Bootstrap is a flexible and powerful front-end framework that provides a free collection of tools for creating websites and web applications. With HTML, CSS, and JavaScript components Bootstrap makes front-end web development faster and easier for responsive, mobile first projects. It is free and open source; hosted, developed, and maintained on GitHub.
Bootstrap includes:
- Scaffolding: global styles, fluid grid system and layouts, responsive design.
- Base CSS: fundamental HTML elements for typography, tables, forms, buttons, images, etc. that can be styled and enhanced with extensible classes.
- Extensive list of components: reusable components such as iconography, dropdowns, input groups, navigation and progress bars, breadcrumbs, labels and badges, alerts, media objects, and much more.
- JavaScript Plugins: jQuery plugins for transitions, sliders, popovers, tabs, accordions, carousels, typeahead, modals, etc.
- Customizable Components: developers can create their own version of Bootstrap's components, LESS variables, and jQuery plugins.
Bootstrap’s numerous advantages include:
- Easy to get started and use. Bootstrap uses two popular CSS preprocessors, Less and Sass. For those who do not want or know how to use them framework provides the plain CSS file. After downloading the files from Bootstrap’s website, developer should unzip them and add to the head of HTML files. These simple steps provide access to the entire framework. Developer can use the default Bootstrap grid and any pre-defined Bootstrap classes with their markup.
- Consistency and cross browser compatibility. Bootstrap aims at creating centralised multi-purpose code and uniforming the end result across platforms. It supports the latest versions of all major browsers and gracefully degrades for older browsers such as IE 8. Software that uses Bootstrap ensures platform-independent performance.
- Mobile first approach. Starting with version 2.0 the framework supports responsive web design, where the layout of web page adjusts dynamically according to the type and size of device it is viewed on. Since version 3.0, Bootstrap implements a mobile first design styles throughout the entire library.
- Responsive Grid. Bootstrap features a responsive 12 column grid system. These grids have classes xs, sm, md and lg each defined in sync with the device resolution. All the developer needs to do is to apply these classes while defining the visibility of an element in the markup. Development of the responsive websites has never been so easy.
- Rich feature set. Bootstrap provides dozens of custom HTML and CSS components, JavaScript plugins, responsive 12-column grids, typography, form controls, and a web-based Customizer. Either a fixed or a responsive grid, offsetting and nesting of columns - it is just a matter of a few easy changes. Developer has free access to any of the classes and components and can flexibly use only those objects that are needed in the specific markup without overloading the code.
- Frequent updates. Bootstrap is one of the most frequently updated frameworks available on the web. As soon as any issue arises, the Bootstrap development team resolves it and makes new release. Users can always be sure that they work with the most recent and secure tools.
Originally Bootstrap was created by Mark Otto and Jacob Thornton at Twitter in order to encourage consistency across internal tools. Now it has become one of the most widely used front-end frameworks and open source projects in the world. It is modular and its source code consists of a series of LESS files that implement the different components of the toolkit. Bootstrap offers a great number of reusable components, easily and efficiently scales websites and apps with a single code base. It is robust enough to empower any web interface. For more information see getbootstrap.com.