Should You Use Bootstrap?

should you be using bootstrap people have been asking this question for ever since bootstrap just came out and with every other CSS framework since it so today I'm gonna break down this question and answer once and for all whether you should be using bootstrap or not welcome back to web data simplified my name is Kyle and my job is to simplify the web for you so you can start building your dream project sooner so if that sounds interesting make sure you subscribe to the channel for more videos just like this now to get started I want to break down a little bit what bootstrap is some some people maybe never heard of it and bootstrap is just a CSS framework and a CSS framework is just a collection of different CSS styles that have been all brought together into a style sheet that you can import into your project lots of times they have styles for buttons drop-down menus they have styles for grids rows forms all these common things that you use in your application these frameworks are going to include and they're going to also include a bunch of things you probably will never use such as carousels for example but it has just a bunch of features in it to make working with styling things so easy and you don't really need to know CSS in order to use these frameworks you just need to know the framework so now that you know what bootstrap is should you actually be using bootstrap on your project and unfortunately it's not a very easy yes-or-no question it actually depends on quite a few things and the first thing that you should ask yourself is what your project is for is this a project that's for a really cool front-end design that you're working on or maybe you're just doing a simple front-end to go along with a really complex back-end that does a lot of cool things compiling data or maybe you're working for a project for a client that needs to have a really cool front-end these different questions are going to determine whether or not you use bootstrap or not in the first example I said if you're making a really cool unique front-end with a lot of cool UI and UX designs bootstrap is a terrible idea you're gonna spend more time working against bootstrap trying to make it look like you wanted to rather than actually using it for the things that helps you with but like I said in my second example if you're just making a really simple front-end site with a really complex and and you don't care so much about how the front end looks you just want it to look good enough and function then bootstrap is great for you because you don't have to spend a bunch of time working with CSS and styling you just throw in some bootstrap classes and it just works and you're not gonna really tweak the styling too much so you don't have to worry about messing with bootstrap and trying to make it look like you want because you're just gonna use the bootstrap styles and it's going to work how you want it to another thing you need to consider is the timeline of your project if you're working for a client or a company lots of times you're gonna have a deadline set on you when your project needs to be finished by and if it's a short deadline and the UI doesn't matter too much it just has to be good enough then bootstrap is probably a great option for you because while I am NOT a huge fan of bootstrap myself it's gonna save you tons of time by just throwing bootstrap into your project putting in the classes that bootstrap gives you and just having a functional UI because without that you have to manually create all of your own styles and while you'll probably get a better looking result in the end it's time consuming and it's not as easy as just throwing in the bootstrap classes so if you have a very short time frame or you're constantly changing your product so your product goes through lots of iterations and it's constantly changing using bootstrap is great for getting up and running with those changes but if you have a longer time frame or your project doesn't change as much maybe you're not in a startup situation then doing your own CSS is gonna be great because it gives you more control and it's going to look better in the end even though it's going to take a little bit longer another thing to consider is why you're building a project so for example if you're doing this project to learn which a lot of you I'm sure doing and it's a great way to learn if you're building a project to learn and your main focus of learning is on nodejs for example something on the backend then sure use bootstrap go right ahead you don't need to worry about the styling because you're focusing on learning the backend so if you're focusing on learning the backend you shouldn't make yourself struggle through all the CSS required to make a good-looking front-end but if your focus is on learning front-end technologies or learning CSS then bootstrap is a terrible idea if you want to learn CSS don't use bootstrap it's going to make it hard to learn CSS because you have to learn bootstrap CSS which is so much different than just normal CSS and it makes you do so many extra things to work around bootstrap so if you're doing this project to learn CSS to learn how to style to learn how to design definitely definitely do not use any CSS framework and go from scratch with your own CSS now most of these are pretty self explanatory reasons to use or not use a CSS framework but something many people forget about is what parts of the framework you're going to be using for example if you're just using bootstrap for the grid system the rows and columns you'd be much better off just using flexbox and CSS grid to make your own custom styles it's going to be easier than using bootstrap because you can make it exactly like you want it to and it's not going to bring all the bloat of bootstrap since if you use bootstrap you have to download all the bootstrap CSS if you make your own grids all you have to do is download just through a little bit of CSS that makes that grid so if you're doing just that really simple CSS grid and that's all you're using bootstrap for make your own grid it's so much easier with CSS grid and it's going to look a lot better also if you're only using bootstrap for the buttons maybe or the colors or maybe even the table these are things that are not that hard to make on their own so if you only need a few parts of bootstrap such as these buttons and grid or the buttons table and grid you'd be better off just spending a couple hours making your own system unique to your specific use case so you don't have to worry about working around bootstrap and in the long run it's gonna save you time which is great but if you want all of bootstrap all the buttons all the colors all the tables all the classes all the alerts all the headers everything that bootstrap has and you're okay with your site having that bootstrap look then definitely go with bootstrap it's just gonna make it easy for you to get started with later you can change out bootstrap and use your own Styles if you want it's going to be a little difficult and cumbersome but it is possible to take out bootstrap and put in your own styles but I recommend generally if your plan in the long run is to use your own styles and your own custom look just start with your own Styles because then you don't have to go through the struggle of removing bootstrap and then implanting all of your own Styles over top of it it's not a fun process trust me the last thing to consider when thinking about whether you want to use bootstrap or not is going to be the JavaScript portion of bootstrap now many of you may not realize but bootstrap has a lot of JavaScript components they have accordions collapsed toggle as they have pop-ups drop downs all of these different things use JavaScript and behind the scenes they're using jQuery and now you may love or hate jQuery it doesn't really matter but in the end jquery's a fairly large library to download and install inside of your application also if you're doing something with like react for example or a front-end framework jquery and react don't play very nicely together it's a real pain to use them together so having to support bootstrap and react at the same time is just not fun in my opinion and I'd recommend not going with bootstrap if you're going to be doing heavy front-end work or utilizing these JavaScript components of bootstrap with a framework like react now if your application is fairly light on front-end JavaScript then having these extra components is great because you don't have to do the work to make these drop downs or collapse menus issues built-in there for you and it works so that's a really nice thing with bootstrap but odds are if you're watching this channel you probably enjoy tinkering around in the front end with front-end frameworks and you're not going to really enjoy bootstrap as much as if you were just doing it straight with no JavaScript so in the end it really depends whether or not you should use bootstrap I generally would say not to use bootstrap unless you have a good reason to use it most people default to using bootstrap unless they have a reason not to and I personally think that is kind of a backwards way to think I'd almost always say don't use bootstrap unless you absolutely have a good reason to so with that out of the way thank you very much for watching this video check out my other videos linked over here and subscribe to the channel for more videos just like this one thank you very much for watching and have a good day

Channel: Web Dev Simplified

Views: 188,855

Keywords: webdevsimplified, is bootstrap good, is bootstrap dead, use bootstrap, css framework, bootstrap, css bootstrap, css framework bad, css framework good, use css framework, bootstrap alternative, bootstrap tutorial, should you use bootstrap, when to use bootstrap, when to not use bootstrap, when to use a css framework, best css framework, css frameworks are bad, css framework tutorial, css framework comparison, css, css tutorial, css guide

Id: svPDhmXY1Yg

Length: 8min 29sec (509 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 12 2019