What Are the Advantages of Bootstrap?

There’s a reason why 12 million websites and counting use Bootstrap. It has a lot of advantages:

• It’s responsive. Today, people are more likely to be browsing the web on a mobile phone or a tablet than on a personal computer. A responsive design will automatically resize to suit the page.
• It automatically resizes images and elements. Nothing has to be handled manually by the developer — it’s all done for them.
• It’s grid-based. The grid mechanic makes it much easier for developers to manage where elements show up on their site.
• It includes major components. Dropdowns, navigation bars, forms, and progress bars; it’s all designed for you. You just need to drop them in.
• It’s built on JavaScript and CSS. These are two of the most popular programming and markup languages in existence.
• It can easily be customized. Because all the code is open-source, you can do anything with it; advanced users can heavily customize the framework.
• It has a thriving community. Many people are working on improving Bootstrap and supporting other Bootstrap users.
• It has many templates. If you don’t want to design your site, you can download one of the hundreds of user-provided templates. (Make sure you get the right Bootstrap version.)

In brief, it’s easy to use, well-supported, and can save people a lot of time. Bootstrap is currently on its fifth version, and it’s grown a lot throughout its evolution.

But, as with anything, there are some disadvantages, too.

What Are the Disadvantages of Bootstrap?

No technology is perfect. Whether you’re a serious developer or a hobbyist, you should be aware:

• It requires that you know how to code. If you don’t know how to code at all, you’re going to be lost with Bootstrap. A CMS like WordPress is a better bet for those who don’t know how to code.
• Its naming scheme can be confusing. You need to put in the upfront time to learn what is available in Bootstrap. That can require a lot of documentation because there’s no way to intuit what’s there or what it’s named.
• It may be less streamlined than you desire. Bootstrap is known for being bloated because it includes everything that you might use. If you want to create a small, simple site, it’s not going to be ideal.
• You may become too reliant on it. Becoming reliant on it means that you’ll never learn to design a site from scratch (though you may never need to).

As you can see, there are fewer drawbacks than benefits. But you do need to question whether Bootstrap is right for you. Most Bootstrap sites will come out looking somewhat the same, depending on the amount of work you want to do to customize it.