way of creating good looking and responsive layouts was to use floats and percentages. This seemed way too much to do on your own when all you wanted was a simple responsive website.

Flexbox changed it though, and even more did css grid. Now in 2019 both modules are well supported in all major browsers and have really simplified the process of creating responsive layouts.

Now many may argue that Bootstrap provides way more than just a flexbox based grid system like various components and utility classes.
I agree to that but when I am creating a website , I would rather prefer to create the styling and components on my own than using a framework.

This may sound ridiculous, but this is a really practical way of learning html,css and javascript and once you have done this a few times, you kind of create a front end library of your own. So the next time you have to create a component like a navbar for a new project, you simply use your library.

There are few advantages to this, first you learn a lot and real,you improve your front-end skills. Second,you know exactly how everything works(stuff like which class does what) and third , there's no unrequired code, you only use those classes that you need to.

In the end, it's all about personal preference.I personally like to create styling from scratch as I feel it gives me some additional flexibility. Bootstrap does simplify styling a lot when creating prototypes but for a portfolio website for a client? I would rather go with a tailor-made website.

Sean • Jul 28 '20

If I wasn't so lazy I would have done exactly what you just proposed.

Patrik Kiss • Dec 12 '19 • Edited

Yes I'm using it.
Why? Because that's the only framework I know.

But I'm not using the entirety of it. Like many create a whole responsive website using nothing but Bootstrap, but I'm only using some of its classes, such as ones of display,margin,padding,background/text colors,width etc. So mostly the basics.

Although it's far from perfect, some classes should have much more variants, like w class has only 4: w-25|50|75|100.

For cases like this, I've created my own classes, like w-1|2|3..., or some break-point specific classes, like w-lg-1|2|3...

Also I created classes for positioning too, such as top-1|2|3.../top-md-1|2|3..., and so on.

John Oerter • Dec 12 '19

I see, so you're using the utility classes heavily. Do you use any of the components? What about the grid?

Patrik Kiss • Dec 13 '19 • Edited

Oh I do use some of the components, I totally forgot that. It's become so natural that I'm using them, that I've really forgot they are all bootstrap components.

They are really useful, especially the modals, those are my personal favourites. But I'm using MDB's enhanced(?) version of these components.

About the grid, I don't really use it.

keahie • Dec 14 '19

No, I don't use Bootstrap. Why? Because I like to build my own stuff and my own design. I'm also not the biggest fan of making everything similar. There should be a design different in different projects. The only thing I use is a self-made boilerplate for a grid system (responsive design)

Martin Omander • Dec 13 '19

I used to use Bootstrap, but the size and its dependency on jQuery made it feel increasingly clunky. Switched to Buefy, which has a cleaner API, results in smaller bundles, and implements Material Design.

Paulo • Dec 13 '19

Same here, I leave it when it went v4. I tend to use milligram.io/ clear and lean.

John Oerter • Dec 13 '19

That's true. I'm so glad there are projects like ng-bootstrap and react bootstrap that implement it without the need for jQuery

Manuel Ojeda • Dec 12 '19

I do.
Professionally speaking, because I can build fast forms with it. But personally I prefer using CSS Grid and Vanilla CSS (or Sass) instead of Bootstrap.

I started my web dev career using Bootstrap and in the last year when I learned a lot of CSS that make me analyse when I have to user Bootstrap and when not.

John Oerter • Dec 13 '19

Same here. I feel like the Bootstrap Grid can especially help out when a developer lacks a deep CSS knowledge. But once you know flexbox or CSS grid, the need for the Bootstrap Grid is diminished.

John Peters • Feb 11 '20

Our current project has gone BootStrap free. We are using the HTML 5 Grid exclusively for entire site. So far the progress has been boiled down into easily repeatable css markup like this:

.grid{
  display:grid;
  grid-template-columns:repeat(auto-fit, minmax(10em, 1fr));
  grid-template-rows:repeat(auto-fit, minmax(1em, 1fr));
  grid-column-gap: 1em;
}

Tips: use repeat whenever you can with auto-fit and minmax.
The first value in minmax dictates column widths or row heights.
Use right and left margins to anchor controls so they grow/shrink based on grid only.

We also found that just about every one of our components has it's own grid layout.
This means a single page could have as many as 5-10 grids. We have not seen any performance degradation.

It took us about 2 weeks to really understand the grid...

John Oerter • Feb 12 '20 • Edited

Nice! I use grid so infrequently right now that I feel like I have to relearn it every time I go to use it haha.

That sounds like a good solution.

John Peters • Feb 12 '20

One other nice feature is grid areas for strategic placement.

Centering is

justify-items: center
align-items: center

Mladen Mihajlović • Dec 17 '19

I make business oriented, private apps and use bootstrap and themes on top of bootstrap a lot. While designers might not like the cookie-cutter, sameness of the templates, it's a God send for business software where less design and more practicality is necessary...

Odunsi Joseph • Dec 13 '19

No, I don't.
I feel like I still need to know more CSS before using frameworks

John Oerter • Dec 13 '19

That's a good mentality to have, because a deep knowledge of CSS can help you know when and where to apply the CSS frameworks.

SJellen • Dec 12 '19

I’m using it for a portfolio project that basically has 50 similar pages and only the info and pictures really changed. It really fights you sometimes.

If I had to redo this project I don’t know if I’d use it, but there is a lot I would change.

John Oerter • Dec 12 '19

Interesting, where is it fighting you? Do you not like some of the default styles?

SJellen • Dec 12 '19

I’m an advanced beginner so I know little. And I’m mostly working with header and Jumbotron. But there is css that it overrides. So when you change something in css that it overrides it jerks(live server). Also it’s take a lot of hunting to find a specific element that I want to edit.
The default styles are great and that’s where I get hung up because I want the slick look but I want to change a highlight or a drop down and it turn into a hunt.
Its more about me than bootstrap though.

Brian Barrett • Dec 13 '19

I used to do web site la more often in the html3 and 4 days and would code my own CSS. I just learned bootstrap a month ago and my take is too use it as a reference tool or for tutorial/learning projects.
It does a lot prepackaged and that's great, if I want to do something serious or larger I like to look up their examples or classes I use often and copy those to my own CSS and make modifications.
It's great when you need it to work quick, but sometimes you need to "own" your code a little more

Tatiana • Dec 12 '19 • Edited

I am a learner, and I currently use it just to stay sharp because my current place of employment uses it (they're actually still on Bootstrap 3, for some reason! Huge relatively prestigious university.) and if I was to move to the Office of IT, I would need to know it. A lot of local job listings also request it. It helps when media queries are grinding my gears and I don't want to put a ton of effort into them.

John Oerter • Dec 12 '19

That's true, since it's so popular it's useful to be familiar with it for jobs.

Tanmay Naik • Dec 12 '19 • Edited

When I started learning web development, it used to be my go to framework for everything. But then somewhere down the line I started disliking it because of the uniform look it gave to everything I made.

Writing a lot of CSS all by yourself was also a pain, so when I had the option to pick between LESS and SASS, I went with SASS. It became a little easier with SASS but I eventually realized that even when using SASS, development time reduces significantly if you're trying to build a design system for every site you make. Bootstrap is helpful at times when you need to make a quick mockup to see how things work and how they'll look and design tools aren't cutting it.

TL;DR It's a matter of preference, useful in some cases and not so much in others.

John Oerter • Dec 12 '19

Yes, I agree. Bootstrap sites do tend to look the same, but for quick prototypes it can give you something nice looking pretty quickly.

Ben Sinclair • Dec 12 '19

No.
I'm not a front-end developer by profession, but for my own stuff, I avoid these non-semantic "frameworks" like the plague

Maroš Beťko • Dec 17 '19

For my earlier projects I was using Bootstrap almost everywhere but since I found out about css-in-js, MaterialUI ans StyledComponents, Bootstrap seems not compatible with the technology I like to use. Theming is only possible with SASS, it has this clunky jQuery dependency and also adding styles to bootstrap classes with StyledComponents was absolue css hell.

Corey McCarty • Dec 13 '19

I have a couple of static pages that I serve from GitHub Pages. I was initially using Bootstrap, but while I was working with someone in my local tech community on Slack, he pointed out how long my page load took due to my pulling Bootstrap in its entirety (and I was only making one small usage of being able to align multiple text blocks in a single row). He suggested Barebones framework, and that is perfectly capable, and you only need to include 3 css files in your project (NO CMS). I recently changed over to MaterializeCSS framework which is a bit bulkier than Barebones, but really easy to work with.

Eric Gruby • Dec 17 '19

Although me and my team are able to create things from scratch, we decided that is more productive to use frontend and backend frameworks/libraries.

I can start a project with Bootstap (or Bulma, Materialize, etc) and safely delegate tasks, because my team knows how to use it. We can also easily customize whatever we want with SCSS or Less, so the projects doesn't look the same everytime.

I have lots of fun crafting my own stuff for personal projects but, for work, in my humble opinion, frameworks are time savers :)

Florian Leitgeb • Dec 14 '19

Hello no, especially not because of all that Pyramide of doom container hell. Using bootstrap is like marrying without any possibility of getting divorced until you (the projects) dies. Bootstrap also missed the web elements band wagon. This framework is dead for me, because they need to support all those old projects. When I apply for a new job and they use bootstrap... I run.

Juan Carlos • Dec 13 '19

No.
Bulma or Spectre for me.

Omer Lahav • Dec 13 '19 • Edited

I do use it occasionally. I work with Wordpress a lot, so it sometimes helps.
Two months ago I had to make a landing page where I didn’t need to use JavaScript, so I tried mini.css which was great, both with its size and Grid support. And I have heard a lot about Tailwind so I’m thinking about using it in the future.

My real question for anyone around here: I saw at least one guy saying he’d rather not using it because of its jQuery dependency.
There’s a bootstrap version for each large JS library/framework:
React - react-bootstrap.github.io/
Angular - ng-bootstrap.github.io/#/home
VueJS - bootstrap-vue.js.org/

So what’s the real excuse?

John Oerter • Dec 13 '19

Yes! I use ng-bootstrap quite heavily and am really thankful for these projects that implement Bootstrap in the large JS frameworks.

Sean • Jul 28 '20

H to the E to the double L to the NOOOOOOO! Bootstrap is absolute garbage. I makes creating original and well done website difficult. Using Bootstrap might speed up the proccess but it only makes that output worse than it would have been if you'd only used vanilla CSS. I suggest BulmaCSS, TailwindCSS, even PaperCSS if you're desparate, if you're going towards utility-first Bootstrap just isn't the way to go.

Onur Şabanoğlu • Dec 12 '19

No I don't use bootstrap anymore, I have switched to tailwind, tailwind is at the beginning of the road but if it goes like this it will replace bootstrap.

John Oerter • Dec 12 '19

I've heard of Tailwind, but I haven't used it. It's a very interesting concept for sure!

PHPkiller • Dec 13 '19

I still use it in simple sites but if i want to make big script or make a site responsive i use purecss.io. it have 24 grid system unlike 12 in BS

Paul • Dec 16 '19

I'm still using it for work projects mainly because most of my team are back-end folks and don't know how to properly style pages without it.

Nuno Lemos • Dec 12 '19

Yap, Bootstrap and Ant Design for react components

SANDIP ROY • Dec 13 '19

Yes I use it. I also use semantic ui. Basically, I like the simplicity of bootstrap while the advanced features of semantic ui impressed me.

Gerry Danen • Dec 14 '19

Yes, for the simple reason that there are no dependencies to worry about.

Douglas Horne • Dec 14 '19

I used to, at work.

owaisakber • Dec 14 '19

I moved to materialize by google.

saharso • Dec 14 '19

In the age of flex and grid, I find it unnecessary. So I don't use it, nor any other css framework. I do adhare to css design patterns such as BEM and SMACSS.