When comparing Semantic UI vs Spectre, the Slant community recommends Semantic UI for most people. In the question“What is the best CSS framework?” Semantic UI is ranked 5th while Spectre is ranked 11th. The most important reason people chose Semantic UI is:
Uses semantic class names for its styling, making it easier to grasp and understand even for beginners looking to jump right in.
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Pros
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.
Pro Lightweight
Pro Clean
Very clean design compared to bootstrap.
Pro Responsive
Works well on any device.
Pro Mobile ready
Spectre can be used to create mobile websites easily. With all the regular built in elements (buttons, menus, grids etc).
Pro Simple
Contains only the basics, no extra fluff.
Pro Open source
Spectre is used through Github, and is open source.
Cons
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".
Con Not actively developed
