Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material-UI

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

Bootstrap

57.4K
13K
+ 1
7.7K
Foundation

1.2K
1.2K
+ 1
740
Material-UI

2.6K
3.6K
+ 1
441

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Bootstrap, Foundation, and Material UI are popular front-end frameworks used to create responsive websites. While they serve the same purpose, they have some key differences that set them apart from each other.

Key differences between Bootstrap, Foundation, and Material UI: 1. Grid System: Bootstrap provides a powerful 12-column grid system that allows for flexible and responsive layouts. Foundation also offers a similar grid system with customization options. However, Material UI does not have a built-in grid system and relies on CSS Grid or Flexbox for layout design.

  1. Design Philosophy: Bootstrap focuses on providing a ready-to-use set of UI components and styles that follow a consistent design language. Foundation, on the other hand, emphasizes flexibility and customization, allowing developers to build unique designs. Material UI follows Google's Material Design principles, offering a visually appealing and intuitive interface.

  2. Component Library: Bootstrap offers a comprehensive library of pre-designed UI components, such as buttons, forms, and navigation bars, making it easy for developers to quickly build websites. Foundation also provides a wide range of components but offers more customization options. Material UI has a rich collection of React components designed following the Material Design guidelines.

  3. Documentation and Community Support: Bootstrap and Foundation both have extensive documentation and a large community of developers contributing to their growth. Material UI has a well-documented API reference and an active community, mainly focused on React developers.

  4. Browser Compatibility: Bootstrap is known for its wide browser compatibility, supporting older versions of popular browsers. Foundation also supports a wide range of browsers, but may have limited compatibility with older versions. Material UI is designed to work with modern browsers and may require polyfills for older browsers.

  5. Integration with Frameworks: Bootstrap and Foundation can be used with any web framework or development stack, making them versatile choices. Material UI, on the other hand, is primarily designed for use with React and has deeper integration with the React ecosystem.

In summary, Bootstrap provides a ready-to-use collection of UI components with a focus on consistency, while Foundation offers flexibility and customization options. Material UI follows Google's Material Design principles, offering a visually appealing interface primarily for React developers.

Advice on Bootstrap, Foundation, and Material-UI
Needs advice
on
Material-UIMaterial-UI
and
reactstrapreactstrap

My React website is a simple 5-pager that attaches to a database to store and display registrations and other data. The user (small user base) can change any form elements, but I don't need theme-ing, though that would be fun for the user. reactstrap/react-bootstrap built on Bootstrap 4 sounds dated. I am familiar with reactstrap, but a friend said to try Material-UI. The thought of learning it is interesting, but somehow I think it might be overkill. So... reactstrap, react-bootstrap, or Material UI, which should I use?

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Replies (8)

MaterialUI may be overkill for such a simple project, you're right. So I'm recommending both tools in this StackShare form.

But if it's planned to increase the project, consider migrating it to MUI in advance. Among its pros I can name: - brilliant TS support - all popular use cases covered - well documented - backed by sponsors == will live and be maintained

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Recommends
on
Material-UIMaterial-UI

I recommend Material-UI for a couple reasons. 1. It’s very easy to throw MUI into React. You can essentially just import the components you need in place of yours. Effectively, for a button, for example, you can swap out <button for MUI’s <Button and you can be done if that’s all you want. Looks great, no hassle, and they have simple guides to help you make good UI decisions on top of that. 2. It’s pretty up-to-date, and it has great docs. I use MUI all the time, and if I were doing a simple, small user-base app, I would definitely use it for the sake of convenience and speed of development.

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Robert Smith
Tech Delivery Manager at self · | 2 upvotes · 31.2K views
Recommends

I've used material UI and had great success with it on React projects. Semantic UI is also another great option https://semantic-ui.com/.

When you say its "overkill", I would think long term. I do a lot of small projects not only for the purpose of the project, but also for learning, future projects and to use professionaly. It's a long-term investment.

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Recommends
on
Material-UIMaterial-UI

Much more modern in terms on support for css in js. But go for v5 not v4 as material-ui is going through a transition in term of its own implementation

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Recommends
on
Material-UIMaterial-UI

Material-UI looks great and is easy to use. Highly recommended, my favourite UI framework for React.

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Flavio Ribeiro
REACT DEVELOPER at Beblue · | 1 upvotes · 31.2K views
Recommends
on
Material-UIMaterial-UI

Material-UI is the good choice for a small project. It's fast for development, maintenance, and is ready to use. It HaveMaterial-UI is the good choice for a small project. It's fast for development, maintenance, and is ready to use. Has an excellent documentation with pratic examples.

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Malik Bagwala
Front-end Developer at Vesatogo Innovations · | 1 upvotes · 31.4K views
Recommends
on
Chakra UIChakra UI

Chakra UI seems like the perfect fit in my opinion. It has a much powerful design system, all the necessary components and it is dead simple to learn. And pretty easy to customize too.

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Recommends

It's totally the design decision if you like to follow bootstrap design then you should go for reactstrap. But if you want to follow google material design then you should go for material ui.

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Needs advice
on
Ant DesignAnt DesignMaterial-UIMaterial-UI
and
Next.jsNext.js

Hi, I start building an admin dashboard with next.js and looking for a frontend framework ( components ready ). So I end up with Ant Design and Material-UI, but I never built a project with these two.

Here is a list of my requirements.

  1. Good documentation.
  2. easy CRUD ( date picker and date range picker bundled )
  3. built-in multi-lang feature or Great 3rd library support
  4. Admin dashboard template
  5. well code maintenance

Which is better for the long run?

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Replies (2)
Recommends

I'm using both of them. But If you want to create admin dashboard, You should try AntDesign. They (Alibaba / Taobao) created a group of UI libaries to create admin dashboard. It's production ready. https://procomponents.ant.design/en-US/components/table https://pro.ant.design/docs/layout In my opinion, If you want to create a dashboard with mobile first / simple dashboard, you can choice material ui. otherwise, antdesign is better (if you want focus on desktop /tablet ui). Some of skeleton has built with material ui such as react-admin is good point to start. But if you want to create admin site with antdesign, I think you should build with umijs (it is alternative and compatible with nextjs and antd support directlly)

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Irving Caamal
Mid Level Software Engineer at Fullstacklabs · | 2 upvotes · 113.2K views
Recommends

https://github.com/uber/baseweb I highly recommend you baseweb, it's easy and very customizable and also beautiful.

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Ashish Sharma
Sr. UI Associate at Daffodil Software · | 5 upvotes · 666.9K views

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)

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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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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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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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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Needs advice
on
BootstrapBootstrap
and
Tailwind 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.

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Replies (3)
Ivo Pereira

Factually talking about systems, we gotta make two bold headlines about each one: Bootstrap has been around for a while, has a vast community and much probably will not be gone in a while. Tailwind in the other hand, is the trendy framework starting from the past year. Referring to UI, I really prefer Tailwind, however I can't ignore the fact that a lot of libraries that emerged felt short in the end after a few years (a point where Bootstrap kept his status).

You are able to use both them together but I advise you — it will be a mess. And you gotta hope that you won't have any kind of conflicts between class naming and other general styling.

My recommendation would be to use one and only one. Perhaps rebuild the UI with a specific framework in mind, otherwise you will start to workaround things of both frameworks to contradict each other - and your team (if you work with one) will hate you.

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Arslan Ameer
Sr. Software Engineer at Forenax Technologies · | 5 upvotes · 586.8K views
Recommends
on
BootstrapBootstrap

You might have heard about bootstrap 5. Bootstrap is now totally jQuery free. i have tried foundation and bulma too. but eventually fall again for bootstrap, as it is most convenient and stable. i use bootstrap with less or sass.

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Barry Hylton
Recommends
on
BootstrapBootstrap

I use both of these regularly. If you're going to have to use Bootstrap due to your js dependencies, stick with Bootstrap. I actually prefer Tailwind, but trying to use both of them and make them "play nice" feels like making things more complex with no real benefit.

EDIT: Sorry for the late response, I just noticed how old this is. StackShare sent me this in an email for some reason so I assumed it was relatively fresh.

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Daniel Hernández Alcojor
Frontend Developer at atSistemas · | 8 upvotes · 988.1K views
Needs advice
on
BootstrapBootstrapBulmaBulma
and
UIkItUIkIt

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?

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Replies (7)
Recommends
on
UIkItUIkIt

I have used bulma in several projects. We could not customize with the websites very well. Also when we need "quick solutions" Bulma is not suitable (I mean basic animations, to-top buttons, transparent navbar solutions etc. For these solutions, you need extra js codes).

Everybody knows about Bootstrap (heavy but popular).

Now we start a new project with UI kit, I like it. Pros: It is fast and lightweight and imho it has very good UI. Cons: Small community. Documentation.

Check this link for kick-off. https://github.com/zzseba78/Kick-Off

Maybe it is helpful.

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Damien Lucchese
Recommends
on
BulmaBulma

Been checking out Bulma, myself, and really dig it. I like that it's a great base level jumping off point. You can get a layout going with it, pretty quickly, and then customize as you want. It definitely sounds like it's the one you're leaning towards but a big factor would be who will be using it most? Your boss, yourself, others? Whichever you like best, you'll prob be most productive with but if in the end your boss says it has to be UIkit, then best to be open-minded and give it another shot. Sometimes you may not jive with new tools in your stack, at first, but then they can become tools you learn to love. Best to you in your decision! Take care & keep safe.

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Recommends
on
DiezDiez

I've moved away from the concept of UI kits. Not that many support CSS grid. A lot of the icons are easier to use in SVG. I've had success in the concept of design framework and design tokens. I build my brand identity in Figma, and extract in Diez. Then Diez integrates into React and SASS. Much easier because design is decoupled from software in a central authority, and software updates automatically from design changes.

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Recommends
on
BulmaBulma

Honestly - pick whatever you are the most comfortable with. You can achieve almost the same effects with different tools, so why not use something I like using?

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Recommends

I used UIKit and Bootstrap many times. I love Bootstrap for fast, easy layouts to web apps. Clean code, easiest and fastest way to write layouts for front end if you learned something before about Bootstrap. Now in React I use React-Boostrap too. About UIKit I can say its nice idea. It's easier than Bootstrap. This is good option for trainee developer to learn how u should create layout of your website, but for me UIKit have not enough functions. If you need to create something complicated, u have an error in your mind. You must create amazing code combinations for UIKit where in Bootstrap in the same ideas you have easy solutions.

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Tomer Fishaimer
Frontend Architect at Aqua Security · | 2 upvotes · 536K views
Recommends
on
Tailwind CSSTailwind CSS

Actually it really depends on your needs, there are 3 types of UI frameworks you can use:

  1. A complete set of UI components like: https://react-bulma.dev/en/getting-started.

    Pros:

    Having a lot of pre-built UI components saves a lot of time

    Cons:

    need to learn the react framework and the bulma styles, and it's harder to customize to your needs

  2. A pure css framework, like Bulma, where you write all the components yourself.

    Pros:

    A lot of flexibility to build the components you need

    Cons:

    You are bound to Bulma classes and markup.

    Takes more time since you need to build the components

  3. A utility class framework like: https://tailwindcss.com/.

Pros:

Most flexible, mix and match classes as you like and build your own markup

Very easy to customize to your needs

Cons:

Might take time to get used to and takes more time since you need to build the components

If you choose options one, then it's just a matter of deciding what style you like (material,ant, bulma) and go with the library that implements it If you go with pure css and build your own components, I can't recommend tailwind enough, I've been finding myself building entire pages without writing a single line of css.

And if later on, the designer wants to make a change to some color, or size, I just need to change one value in the config file, and the entire app is updated.

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Needs advice
on
BootstrapBootstrapTailwind CSSTailwind CSS
and
UIkItUIkIt

We are re-modifying the existing portal to the new one. Looking out for a CSS framework where over-rides are possible, the performance of page loading, extendable, etc Please suggest between tailwind, UIkit and bootstrap frameworks explaining in detail on different factors. I request your help on the same.

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Replies (2)
Collins Ogbuzuru
Front-end dev at Evolve credit · | 3 upvotes · 549.5K views
Recommends
on
Tailwind CSSTailwind CSS

Hey Sai, My thoughts on UIkit - It's beautiful, fast, and it has good animation too. Why would I choose it ? Nothing other than giving the internet a new look .

My thoughts on Bootstrap - it's beautiful, if used well. It's very fast and has clean class naming convention unlike Uikit. Why I would choose it ? It's been tested and trusted, I can find a whole lot of resources and a community around it. Also with the type of project you working on I bet Bootstrap would do the job .

Now, considering Tailwind, it's seen as a classic, simple-to-set-up tool with clean utilities. I wouldn't think of tailwind the way I would to Bootstrap or UIkit. What do I mean ? Tailwind is more like a tool set to create your own design flow. Tailwind allows you to build unique design elements, offering you a level of customization that may be unmatched by the other frameworks.

My final thoughts.

If you have the time , setup and use tailwind it will give you a great chance when it comes to customization and performance.

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Brett Stevenson
Recommends
on
BootstrapBootstrap

I'm a big proponent of Tailwind and I personally use it whenever I get the chance, mostly because it's not really a UI-kit, but it sounds like in this case a UI-kit like Bootstrap with pre-defined components is more what you are looking for. Bootstrap is (relatively) extendable and overridable and makes it really simple to make a decent looking UI using a handful of pre-defined classes, whereas with Tailwind you configure the classes and create your own components. My main reason for replacing Bootstrap in my workflow is that it feels like the component creation has become so abstracted from the developer that any meaningful customization becomes a chore, resulting in many websites having the generic "Bootstrap-look". Nonetheless, it is effective for creating a pleasant and responsive UI. Though, I don't have any experience with UIkit.

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Decisions about Bootstrap, Foundation, and Material-UI
Ryan Wans

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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Kexin Lin
at University of Toronto · | 8 upvotes · 261.5K views

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.

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Xinyi Liu
Software Developer at BigClarity · | 6 upvotes · 335K views

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.

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Bridget Sarah
Full Stack Developer at Bridget Sarah · | 10 upvotes · 637K views

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.

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Fonts and typography are fun. Material Design is a framework (developed by Google) that basically geeks out on how to assemble your typographical elements together into a design language. If you're into fonts and typography, it's fantastic. It provides a theming engine, reusable components, and can pull different user interfaces together under a common design paradigm. I'd highly recommend looking into Borries Schwesinger's book "The Form Book" if you're going to be working with Material UI or are otherwise new to component design.

https://www.amazon.com/Form-Book-Creating-Printed-Online/dp/0500515085

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Pros of Bootstrap
Pros of Foundation
Pros of Material-UI
  • 1.6K
    Responsiveness
  • 1.2K
    UI components
  • 943
    Consistent
  • 779
    Great docs
  • 677
    Flexible
  • 472
    HTML, CSS, and JS framework
  • 411
    Open source
  • 375
    Widely used
  • 368
    Customizable
  • 242
    HTML framework
  • 77
    Easy setup
  • 77
    Mobile first
  • 77
    Popular
  • 58
    Great grid system
  • 52
    Great community
  • 38
    Future compatibility
  • 34
    Integration
  • 28
    Very powerful foundational front-end framework
  • 24
    Standard
  • 23
    Javascript plugins
  • 19
    Build faster prototypes
  • 18
    Preprocessors
  • 14
    Grids
  • 9
    Good for a person who hates CSS
  • 8
    Clean
  • 4
    Rapid development
  • 4
    Easy to setup and learn
  • 4
    Love it
  • 3
    Great and easy to use
  • 2
    Powerful grid system, Rapid development, Customization
  • 2
    Boostrap
  • 2
    Devin schumacher rules
  • 2
    Community
  • 2
    Provide angular wrapper
  • 2
    Great and easy
  • 2
    Great customer support
  • 2
    Popularity
  • 2
    Clean and quick frontend development
  • 2
    Great and easy to make a responsive website
  • 2
    Sprzedam opla
  • 2
    Easy to use
  • 1
    Not tied to jQuery
  • 1
    Responsive design
  • 1
    Love the classes?
  • 1
    Painless front end development
  • 1
    Design Agnostic
  • 1
    So clean and simple
  • 1
    Numerous components
  • 1
    Recognizable
  • 1
    Intuitive
  • 1
    Material-ui
  • 1
    Felxible, comfortable, user-friendly
  • 1
    Poop
  • 1
    Pre-Defined components
  • 1
    It's fast
  • 1
    Geo
  • 1
    The fame
  • 1
    Easy setup2
  • 160
    Responsive grid
  • 93
    Mobile first
  • 80
    Open source
  • 75
    Semantic
  • 72
    Customizable
  • 52
    Quick to prototype
  • 50
    Simple ui
  • 45
    Fast
  • 44
    Best practices
  • 39
    Easy setup
  • 6
    Neutral style
  • 6
    HTML, SCSS and JS
  • 5
    Accessibility support
  • 5
    Professional
  • 3
    Xy grid
  • 2
    Sass
  • 2
    Every new version is smaller, smarter & more efficient
  • 1
    Robust
  • 141
    React
  • 82
    Material Design
  • 60
    Ui components
  • 30
    CSS framework
  • 25
    Component
  • 14
    Looks great
  • 12
    Responsive
  • 12
    Good documentation
  • 9
    LESS
  • 8
    Ui component
  • 7
    Open source
  • 6
    Code examples
  • 6
    Flexible
  • 5
    JSS
  • 3
    Angular
  • 3
    Very accessible
  • 3
    Fun
  • 3
    Supports old browsers out of the box
  • 2
    Typescript support
  • 2
    # of components
  • 2
    Interface
  • 2
    Designed for Server Side Rendering
  • 1
    Support for multiple styling systems
  • 1
    Css
  • 1
    Easy to work with
  • 1
    Accessibility

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of Bootstrap
Cons of Foundation
Cons of Material-UI
  • 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
  • 1
    Super heavy
  • 5
    Requires jQuery
  • 4
    Awful site
  • 34
    Hard to learn. Bad documentation
  • 27
    Hard to customize
  • 20
    Hard to understand Docs
  • 7
    Bad performance
  • 6
    Extra library needed for date/time pickers
  • 6
    For editable table component need to use material-table
  • 1
    Typescript Support
  • 0
    # of components

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

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What is Bootstrap?

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

What is 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.

What is Material-UI?

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

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

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What are some alternatives to Bootstrap, Foundation, and Material-UI?
Semantic UI
Semantic empowers designers and developers by creating a shared vocabulary for UI.
jQuery
jQuery is a cross-platform JavaScript library designed to simplify the client-side scripting of HTML.
Material
Express your creativity with Material, an animation and graphics framework for Google's Material Design and Apple's Flat UI in Swift.
React
Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.
Material Design
Material Design is a unified system that combines theory, resources, and tools for crafting digital experiences.
See all alternatives