10 Best CSS Frameworks in 2019

Looking for the best CSS framework? This guide is here to help. In this feature, we're going to help you get familiar with some of the most interesting and powerful CSS frameworks available. Some of these are well-known, while others are newer tools that are just starting to pick up steam. Either way, you’ll benefit greatly from getting to know these useful tools.

We'll kick things off with some well-known names. With any of these CSS frameworks, you’ll be fully equipped to build clean, maintainable projects with minimal time investment. However, sometimes you need something a little more specific. For that reason, towards the end of the list, you'll find some libraries and frameworks that have very specific use cases.

1. Bootstrap

Let’s start with the most popular framework in the world. While Bootstrap is certainly not exclusively a CSS framework, its most popular features are the CSS-based ones. These include a powerful grid system, badges, buttons, card components, navbars and much more.

If you’re not familiar with how a framework like Bootstrap works, a few code examples will help, so you can see how easy it is to build maintainable interfaces by editing nothing but HTML.

As mentioned, Bootstrap also boasts a comprehensive collection of UI components. Some of those that have been difficult to style in the past are just plug-and-play with a framework like Bootstrap. These include a breadcrumb navigation component, a card component and a pagination component.

All of these components can be built without writing a single line of CSS. In many cases, you’ll likely theme the components to suit the project’s branding. Whatever the case, the mobile-friendly structure will already be in place, making it incredibly easy to reach a finished product in record time. Bootstrap also includes advanced features for responsive layouts, utility components and it’s built on Sass, so it’s super-flexible and customizable.

2. Foundation

The Foundation framework, like Bootstrap, has become immensely popular and is known as a more sophisticated framework with some advanced but easy-to-implement CSS components. Foundation is built on Sass so, like Bootstrap, it’s customizable. In addition to that, it also boasts some powerful responsive features that mean making mobile-friendly designs is super-easy.

That’s just a small sampling of the many components that make Foundation one of the best CSS frameworks available today.

3. UIkit

UIkit is another popular frontend framework and maybe a little under-appreciated in terms of CSS features. In addition to many features similar to those found in other popular frameworks, there are a few useful specialized components.

First of all, if you’re still not very comfortable with flexbox, you can do complex flexbox-based layouts with UIkit using plain HTML. It might seem strange at first to use flexbox syntax in your HTML classes but this saves you from having to know all the quirks about flex wrapping, columns/rows, flex grow and so forth.

UIkit is worth a try if you want a fresh, well-maintained CSS framework with a slew of component options. It’s available in Less and Sass and even includes a stylesheet to cater for right-to-left languages.

4. Semantic UI

Semantic UI has a lot of features overlaps with other popular frameworks but the way it works (implied by the name) is based on the semantic nature of the class names that are used to build components. In other words, the class names are human-friendly.

Notice the way the class names communicate exactly what’s built. The CSS doesn’t necessarily have a unique set of styles for each of the classes listed but instead, the classes work together. Thus, much like language where words make sense in context, the class names work together to build cohesive, mobile-friendly components.

5. Bulma

Bulma is another popular CSS framework and its primary feature is the fact that its components are largely dependent on flexbox, making it a truly modern framework. You can think of Bulma is being somewhat like a hybrid of Bootstrap and Semantic UI but without any of the complexity.

It uses some of the same principles as Semantic UI with its class names, includes many of the popular components, yet manages to keep things simple – for example, form elements have little to no styles to maintain a cross-browser look.

6. Picnic CSS

If you don’t like the idea of including presentational classes in your markup, which is common in most, if not all, of the popular frameworks, then Picnic CSS might be the framework for you. Picnic is in many ways the opposite of Tailwind in that it’s not only less complex but very opinionated.

In addition to a number of existing default styles on many HTML elements, Picnic has some other nicely designed interactive pure-CSS components that don’t require any JavaScript. These include a modal dialog, a tab switcher, a file uploader and a tooltip. Some of these can be enhanced with scripting but they’re all functional with just CSS.

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