Loved by some and hated by others, nowadays Bootstrap is one of the most popular, stable and responsive open source front-end frameworks. In this post we want to focus on what we consider the greatest advantages of using it.
When you design and build websites, it can be easy to spend a lot of time repeating yourself. Whether it is setting up the servers, building popular types of web components like slideshows and dropdowns or designing a button, a designer often finds themselves having to retype the same code over and over and over again. That's why Bootstrap is loved by developers of all levels, as it gives them the capability to design a functional and attractive website within minutes. Basically, it's great to save a considerable amount of effort. In fact, the history of the development of code is partially one long tale of trying to eliminate as much repetition as possible, with the goal of becoming as efficient as possible.
The arguments for Bootstrap:- A powerful grid system
- Speeds up development
- Browser compatibility
- Open source
- Responsiveness
- Support / Updates
Powerful Grid System
Bootstrap has one of the best responsive, mobile first grid systems available. It’s easy to use and flexible. A grid is a set of CSS code that allows you to easily set up many different types of page layouts. It helps in scaling a single website design from the smallest mobile device to high definition displays, so that you can decide just how much screen real estate each element of your design should take up.
Rapid Development
One of the main benefits of utilizing Bootstrap happens to be the speed of the development. Bootstrap comes complete with many reusable CSS and JavaScript components that can help to achieve the functionality needed in almost any kind of website. You just have to use some HTML to plug them into your template, with no need to spend huge amounts of time writing complex CSS and JavaScript.
Compatibility
Bootstrap is compatible with all modern browsers and Internet Explorer versions 8 and up. If Bootstrap’s instructions are followed properly, you can create a website design that works in all these browsers. Plugins like HTML5Shiv and Respond.js come as part of Bootstrap’s default template.
Customization
A great aspect of Bootstrap is that you can make it your own. Bootstrap offers many ways to customize its default design. Basically, it lets you factor in your own needs and tailor your development project accordingly. The web developers can make a choice to select the aspects which are required which can be simply complete by utilizing Bootstrap customize page.
Open Source
Bootstrap is an open source project, hosted on Github. It is released under the MIT license. This is one of the biggest reasons that many developers use Bootstrap. A Bootstrap’s simple license gives the freedom to completely change and experiment with it.
Responsiveness
Every year mobile devices persist to grow hugely popular, and the requirement to have a responsive website has become compulsory and important too. When you use Bootstrap, you do so knowing that your work is going to look good and function no matter where it’s viewed. With Bootstrap, all of the things you do, it can do on any screen size.
Support / Updates
Bootstrap’s documentation is impressive and this gives you a head start because you don’t have to play with everything to learn and instead can find information on just about anything through the documentation. As Bootstrap holds a big support community, you can be provided with help whenever there comes any problem.
On the opposite side, there are those who do not like Bootstrap so much. They have some arguments against it, mainly regarding the weight of the framework, and the difficulty to give a customized design to each site, but this is for another article. In conclusion and as we see it, Bootstrap helps us to achieve these goals with minimum fuss.
