5 ms·

Why is Bootstrap much more popular than Foundation? Is technically better for most tasks?

illicium 12y ago
Probably not, but the reverse is not necessarily true. It's mostly a matter of taste -- e.g. if you don't like SASS, you won't want to use Foundation.
- selamin 12y ago
  I can't imagine that's a real deterrent is it? Using LESS with Foundation is fairly straightforward. Create an empty .less file and @import 'foundation.css'. Also, LESS and SASS have very similar syntax. There's very little learning curve if you're going from one to the other...
  - illicium 12y ago
    You can't use any of the variables or mixins if you import the CSS in your LESS file. The syntax is not the issue -- the tooling is.
- kyriakos 12y ago
  as somebody who uses bootstrap with SASS instead of LESS I can tell you that my reason is simply better community support
JelteF 12y ago
I really don't like Foundation because of the way it looks out of the box. Everything is way to square and brightly colored. Bootstrap just looks quite good from the start. After a quick look at the markup however, I really think Foundation is winning there.
- boynamedsue 12y ago
  It's really easy to customize the radius of things like buttons in Foundation.
jrochkind1 12y ago
When Bootstrap first came out, it looked way better than Foundation out of the box -- had better typography. I think that's mainly why. I think it's possible Foundation has caught up.
mtrpcic 12y ago
The reason I use Bootstrap over Foundation is that there is a lot more community support for it. It's much easier to find solutions to problems. Additionally, the huge number of available themes for Bootstrap make it a very compelling choice for the average dev who has terrible design skills.
wmeredith 12y ago
They're basically at parity now IMHO, but Bootstrap has the network effect advantage. It's got a huge community of people developing plugins, creating themes, and doing debugging on it. I've used them both in the past, but prefer Bootstrap for this reason.
hhandoko 12y ago
My 2c for internal / enterprise tools: - Foundation ceases to be an option since they drop IE8 support in Foundation 3, far too soon IMHO - Various jQuery UI-based frameworks out there (e.g. Kendo UI) has good Bootstrap theme support
boynamedsue 12y ago
I think Bootstrap had the benefit of being called Twitter Bootstrap during the early part of its life. That alone brought a ton of initial interest and it just continued to build from there.
lynndylanhurley 12y ago
I tried to use foundation on two separate occasions. Each time, basic features were broken (or completely missing!) out of the box, and when I tried to investigate, the code was so tangled and awkward that I either abandoned foundation, or implemented the feature from scratch myself. Bootstrap is pleasant to work with and extend. Each of the javascript components are simple, isolated, and well thought out. But don't take my word for it! The "affix" plugin in bootstrap: https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/master/js/affix.js https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/master/js/affix.js The equivalent in foundation: https://github.com/zurb/foundation/blob/master/js/foundation/foundation.topbar.js https://github.com/zurb/foundation/blob/master/js/foundation...
rmetzler 12y ago
For me it is about documentation. While Bootstrap was documented thoroughly (with the one exception of not having a transition guide for the changed grid system between 2.x and 3.0), I felt that this wasn't the point for Foundation. E.g. it was never clear for me wether off-canvas navigation was an experimental feature or not. Also scrolling the documentation doesn't feel smooth on my MBP / Chrome.
baby 12y ago
Foundation used to have a better grid system, better css defaults (border-box) and the "advantage" of using Sass over Less. Bootstrap just looked better since it had a theme embarked and also a nice documentation. Now Bootstrap has caught up, I haven't used Foundation in 2 years but I would think they're still relevant.

Probably not, but the reverse is not necessarily true. It's mostly a matter of taste -- e.g. if you don't like SASS, you won't want to use Foundation.

selamin 12y ago
I can't imagine that's a real deterrent is it? Using LESS with Foundation is fairly straightforward. Create an empty .less file and @import 'foundation.css'. Also, LESS and SASS have very similar syntax. There's very little learning curve if you're going from one to the other...
- illicium 12y ago
  You can't use any of the variables or mixins if you import the CSS in your LESS file. The syntax is not the issue -- the tooling is.
kyriakos 12y ago
as somebody who uses bootstrap with SASS instead of LESS I can tell you that my reason is simply better community support

JelteF 12y ago

I really don't like Foundation because of the way it looks out of the box. Everything is way to square and brightly colored. Bootstrap just looks quite good from the start. After a quick look at the markup however, I really think Foundation is winning there.

boynamedsue 12y ago
It's really easy to customize the radius of things like buttons in Foundation.

jrochkind1 12y ago

When Bootstrap first came out, it looked way better than Foundation out of the box -- had better typography. I think that's mainly why. I think it's possible Foundation has caught up.

mtrpcic 12y ago

The reason I use Bootstrap over Foundation is that there is a lot more community support for it. It's much easier to find solutions to problems. Additionally, the huge number of available themes for Bootstrap make it a very compelling choice for the average dev who has terrible design skills.

wmeredith 12y ago

They're basically at parity now IMHO, but Bootstrap has the network effect advantage. It's got a huge community of people developing plugins, creating themes, and doing debugging on it. I've used them both in the past, but prefer Bootstrap for this reason.

hhandoko 12y ago

My 2c for internal / enterprise tools: - Foundation ceases to be an option since they drop IE8 support in Foundation 3, far too soon IMHO - Various jQuery UI-based frameworks out there (e.g. Kendo UI) has good Bootstrap theme support

boynamedsue 12y ago

I think Bootstrap had the benefit of being called Twitter Bootstrap during the early part of its life. That alone brought a ton of initial interest and it just continued to build from there.

lynndylanhurley 12y ago

I tried to use foundation on two separate occasions. Each time, basic features were broken (or completely missing!) out of the box, and when I tried to investigate, the code was so tangled and awkward that I either abandoned foundation, or implemented the feature from scratch myself. Bootstrap is pleasant to work with and extend. Each of the javascript components are simple, isolated, and well thought out. But don't take my word for it! The "affix" plugin in bootstrap: https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/master/js/affix.js https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/master/js/affix.js The equivalent in foundation: https://github.com/zurb/foundation/blob/master/js/foundation/foundation.topbar.js https://github.com/zurb/foundation/blob/master/js/foundation...

rmetzler 12y ago

For me it is about documentation. While Bootstrap was documented thoroughly (with the one exception of not having a transition guide for the changed grid system between 2.x and 3.0), I felt that this wasn't the point for Foundation. E.g. it was never clear for me wether off-canvas navigation was an experimental feature or not. Also scrolling the documentation doesn't feel smooth on my MBP / Chrome.

baby 12y ago

Foundation used to have a better grid system, better css defaults (border-box) and the "advantage" of using Sass over Less. Bootstrap just looked better since it had a theme embarked and also a nice documentation. Now Bootstrap has caught up, I haven't used Foundation in 2 years but I would think they're still relevant.