Notes on CSS Frameworks

So I searched for top CSS frameworks and did my own research about whether I should even bother setting it up in my project.

Foundation

• https://get.foundation/
• https://github.com/foundation/foundation-sites
• in 2015 like the only alternative to Bootstrap
• uses SASS/SCSS
• kind of dead/mature - the last release 6.8.1 is from Aug 2023, almost a year ago
• depends on jQuery
• uses Webpack + rollup

Pure CSS

• technologically looks old (no grids, but uses flexbox for grinds)
• last version in 2022
• most of commits since 2022 are dependabot and various fixes
• tooling is in JavaScript, but is really pure CSS
• has CSS only responsive menus

Bootstrap

• supports SASS variables and CSS variables at the same time
• uses SASS/SCSS
• no jQuery
• configuration for components is done declaratively via data attributes
• has own icons
• it does have ESM build+importmap
• plugins have no noJS fallback
• CSS grid is still experimental in 5.3

Bulma

• Github seems active
• the section “See what Bulma fans are tweeting” are from 2017-2020
• it says “Internet Explorer (10+) is only partially supported.” in README.md, so probably the default build is horribly conservative
• “based on flexbox” (in 2017 that was relatively new)

There are others, but mostly CSS-in-JS which sucks.