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Add to SafariWhen comparing Bootstrap vs Semantic UI, the Slant community recommends Bootstrap for most people. In the question“What is the best CSS framework?” Bootstrap is ranked 2nd while Semantic UI is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Bootstrap is:
The grid layout with the predefined CSS elements and JavaScript components make it easier to have consistency across different browser versions and even different devices.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Consistency across browsers
The grid layout with the predefined CSS elements and JavaScript components make it easier to have consistency across different browser versions and even different devices.
Pro Responsive design philosophy
Bootstrap is developed to be instantly compatible with all sizes of screens, so you don't have to worry about which device the user is accessing your site from. Yet if you prefer, you can disable responsiveness of Bootstrap.
Pro Well documented
Documentation is thorough, well organized and full of live examples and templates ready for use. Every component and every part of the framework is explained and covered in depth.
Pro Custom builds
If you don't want to download the full Bootstrap framework. Custom builds of Bootstrap can be created, including only the desired CSS, CSS components, and JavaScript components. This can be done directly from the Bootstrap website by simply choosing what components to download.
Pro Designed to get a site running quickly
Bootstrap is designed to get a site up and running quickly. Each of it's components is pre-configured to help with getting a site up and running quickly.
Pro Great community
Bootstrap is very popular and has a large community. As a result of this it is much easier to find help with anything you might need. This also gives you a treasure trove of prebuilt components to use and add to your site.
Pro Supports responsive embeds
Allows easily adding responsiveness to <iframe>, <embed>, and <object> elements.
Pro Easily make professional looking websites
Bootstrap makes it easy to learn how to make professional looking websites. It can even make code junkies semi-enjoy design.
Pro Customizable
Bootstrap can be customized in a variety of ways. Either by overriding the default CSS styles with new CSS styles or by editing the .scss Bootstrap files.
Pro A wide variety of themes available
To help you avoid the "Bootstrap look", there are many resources that provide a great selection of themes and templates for Bootstrap.
Pro One of the most popular ones
Ranked on GitHub as the most starred CSS repository.
Pro It's semantic
Uses semantic class names for its styling, making it easier to grasp and understand even for beginners looking to jump right in.
Pro Load only the components you need
The whole Semantic-UI package is well organized, with every component neatly set up with it's own stylesheet and JavaScript file. This way you can load only the components you need for each page, minimizing the load time and file size.
Pro The elements offer a huge amount of customization, far beyond a framework like bootstrap
Pro Beautifully designed
Semantic UI has a futuristic and beautiful design. Many will satisfied with the design, especially when Semantic UI is used as a CSS framework.
Pro It'll have almost any UI component/element you may think of for your project
It includes tons of UI components that you may need for almost any type of project you may work on; And of course, you can always only pick what you need.
Pro Well documented
The documentation is easy to use, well written and has lots of examples each with their source codes.
Pro Easy to use
Just start code from the beginning of the journey, from first page of documentation.
Cons
Con Large file size out of the box
Bootstrap has an out-of-the box filesize of ~276K, which is pretty large considering it's just CSS. Most of those styles aren't even used in 90% of web pages built with Bootstrap. By only including the required styles it can be trimmed by 70%-75%.
Con Too many classes
Bootstrap's over-reliance on HTML classes for styling can get very messy very quickly. There's also an overabundance of DOM elements which have a lot of classes and are more often than not nested inside DOM elements with even more classes. This gets problematic down the line because the maintainability of the project gets harder when the project starts to get large.
Con Websites can start to look the same
If the initial Bootstrap colors and styles are not changed or edited, different websites start looking the same even if they have nothing to do with each other and they are made by different developers.
Con Hard to customise
It's quite hard to customise Bootstrap using pre-processors like SASS and LESS, the only real flexibility is with typography and colours.
Con Large font sizes
Con Large file size
Packages are much bigger when comparing to Twitter Bootstrap or Zurb Foundation. Semantic UI is really extremely large and it would be better to use specific modules and components, rather than the whole thing.
Con Not maintained anymore
Use Fomantic-UI instead.
Con Buggy
Contains a lot of UI inaccuracies, like wrong positioning, cannot mix classes, etc.
Con Not for beginner developer/unfamiliar with Javascript
Many features in Semantic UI uses Javascript customization such as for Modal. This is unlike Bootstrap that can add Modal just with customizing the HTML attributes. Developers who plan to using Semantic UI must be familiar with Javascript or JQuery to get the most out of it.
Con Small number of classes
Once you wanna do something that is not mentioned in the doc - prepare to spend an hour, then give up and implement a custom "workaround".
