May 21, 2021 by David Miller
Back in 2013 when Start Bootstrap was first founded, the responsive CSS frameworkbattle was in full swing. Bootstrap was working towards their third iteration ofthe framework, and Foundation was soon to be left in the dust. By the end of 2013,with stable releases of Bootstrap 3 starting to roll out, it seemed that Bootstraphad won the war.
Fast forward to nearly a decade later. With the rise of JavaScript front-end frameworksand an ever-changing landscape of technology and tools, a lot of folks are out thereasking if Bootstrap is still relevant in 2021.
The short answer is yes. Bootstrap doesn’t call themselves “the world’s most popularframework for building responsive, mobile-first sites” for nothing. On GitHub, Bootstrapoutshines the up-and-coming frameworks in terms of popularity, and with a healthylevel of active development taking place, Bootstrap is being improved upon on anear-daily basis as they work towards their next milestones.
Addressing Some Common Criticisms
Speaking of milestones, Bootstrap has moved Bootstrap 5 out of beta testing into theirfirst stable releases, which is a very different framework than its predecessors in alot of ways. One of the more recent criticisms of Bootstrap was its dependency on jQuery,which just doesn’t seem to play well with a lot of the front-end development options outthere these days. In Bootstrap 5, jQuery has been dropped, which opens a lot of doors fordevelopers looking to stay away from this particular dependency.
Another common criticism that we often hear about Bootstrap is that it includes too much inthe way of CSS bloat. Sure, if you’re using the entire library you’ll be bringing in someunused features, but Bootstrap offers a more a-la-carte approach. Take a look at the newOptimize page on the Bootstrap 5 docswhere they cover the process of optimizing Bootstrap by using lean SASS imports, lean JavaScript,and other techniques to cut down on the package size in a deployment setting. It’s like a lean,mean, Bootstrap buffet, where you can take the code you want out of Bootstrap and leave therest behind!
Relevance Compared to Newer Frameworks
But what about other frameworks? The other rising stars? We have Tailwind CSS, the utility-firstframework, or Bulma, the framework focused on an approachable learning curve. We also have toolslike Angular Material or Material UI which adapt Google’s Material Design language in the contextof a JS framework (Angular and React in this case, respectively). In the turbulent world of front-enddevelopment technologies, there are always going to be new tools out there that, in some cases, mightjust be a better fit for a certain project. That being said, Bootstrap has continued to iterate andimprove. Since Bootstrap 4, they have offered a full suite of both CSS components and utilities, andwith the move away from jQuery, Bootstrap 5 is now more relevant than ever in many, many use cases.
Wrapping Up
While it’s fair to assume that Bootstrap has been a bit overshadowed lately by some well craftedalternatives, Bootstrap is showing no signs of slowing down, and for what it is, it’s certainlyrelevant in 2021.
