In a simple way we can describe HTML as a structure and CSS as a layer that provides style and design to the structure. CSS is one of the major components of today’s modern web development. CSS basically descries the style and design of frontend part of the website. Nowadays, developers mostly stick around the frameworks rather than native CSS due to efficiency and productivity. There are also wide range of CSS frameworks for designers and developers each with its specific capabilities and flexibility. The reason why CSS frameworks are being popular among designers and developers is due to its simplicity and easy learning process with great documentation.
As of today’s modern technology era, it’s rare to find any websites where there is no implementation of CSS and CSS frameworks from high end to level websites. There are a lot of benefits of CSS frameworks for designers and developers. It saves time by automating most of the messy tasks and provide stable ground work and comes with built in responsiveness and mobile friendly which makes your design even beautiful. Another most important one is browser compatibility which most of the CSS framework relieves cross-browser concerns and helps a lot.
Top 10 Best CSS Frameworks For Web Designer 2022
Every CSS framework has their own pros and cons, but for now, let’s not go through it. So let’s take a look at some of the best framework for designers which might be helpful for making your choice before getting started with any of them.
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Bootstrap – HTML, CSS, and JS Library
Bootstrap is one of the popular CSS frameworks out there. It provides great standardized platform with all the basic styles and components needed. Bootstrap supports all major browsers and fixes CSS compatibility issues and consistent UI that looks good out of the box. It’s designed with responsive structure and styles for better mobile experience.
Bootstrap framework uses JavaScript, CSS and HTML. Bootstraps make the process of making developing websites much easier. You may wonder why bootstrap is on the top. The reason is that it is user-friendly and it has some amazing features to offer. It is relatively easy to learn compared to other and can make fast prototyping. Maybe sometimes using this framework can prove challenging as there are so many options used. But once you start using bootstrap trust me you won’t look behind.
Foundation – Responsive Front-end Frameworks
Foundation is one of the superb frontend framework. It is very much professional in terms of creativity and can be used for development of the web with multiple devices. It is modular and consists mainly of SASS-stylesheet.
Foundation frame work is considered to be one of the most advance and elegant framework out there. It may be advance but has very simple UI and much better design. If you don’t want to sacrifice utility and speed while creating great website then used this framework as this framework has very clean markup. Although with lot of advantages you must have knowledge of other CSS framework. But its speed and easy to use can make it simple to learn.
Also Read: 6 Best Freelance Website For Designers and Developers
Semantic UI
Semantic UI is also one of the popular framework, it offers huge amount of customization beyond a framework like bootstrap. It officially support some of the popular libraries, framework and CMS. Such as Angular and WordPress.
Gulp is the primary build tool for this framework although many developers don’t wish to use this tool anymore. But this framework has you covered with other options. This framework is very easy to learn and has various beautiful styles to work with. But as nothing comes without price you must study and practice before mastering it.
Bulma – A Modern CSS Framework
Bulma is one of the newcomers and gaining popularity among designers and developers community. It is lightweight simple and customizable and comes with integrated flexbox which allows user to build fancy design. Bulma is still in beta phase but has got quite interesting features.
With its mobile-first approach it makes vertical reading optimized for every reading. As this is very light with only 21 KB and is later on gzipped it reduces load time. It is has very clean form controls and can make titles and layout options more extensive. You don’t need so much codes and styles to complete your job as well.
Materialize – Material Design Front-end Framework
Materialize is based on googles material design. It is very opinionated about UI or UX design elements and it is great for creating material design out of the box. It features the latest trend that is material design and provides flexibility and extensibility with modern looks.
This framework is one of the most responsive CSS frameworks and is very easy to learn. Your layout can be very fast as it has a very simple grid system and can make your project look very clean. As there are more than one components and effects it is very fast to mock up sites. You may find it to be not as beautiful as other framework but it still is very efficient. Viewers can easily realize that your sites were made by this framework.
UIkit – A Lightweight Front-end Framework
It is extremely modular and light weight framework. UIKIT is well architected and provides great style out of the box. It is very customizable and built in animation capabilities. Even it’s new to framework fields but provide a lot of flexibility to a web designer.
UIkit may have been as of those non popular frameworks at the past but in the present with its high modern design stood so far above the list. With its large variety of components it makes the work simple but very efficient. When you are using components you don’t have to worry about them affecting any of your styles. But with its pros we have some cons you must know like it is not suitable for new developers. As this framework grows it may change in so many ways you may not like it.
Skeleton – Responsive CSS Boilerplate
Skeleton is one of the lightest simple and responsive frameworks. It supports only raw HTML and provides responsive grid without any bells and whistle like other framework, it’s just pure CSS. Skeleton is style agnostic with organized file structure and super basic UI elements.
As this framework is gaining more popularity with its simple framework it is being more popular these days. In the web layouts and main types it may have an edge over other frameworks. The codes used are very simple and beautiful. If you are making something with smaller screens than this might be perfect for you. With cons well it has only one demo at a time and don’t use so much CSS. Sometimes development can take lot of time than other framework and it only has limited templates.
Material UI
Material UI is also based on googles material design elements along with React. It is flexible and easy to get started and provides great UI components. Material UI has a lot of interactions, with good timing and beautiful animations.
With its more flexible and beautiful designs it is hard not to love it. Its large documentation with even larger ready to use components makes it work much more easier. If you are familiar with Google material design than you have no problem as it as standard as Google. Using this framework without any experience can prove to be challenging as it need constant practice.
Pure – CSS Modules
Pure is one of the most lightweight CSS frameworks. It provides flexible array of CSS modules and can be used on just about any web design and development project. It is very easy to create responsive buttons, menu grids, and other features. Pure is entirely based on CSS and does not support third party libraries like Javascript or Jqurey.
Base – Super Simple HTML CSS Frameworks
IT is packed with all required components to make your website mobile friendly on any screen sizes. It’s built in with independent modules so it’s easy to customize as your needs. Base focuses on lightweight and minimalistic character. It also supports cross-browser and provide stable foundation for designers and developer.
Conclusion
Although there are very less number of devs who don’t prefer any CSS framework, for most designers you should consider using CSS frameworks. CSS is pretty straight forward and due to its wide range of frameworks, it’s even better. Some of the advantages of using CSS framework are it speeds up your development process, provides you clean and symmetric layouts and improves good web design habits. Now it’s your choice whether to use or not and which one to get started with, it’s all up to you.