Difference Between Bootstrap and CSS
Have you ever wondered about the differences between CSS and Bootstrap? While CSS provides the foundation for web styling, offering unlimited customization, Bootstrap simplifies web development with ready-to-use components, trading some of CSS's flexibility for speed and consistency. Let's understand more!
CSS is a foundational technology that allows developers to style and layout web pages, offering the ultimate control over the presentation aspects such as colours, fonts, spacing, and responsiveness. Bootstrap, on the other hand, is a framework built on top of CSS, providing a set of pre-designed components and a grid system to accelerate the development process. In this blog, we will understand the differences between them in detail!
Table of Content
Best-suited Web Development courses for you
Learn Web Development with these high-rated online courses
Difference Between Bootstrap and CSS
Below is a table of differences between Bootstrap and CSS.
| Aspect |
Bootstrap |
CSS |
| Definition |
Bootstrap is a front-end framework designed to help developers quickly create mobile-first, responsive websites. |
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in HTML or XML. |
| Usage |
Used for developing responsive and mobile-first websites with a set of predefined CSS and JavaScript components. |
It is used to style and layout web pages, for example, changing the font, colour, size, and spacing of content, splitting it into multiple columns, or adding animations and other decorative features. |
| Learning Curve |
Has a steeper learning curve for absolute beginners, as it requires basic knowledge of CSS (and optionally HTML & JavaScript) to use the framework effectively. |
CSS is fundamental to web development, and understanding it is crucial for styling web pages. It can be simpler to learn from scratch, but mastering it takes time. |
| Customization |
Offers extensive customization options through predefined classes and components, but extensive customizations can increase complexity. |
Allows for complete customization from the ground up, providing the flexibility to create unique designs without predefined components. |
| Speed of Development |
Enables rapid development of layouts and components, making it ideal for projects with tight deadlines. |
Developing unique designs from scratch can be time-consuming compared to using a framework like Bootstrap. |
| Flexibility and Control |
While Bootstrap provides a robust grid system and responsive design out-of-the-box, it might limit fine-grained control over the design due to its predefined components. |
Offers full control over the styling of web pages, allowing for detailed and specific designs without the constraints of a framework. |
| File Size and Performance |
Including the full Bootstrap framework can lead to larger file sizes, potentially affecting load times for simple websites. |
CSS files are typically smaller than including a full framework, which can lead to faster page load times, especially for simple websites. |
| Community and Support |
Has a large community and extensive documentation, making it easier to find solutions to problems or learn from existing templates and themes. |
While CSS itself has widespread support, specific design solutions require individual research or consultation of community forums and documentation. |
What is Bootstrap?
Bootstrap is a free and open-source front-end framework for developing websites and web applications. It provides HTML, CSS, and JavaScript-based design templates for typography, forms, buttons, navigation, and other interface components, as well as optional JavaScript extensions. Bootstrap is designed to help developers create responsive, mobile-first projects on the web efficiently and effectively.
Key Features of Bootstrap
What is CSS?
CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML, or XHTML). CSS defines how elements should be rendered on screen, on paper, in speech, or on other media.
Key Aspects of CSS
Similarities Between CSS and Bootstrap
Below is a table highlighting the similarities between CSS and Bootstrap.
| Aspect |
CSS and Bootstrap Similarity |
| Purpose |
Both are used for styling web pages and controlling layout to improve the user interface and user experience. |
| Web Development |
Integral tools in web development for creating responsive and visually appealing websites and web applications. |
| Customization |
Provide mechanisms to customize the appearance of web pages, including colours, fonts, spacing, and layout. |
| Responsiveness |
Facilitate the development of responsive designs that work across different devices and screen sizes. |
| Integration |
It can be integrated into HTML documents to style and layout web content. |
| Technologies Used |
Both rely on CSS. Bootstrap builds on CSS with its pre-designed components, while CSS can be used independently. |
| Community and Support |
Supported by large communities of developers, offering extensive documentation, tutorials, and forums. |
Thus, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and Bootstrap serve complementary roles in the design and development of web pages and applications.
Read Later
Check out Web Development courses here!
FAQs
What is the main difference between Bootstrap and CSS?
CSS is a stylesheet language used to control the presentation of web pages, allowing for custom styling, layout, and responsive design directly through code. Bootstrap, on the other hand, is a framework built on top of CSS, offering pre-designed components and layouts to speed up the development process with a consistent look and feel.
Can I use Bootstrap without knowing CSS?
While it's possible to use Bootstrap without deep knowledge of CSS, understanding CSS is crucial for customizing and fine-tuning Bootstrap components and layouts to fit the specific needs of your project. Knowledge of CSS also helps in troubleshooting and extending the styles beyond what Bootstrap offers.
Why would I choose CSS over Bootstrap for a project?
You might choose to use CSS directly for projects that require highly custom designs or when you need full control over the page's styling without the overhead of a framework. CSS is also preferable for very light projects where loading a framework like Bootstrap would be unnecessary.
Is Bootstrap replacing CSS?
No, Bootstrap is not replacing CSS. Instead, Bootstrap works as an additional layer on top of CSS, providing a toolkit of pre-styled components and responsive layouts that make web development faster and easier. CSS remains a fundamental technology for web development that gives style to HTML documents.
How does the use of Bootstrap affect the performance of a website compared to plain CSS?
Bootstrap can speed up development time significantly, but it may add additional overhead to your website because it includes CSS, JavaScript, and font files that might not be used entirely by your project. Using plain CSS could lead to better performance for simple websites since you can include only the styles that are necessary, reducing the amount of code the browser needs to process and load.
Hello, world! I'm Esha Gupta, your go-to Technical Content Developer focusing on Java, Data Structures and Algorithms, and Front End Development. Alongside these specialities, I have a zest for immersing myself in v... Read Full Bio
Top Picks & New Arrivals
