Top 10+ Responsive Web Design Frameworks

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Top 10+ Responsive Web Design Frameworks

Responsive web design frameworks are widely popular these days. It is mainly because these frameworks make it possible to create a single website that would fit into all kinds of devices regardless of their screen sizes – one website, many devices. 

Before we discuss more responsive web design frameworks, it is important to understand what ‘frameworks’ are.

What is a Framework?

It can be defined as a standardized set of concepts, practices, and criteria to help you deal with a common problem. Later, the same solution can be used as a reference for analyzing and resolving new problems with a similar pattern.

Technically, a framework refers to a package, comprising a structure of files and folders of standardized code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and others), which can be used in building a website. The main objective of a framework is to provide a common structure for building websites so that developers do not have to start from scratch and can reuse the code as and when needed. Frameworks are based on common HTML and precompiled CSS, which provide a structure or a basis on which the website is built upon.

The Responsive Web Design Framework

Responsive web design frameworks comprise a predefined set of tools and structure, which are focused on the layout and content of the site. People choose responsive web design frameworks mainly for the design process and input of the various front-end features, such as off-canvas menus and models. The responsive CSS frameworks comprise front-end packages, such as HTML5 and CSS, which are required for interacting with web browsers.

The CSS pre-processors implement a grid and their HTML versions are typographically defined. 

 Here, we will take you through some of the most popular web design frameworks:

Foundation

This framework is a popular choice of designers and developers as it can be used for any device, medium or accessibility. The Foundation framework comprises a family of responsive front-end frameworks, which make it easier to design responsive websites, apps, and emails. These look beautiful on any devices, regardless of their screen sizes.

The Foundation framework is versatile, readable, semantic and easily customizable. Based on the changing trends and industry standards, new resources and code snippets get added to it.

Some of its features include:

  • Well-documented
  • Mobile-first
  • Semantic
  • Customizable
  • Continuous business support, training and consulting to help improve products or services

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Bootstrap

Originally known as ‘Twitter blueprint’, Bootstrap was launched as a framework to support consistency across internal tools. Before the launch of Bootstrap, many libraries were used for developing interfaces and the presence of a large number of libraries led to inconsistencies.

Bootstrap is a free, open-source, front-end library, with a 12-column responsive grid layout system. You can use Bootstrap for building responsive and mobile-first projects for the web. The latest version of Bootstrap is Bootstrap 4.

 Some of its interesting features are listed below: 

  • Easy to use
  • Structured grid system
  • Easily customizable
  • Responsive utility classes
  • Components: Drop-downs, buttons, navigation, badges alerts and progress bars

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Vue.js

This progressive framework, or JavaScript library, is used for building user interfaces. When it is combined with certain tools, it becomes a framework. Vue.js was launched in the year 2013, a lot of progress has been made since then. The core library of Vue.js focuses only on the view layer, which makes it easy to integrate it with other libraries or existing projects.

On combining Vue.js with modern tools and supporting libraries, you can build sophisticated single-page applications. This framework is lightweight and easy to learn.

Following are the features of Vue.js:

  • Event handling
  • HTML templates
  • Directives
  • Routing
  • Data binding
  • Virtual DOM
  • Components: can be used to create custom elements, which can be reused in HTML

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Skeleton

Are you working on a smaller project, which might not need the utility of larger frameworks? Then, Skeleton is the right choice for your project. Skeleton can be defined as a boilerplate or a lightweight CSS framework, constituting of two CSS files: the normalize.CSS file and the skeleton.css file. The skeleton.css file comprises Skeleton’s styles and these are limited to approximately 400 lines of uncompressed code. Besides these, the most important part of this framework is the grid system.

Listed below are its features:

  • The grid system
  • Typography
  • Responsive
  • Mobile-ready
  • Forms
  • Media queries
  • Components and styles that can be further developed using JavaScript, jQuery, and CSS

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Siimple

 This is a light, responsive, simple and open source framework that can be used for designing flat and clean websites. It is built using SASS and will form a great basis for building websites.

Siimple provides a 12-column, flexible grid system, which can be used for building responsive web pages. These web pages can be easily accessed across all kinds of devices, irrespective of their screen sizes. It comes with an elegant, modern, simple, and minimalistic design. You can use Siimple’s intuitive classes for styling your elements. 

Some of the features of the framework are listed below:

  • Seamless user experience
  • Flat and clean design
  • Small size: 250 lines of code
  • Best choice for starters
  • Well-documented
  • Community support
  • Responsive
  • Modular

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Material UI

Material design is a design language developed by Google in the year 2014. It uses grid-based layouts, responsive animations, transitions, padding and depth effects, such as lighting and shadows. 

The Material UI front-end framework follows Google’s Material design features. This responsive UI design library cannot be used with web-based projects. It is a CSS pre-processor that implements React components and is mainly popular for its customizable web design tools. It mainly caters to the mobile market for a wide range of styles, CSS modules and components, and customizable tools that are available for developing websites. 

Its components include borders, display, firebox, palette, positions, shadows, spacing and sizing. 

Below listed are some of its features:

  • Responsiveness
  • Mobile-ready
  • Custom style props
  • Interoperability
  • Theming
  • Customization and more

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Pure

 

It is based on Normalize.css. It provides layout and styling for native HTML elements along with the most common UI components. This framework was introduced with mobile in mind. Since it is highly responsive, all elements fit perfectly into devices of any screen sizes. It has a simple, elegant and minimal design. Pure allows you to write application styles on top of it. 

It comes with a range of styles, CSS modules and customizable tools for building websites. 

Here are the features of the Pure framework:

  • Layouts
  • Grids
  • Minimal and flat design
  • Forms
  • Buttons
  • Tables
  • Menus
  • Tools
  • Responsiveness
  • Mobile-ready

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Semantic UI

Create amazing, user-friendly and responsive websites with the Semantic UI framework. Words and classes are treated as exchangeable concepts by this framework. Classes make use of syntax from natural languages, such as noun or modifier relationships, the order of words or plurality for linking concepts intuitively.

Semantic makes use of simple phrases often referred to as behaviors for triggering functionality. All arbitrary decisions within a component are included as a setting and developers can update these. 

Some of the most exciting features of the Semantic UI framework are listed below:

  • More than 50 UI components
  • Over 3,000 theming variables
  • Over 5,000 commits
  • Develop UI once, and deploy the same code everywhere
  • Simplified debugging
  • Responsive
  • Mobile-ready and more

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The UI Kit

This front-end framework helps in developing fast and powerful interfaces. The Kit comprises compiled CSS and JavaScript files, which is everything you need to get started. It is mobile-ready and flexible.

 By installing and compiling the UI Kit, you can create your own UI Kit theme. 

 Some of its features are listed below:

  • 30 modular-based, combine-able and extendable contents
  • JS commands, including modal dialogs and off-canvas bars
  • HTML-based forms and tables
  • Basic elements, including overlays, badges, and buttons
  • Interactive grid program
  • Lightweight
  • Modular
  • Responsive
  • Mobile-ready
  • Cross-browser compatibility
  • Well-documented
  • Community support  

This modular framework is easily customizable. It allows you to add additional features without compromising the existing arrangement. 

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HTML Kickstart

 This framework is the favorite of HTML5 developers. They favor this HTML Kickstart framework as it provides a wide range of elements, varying layouts, and more.

 The HTML Kickstart offers you with components, such as icons, tabs, menus, sliders, buttons, and more. Some of its features are listed below:

  • New Semantic elements
  • Forms 2.0
  • Web Socket
  • Persistent local storage
  • Microdata
  • Audio and video
  • Geolocation
  • Drag and drop
  • Responsiveness
  • Mobile-ready
  • Backward compatibility

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Montage

montage

Montage is another excellent responsive web design framework that will help you to make your website look good when viewed from both mobile and desktop devices. It is crucial to note that thousands of developers use this open-source HTML framework when they are developing modern web applications.

One of the interesting aspects of the Montage framework is that the JavaScript library of this framework uses declarative binding. In addition to that, an innovative feature that is included in Montage, called as Blueprints will surely come handy when you are dealing with multiple numbers of dynamic page elements.

Choosing the right Framework for Your Next Project

Responsive web design frameworks are an essentially important part of websites. The wide range of features that these frameworks offer help in developing exceptional website designs. 

All the above-listed responsive web design frameworks offer a range of components, features, and functionalities that are the best fit for web projects. Based on your business and website requirements, choose the framework that meets your needs. 

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