Tailwind Vs Bootstrap: Choosing the Right CSS Framework

A website without properly assembled and designed elements would be difficult to navigate and feel chaotic. While the headings, paragraphs, and buttons lay the foundation of a webpage, it’s essential to organize the layouts, add vibrant colors, and arrange spaces.

What if we told you that your business can choose how to organize your webpage elements to make them functional and visually appealing? This blog focuses on the Tailwind vs Bootstrap conquest—the two leading CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) frameworks for styling web pages.

Bootstrap offers a catalog of pre-built designs, allowing you to furnish your webpage with ready-made components. Tailwind, on the other hand, offers a set of tools and materials to craft a design tailored to your exact vision.

Let us explore the strengths of both frameworks and help you decide which approach best suits your web development goals.

What is Bootstrap?

Bootstrap has been in charge of frameworks since it was introduced in 2011 as an open-source framework. Originally known as Twitter Blueprint, it was renamed Twitter Bootstrap by the two engineers Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton. They developed it to make Twitter’s internal tools more consistent.

In this fight between Tailwind and Bootstrap, the latter uses a component-based approach to allow developers to build consistent and visually appealing interfaces. Its main purpose was to address the inconsistencies and high maintenance costs that resulted from using various libraries to develop Twitter’s interface.

With Bootstrap, developers have access to its responsive 12-column flexible grid system. This system guarantees the development of web applications with adaptable layouts for any screen and device.

Its strength lies in its responsive framework, customizable themes, plenty of JavaScript plugins, and pre-built interface elements. Here’s an example of how a hamburger navigation menu will be built using Bootstrap with steps:

• Create a navigation bar using the class navbar.
• Create a responsive menu using navbar-expand-lg to create the hamburger menu and navbar-dark bg-dark to style the bar with an ark background.
• Control toggling using data-bs-toggle=collapse and data-bs-target=”#navbarNav.”
• Make a collapsible menu using collapse and navbar-collapse classes.

Here’s how it would look:

While Bootstrap is available for download via JavaScript, pre-built CSS, and a source code, you can also deliver it through a Content Delivery Network (CDN) and package managers like NPM and Yarn.

Benefits of Using Bootstrap

In the high-voltage battle of Bootstrap vs. Tailwind CSS, the former has become exceptionally popular due to its consistency across pages and platforms. The uniformity of designs, coupled with the pre-built components, immensely helps speed up the development processes.

Let’s understand its benefits through an example:

You are an e-commerce startup looking to build a responsive website quickly but have a small team that needs a dedicated UI/UX designer. Here’s how Bootstrap will help:

When to Use Bootstrap?

Whether you have a small startup project or a large one, using Bootstrap will enable you to build innovative functionality without spending excessive time on design intricacies. It’s an ideal choice when you’re working with old systems or just starting with CSS.

Here are some scenarios where it would be best to choose Bootstrap:

What is Tailwind CSS?

Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger founded Tailwind CSS in 2017. Popularly known for its high adaptability and utility-based approach, Tailwind is more customizable than Bootstrap.

Unlike its counterpart, Tailwind doesn’t have pre-built classes. Instead, it is packed with a large collection of small utility classes that allow developers to build custom styles.

Before we discuss how classes work in Tailwind CSS, we need to understand what utility classes mean in CSS. CSS Utilities are simple commands with which you can instruct a web application to behave in a specific way using shortcuts like:

1. Make this text small.
2. Color this background red.
3. Put this text on the left.

So, in normal CSS utilities, if you want to put text in the center, you can use .text-center. Similarly, if you want to make a text big, you can use .fs-1.

Tailwind CSS enables developers to use these little helpers instead of writing long, complicated rules. It offers developers the benefit of directly manipulating HTML code. It uses utility classes with more granular control. Here’s how:

To make the text extra large, use text-4xl. Similarly, to make text bold, use font-bold.

Taking the same example of a hamburger menu coded with Bootstrap earlier, let’s see how it would be different in Tailwind. Here are the steps:

1. Create background color and padding using bg-gray-800 p-4.
2. Create the menu icon using custom <svg> and size it with classes w-6 h-6.
3. Create responsive behavior using hidden md: flex.

Here’s how the code will look:

Tailwind CSS allows you to use classes directly on the elements. It also serves as a highly useful Integrated Development Environment (IDE) with VS Code and autocomplete features.

Benefits of Using Tailwind

Tailwind comes loaded with many essential CSS classes that can be used to create designs quickly. It also monitors the code you write and removes unnecessary code. Its utility-first approach in working with UI components has benefitted many other CSS frameworks like Daisy UI and Flowbite. Let’s understand these in more detail:

When to Use Tailwind?

Tailwind works its magic for organizations looking to speed up their web development processes with a strong and consistent brand identity. You can build mobile-responsive web applications across different devices while having full control over every part of their look and feel.

Let’s look at some ideal scenarios where it’s best to choose Tailwind:

Understanding the Key Features of Tailwind CSS and Bootstrap

Bootstrap and Tailwind share a common mobile-first approach to styling HTML elements. They also work flawlessly across browsers and seamlessly integrate with many modern web frameworks. However, they also have many differences in customization levels.

Let’s understand the differences between Bootstrap and Tailwind in brief:

Tailwind Vs Bootstrap: The Differences

Bootstrap development services have been around the corner for quite some time and gave web development a headstart when needed. However, Tailwind, even being quite new in the scene, has become quite a favorite among web developers. Let’s understand how they are perfect contenders:

Tailwind and Bootstrap: When to Choose?

Tailwind CSS is ideal if:

• You are looking for flexibility, branding, and customization in your web development projects.
• You want to craft unique designs directly in your HTML.
• You are working with experienced developers in building and fine-tuning styles.
• You want to save time, enforce consistency, and deliver high-quality, responsive designs.
• You are working with modern frameworks where utility classes simplify development.

On the other hand, choosing Bootstrap is excellent when:

• You prefer simplicity and easy web development with a library of pre-designed components.
• You are looking for beginner-friendly layouts, buttons, and forms for quick UI setups.
• You want a polished design without delving into detailed customization.
• Your full focus is on delivering a reliable and responsive design quickly, and customization isn’t a priority.
• You want to focus more on functionality than design.

Bootstrap or Tailwind, Which is better?

Deciding which one is better in the Bootstrap or Tailwind conquest depends solely on your project’s needs. Bootstrap is a great starting point if you have no experience with designing or CSS. It’s quite simple to get started because it has pre-designed basic components like buttons, forms, and typography.

Tailwind CSS is more flexible than Bootstrap, allowing you to control how your website looks according to your brand. It’s the perfect choice when you have an experienced development team to tune the design styles uniquely into the HTML. It allows you to break down components into reusable pieces, saving you from writing a lot of code.

Conclusion

Front-end development requires careful planning, design, and adaptability to build scalable web projects. Partner with a leading web development company to ensure your project is in the right hands. At Moon Technolabs, our experts will help you choose the right CSS framework for your next web development project.

If you decide to use both, here are some ways that our experts recommend to combine Tailwind development and Bootstrap development services:

• You can choose Bootstrap for structure and selectively use Tailwind to fine-tune specific elements.
• For highly specific designs, you can also explore pairing Bootstrap with CSS custom builds to reduce unused code and keep the project lightweight.
• Pair Bootstrap with a backend framework like Django, Flask, or Node.js for full-stack development and leverage its prebuilt UI to speed up your workflows.

Contact our web development experts today to get started!