Does your website or application have any of the following?
Paragraphs, tables, buttons, lists, tabs, headings, responsive embeds, images, responsive breakpoints, etc.
The main benefit of using Bootstrap is it saves you time writing common CSS styles most projects have. It is a toolkit you know is fully documented in case you need to add something down the road.
Also, consider these wise sayings…
- Don’t reinvent the wheel.
- Stand on the shoulders of giants.
- KISS – keep it simple silly.
- Good Designers Copy, Great Designers Steal
- A penny saved is a penny earned; time saved is time earned; time = money; SO saved time is like earned money.
- Form follows function
- Just because you can doesn’t mean you should
Are there any disadvantages of using Bootstrap?
Since you didn’t write the class names and code yourself, it will take some time to learn the naming and code snippet structure to build the components. So there is a slight learning curve. But since the documentation is so nice it is not hard to use right away because you can copy and paste code snippets and modify them as you need to.
Another disadvantage is possibly having to write a lot of CSS overrides. But if you use the Sass files you can remove and customize the code you do not need.
Summary
I hope I have shown you Bootstrap is extremely helpful to developers because it saves you time writing redundant styles. You are most likely going to write CSS for typography, grid, etc. so why not reuse some of those elements. I also like the peace of mind of having a thorough documentation site to reference in case I forget how to do something. Plus the more Bootstrap sites I develop the more efficient I become. This time savings is beneficial in so many ways…. can do more projects in less time, projects are cheaper for clients, and less time spent writing CSS from scratch.
