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Which is the best one to use and if possible, please provide the difference(s) and advantages of these two.

Semantic-ui vs Bootstrap I am trying to build my UI and really confused as what to use.

Please suggest me the best one and if possible with examples.

Arslan Ali
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Java Questions
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3 Answers3

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I think that we can't see the differences between Bootstrap and Semantic-UI right now, Semantic-ui is new, so we have to let the time decide :)

My opinion: Semantic-UI design is better than Bootstrap and more clean, easy to use, strict coding, useful components, lightweight. I see the future of Frameworks in Semantic-UI, so I will contribute and hope the best for it, but I will not use it for big projects that depend on a huge feedbacks and supports!

iamchris
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elkebirmed
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    I really like your opinion, especially on "will not use it for big projects that depends on a huge feedbacks and supports". Because I was just about to jump ship. – windmaomao Dec 11 '14 at 14:59
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    2 years ago, Semantic UI seemed to be more lightweight than Bootstrap. But now, let have a look... – Han May 13 '15 at 10:54
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    Well i cant agree, im going to use semantic-ui for the first time, and will be in a big project, for what i see, im quite sure that will handle quite well. – Pedro Oct 24 '16 at 14:13
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If you don't mind, I add Foundation by Zurb in the topic (the only true valid alternative to Bootstrap at the moment).

I just checked the project/framework SemUI and it's pretty awesome. The idea of building your pages in a strict semantic way is obviously good, moreover the design is stunning in my opinion and there are a lot of components and settings to use and to choose from the set.

Another thing that I noticed is the package, very well organized, every component if you want has its own stylesheet and script-file, therefore you'll be able to load only what you need, even because the package is quite heavy if you include everything in a single page.

For a pre-release I admit that I'm considering to build my next web-app with such framework, but I got some perplexities:

  • is that mobile-first like Bootstrap or Foundation? from what I'm able to see, it doesn't look so;
  • Bootstrap has two valid and well-known contributors and Foundation got Zurb behind, what about SemanticUI? this is a pre-release, are we gonna see other releases?

because of such perplexities I think to avoid to use it for a business/commercial project at the moment, maybe in a very near future, but if you're planning to use it for your own personal web-app (like mine), I think it's a pretty good choice.

Then if you wanna fallback to Bootstrap for any reason, I think it's not that painful (many of Semantic components seem based on Bootstrap).

BenMorel
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Alexian
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    Its worth noting that SemUI uses presentational class names just like Foundation and Bootstrap despite having semantic in its name. I agree that the class names are less abstract but they are presentational in the same way. If you are interested Foundation 3/4 allows you to use Sass Mixins to create truly semantic html/css. You can set an id based on the "content" and then apply Foundation Sass Mixins to that id in your Sass/Scss. – JAMESSTONEco Sep 27 '13 at 18:22
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    The component design of semanticUI is eye catching. But semanticUI is behind bootstrap in the case of browser compatibility. Bootstrap compatible with IE 7+, but semanticUI compatible only IE 9+ – McLosys Creative Jan 24 '14 at 12:38
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    @McLosysCreative To be honest, that could be seen more as a drawback for Bootstrap. I agree that all HTML/CSS frameworks should have a fair amount of browser compatibility, but only within reason. At this point, IE7 is 8 years old, and is 4 major versions behind. Even Google doesn't officially support it anymore. (they only officially support the latest 3 versions of the top 5 browsers) With that in mind, it seems a wasted effort (and extra code) to support that far back. – Nicholas Summers Sep 18 '14 at 20:57
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Semantic UI doesn't really address mobile or responsive views like Bootstrap and Foundation do. It's more like a collection of prepackaged UI elements that work pretty well together with semantic markup that's superior to Bootstrap/Foundation. But the biggest drawback right now is that it's not mobile-centric. So if you want a well styled site, use Semantic-UI.

Arslan Ali
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karenkun
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