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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Front End Frameworks
  5. Bootstrap vs Primer vs Topcoat

Bootstrap vs Primer vs Topcoat

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Bootstrap
Bootstrap
Stacks57.4K
Followers13.2K
Votes7.7K
GitHub Stars173.6K
Forks79.2K
Topcoat
Topcoat
Stacks3
Followers13
Votes15
GitHub Stars4.2K
Forks368
Primer
Primer
Stacks12
Followers53
Votes7

Bootstrap vs Primer vs Topcoat: What are the differences?

# Introduction

1. **Grid System**: Bootstrap uses a responsive, mobile-first grid system with a 12-column layout, while Primer uses an 8-point grid system with variable column widths. Topcoat, on the other hand, does not provide a built-in grid system.
2. **Customization**: Bootstrap offers a wide range of pre-built components and customization options, making it suitable for quick prototyping. Primer focuses on simplicity and minimalism, providing a basic set of components without overwhelming customization. Topcoat provides a streamlined set of UI components with minimal CSS, focusing on performance and speed.
3. **Styling Philosophy**: Bootstrap follows a more traditional design approach with ready-to-use styles and components, aiming for consistency and familiarity in web design. Primer emphasizes clarity and readability through simple styles and typography choices, prioritizing accessibility and user experience. Topcoat focuses on a clean and modern design aesthetic, with minimalistic styles and a focus on functionality over ornamentation.
4. **Community and Support**: Bootstrap has a large and active community, offering extensive documentation, tutorials, and plugins. Primer, as an official GitHub project, benefits from GitHub's resources and community engagement. Topcoat, being a smaller project, may have limited community support and resources compared to Bootstrap and Primer.
5. **Modularity**: Bootstrap's CSS is heavily interconnected, making it challenging to cherry-pick or override specific styles without affecting other components. Primer and Topcoat follow a more modular approach, with independent stylesheets for different components, allowing for easier customization and maintenance.
6. **Browser Support**: Bootstrap has broader browser compatibility, including support for older versions of Internet Explorer. Primer and Topcoat may focus more on modern browsers and technologies, potentially sacrificing compatibility with outdated or less common browsers for faster performance and streamlined code.

In Summary, Bootstrap, Primer, and Topcoat offer distinct approaches to web design, catering to different preferences and priorities in terms of styling, customization, and community support.

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Advice on Bootstrap, Topcoat, Primer

Bridget
Bridget

Full Stack Developer at Bridget Sarah

May 29, 2020

Decided

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.

681k views681k
Comments
Daniel
Daniel

Frontend Developer at atSistemas

Jun 10, 2020

Needs adviceonNew RelicNew RelicNext.jsNext.jsReactReact

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?

1.07M views1.07M
Comments
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

Detailed Comparison

Bootstrap
Bootstrap
Topcoat
Topcoat
Primer
Primer

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

TopCoat is made up of base controls, platform specific styles, themes and a build script to stitch them all together.

Primer is the basecoat of GitHub, made by nerds just like you who share a passion for HTML and CSS.

Preprocessors: Bootstrap ships with vanilla CSS, but its source code utilizes the two most popular CSS preprocessors, Less and Sass. Quickly get started with precompiled CSS or build on the source.;One framework, every device: Bootstrap easily and efficiently scales your websites and applications with a single code base, from phones to tablets to desktops with CSS media queries.;Full of features: With Bootstrap, you get extensive and beautiful documentation for common HTML elements, dozens of custom HTML and CSS components, and awesome jQuery plugins.
Components Galore; Themeable;BEM Architecture;Even our font is open source;Icons how you want them;PSD included;Available via CDN
-
Statistics
GitHub Stars
173.6K
GitHub Stars
4.2K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
79.2K
GitHub Forks
368
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
57.4K
Stacks
3
Stacks
12
Followers
13.2K
Followers
13
Followers
53
Votes
7.7K
Votes
15
Votes
7
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 1582
    Responsiveness
  • 1193
    UI components
  • 943
    Consistent
  • 779
    Great docs
  • 677
    Flexible
Cons
  • 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
Pros
  • 3
    Open source
  • 3
    Backed by Adobe
  • 2
    Themeable
  • 2
    Pretty
  • 1
    Clean
Pros
  • 4
    simple
  • 2
    Pretty
  • 1
    Maintained by GitHub

What are some alternatives to Bootstrap, Topcoat, Primer?

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.

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.

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