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Bulma - The Most Underrated Framework of the CSS Framework Era

Aashir Khan on September 15, 2019

Everyone was using a CSS Framework to simplify their work and save their time, Bootstrap was and is King Right Now of the Frameworks Market. Every ...
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Nick Kaufmann

I agree that Bulma is worth a try. While Bootstrap is the most "pushed" framework, I think the "kitchen-sink" concept should not be relied upon heavily for times when you only need a faucet. I like that you point out how the work flow for new developers is "backwards" in learning core CSS values after taking on a framework like Bootstrap. In my opinion, communities can be too quick to offer frameworks as a solution before individuals even understand why these frameworks were created in the first place. Nice article.

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Aashir Khan • Edited

This guy just summarized my entire article.

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Peter DeMarco

My go tos are Bulma for company internal sites that need a lot of boilerplate form and table CRUD stuff; Tailwind for anything public facing that needs a unique design or just needs to look interesting. Both are significantly faster and easier to use than Bootstrap.

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Sergio Pascareli

How does Bulma compare to Bootstrap in terms of features?
My use would be for internal company sites as well, where "no js" or "smaller size" doesn't make too much difference, but developer speed does.

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Peter DeMarco

I mean probably a lot smaller feature set but the point on those kinds of sites is that you can make do with very little compared to public sites. I'd give the docs a read and see if you think it has what you need. Definitely much faster to use, less markup, less futzing. Just drop in the example code and roll.

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Aashir Khan

That's my point.

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Sm0ke • Edited

Hello @amir ,
Good article, thank you!
Bulma has the potential to grow, IMO. Also, Tailwind looks promising.

CSS Framework 2019 Survey Results -  Published on WpTavern.com

2019 Survey Results - Published on WpTavern

For new projects, I'm using Bulma (Sorry Bootstrap), and prototype pages using two resources:

A real problem is to find some nice templates to start fast a new project, only a few available on ThemeForest & related markets.

Happy (CSS) Styling & Coding!

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Viktor Kuzhelny

Here are couple of free Bulma Admin Dashboard templates built with Vue.js & Buefy

github.com/vikdiesel/admin-one-vue...

Vue Bulma Admin Dashboard

github.com/vikdiesel/admin-two-vue...

Vue Bulma Admin Dashboard

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juliette_chevalier

Do you happen to have a source for this graph/survey? Very interesting intel 🔥

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Sm0ke • Edited

Hello Juliette,
The survey was published here - Full credit to WpTavern

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Aashir Khan

It's Awesome

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JULIUS SOLOMON

Use bulkit cssninja UI kit

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William

I agree Bulma is great! I love it so much been rebuilding Bootstrap into Bulma over time. I've tinkered with Tailwind, and I can see its allure, but honestly, I love clean code and tailwind produces absolute madness in html. I feel like I would have to make an IDE to cleanup tailwind mess so i can see my html again. I prefer a somewhat opinionated CSS Framework, whereas with tailwind, I feel like I should just write my own CSS for a more organized approach.

I totally understand why Tailwind is on the rise, but its Bulma that has my heart now

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Aashir Khan

Haha, I'm the author here :)
I broke up with bulma, since mid 2020 I think and joined the tailwind boat. It's addictive, I can't imagine things I built with it. I couldn't have built it with bulma or custom css (it would've been too much media queries and css e.t.c)

But I've been with bulma for 2 years, and It was an awesome time.

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Aashir Khan

Of course 😊 TailwindCSS is too good to not to ignore

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Tom Early

I use Buefy which is Bulma based for Vue. It is great :-)

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Aashir Khan

Keep Using What you like , not what others are using

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Md Abdul Momin

Bootstrap 4+ is unbeatable for the last 4 years!

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Aashir Khan

I really agree with you! But if a person only want grid system and not the other things? as defaults??

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joluga

If you only want grid, just use CSS Grid. No javascript or any framework needed nor required.

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Md Abdul Momin

Yes! If I want to choose only grid, I can pull only grid from bootstrap!

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Aashir Khan

Then It will be really great 😊 , I have some bad experience with Bootstrap though. As So I wrote this post

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Pablo Tejada

With sass you can only pull the components that you need. Also the global style reset is great, it does wonders for cross browser comparability.

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Aizal Manan

Bulma is good; got datepicker, timepicker, datetimepicker (which super hard to find on other framework). My only problem with Bulma is the documentation.

For example, does Bulma offer something like "pt-0"? How to search the documentation? I have to use google to search for specific component features. Sometimes I search inside the "bulma.css" to know whether I should introduce my own class or can reuse existing class.

Unlike Bootstrap with its fast build in search (and keyword friendly too). So at the end, what makes a framework good is its documentation and tons of external tutorial or samples.

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Aashir Khan

Hi, Aizal... You're absolutely correct.

Time changes, as opinions, I wrote this post 6 months ago and since then I've used Bulma a lot, and when you use it a lot, you will start finding the complications and I found a lot of downsides including padding-margin utilities and there is little to no documentation on making 'title' 'subtitle' or many other classes responsive. There are lots of other things as well that made me hate Bulma a lot.

I just tried TailwindCSS and It's super-perfect, for everything... I regret that I used Bulma for our SaSS application that ended being a mess of custom SCSS with margin-padding functions and media queries.

It made me compromise with my creativity, So I highly un-recommend Bulma now.

Check the TailwindCSS pen here, I can't imagine creating it with Bulma: codepen.io/justaashir/pen/mdeeKbz

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Ryan Carter

Excellent first post! I hope you will write many more. I have used bulma a bunch, and like it, but I've been using purecss.io more lately. I also tried it tachyons as well. So many good options these days.

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Gerard Klijs

I needed some css framework a few years ago. Did some research and start using Bulma. Really like it, especially since JavaScript is optional, making it very easy to use with clojurescript. The use is probably growing, but as long as it's not included in one of the major frameworks the use stays limited compared to bootstrap probably. Not sure if that's either good or bad for Bulma users.

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qurus

I can say I tried all those mentioned frameworks. Actually for me right now tailwind CSS is the king of css frameworks. All I need included. Worth a try.

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SairamNagothu

I tried Bulma CSS once.. and it's really impressive and it has good potential also..

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/*Sharkie*/

Bulma has always been at the edge of my mind, but I've never fully dug into it like I meant to!

Maybe one of these days. 😂

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Aslam Doctor • Edited

interesting article. Made me think to stop using bootstrap. its true most of the people just use it for grid system. I'm going to give bulma try.

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Aashir Khan • Edited

Thanks, That's what this post is for, Try New Things

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SyntaxSofts Solutions

No wonder Bulma is a great CSS framework! We have started using it in most of our sites, including our blog site blogs.syntaxsofts.com, as it is easy to use and understandable.

We have also published a blog on why we chose Bulma as our primary choice of CSS frameworks. Read it here - blogs.syntaxsofts.com/displayBlog/...

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Aashir Khan

Thanks for sharing this,
Bulma is great 😁.

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Paweł Miczka

Take a look at tailwind (tailwindcss.com). It's much more simpler for me and also with purgeCSS you can get your output css file up to few kbs.

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henry kirya

If you've been to skeleton and need some flex box dynamism,your next stop should be milligram css, now that is underrated!

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Hung Ton

How about tailwind,have you tried it

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Aashir Khan

My next post is about it 😂

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Jake Varness

Can confirm Bulma is lit.

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c7flat13

Bulma link throws dns error but otherwise look forward to working with this tech. Thanks!

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Brian Isale

I Might as well give it a shot!

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Lewis kori • Edited

I came across bulma last week and book marked the page for later.
Was thinking of using it for my next project in vue.
You Just gave me the push I needed

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Gabriel Rockson

I'm gonna get my hands dirty with bulma because of this post

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Aashir Khan

Hahaha, great. It's my very first post, and it brings me memories every-time. I was in love with Bulma at that time. Now it's tailwindcss

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Abdi Haikal

Plus One for Bulma.
Thanks for the shout.

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Miles Pedro

Thanks for sharing #africa

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Periklis Gkolias

As a backend focused engineer I find Bulma very relieving (if I need to touch css for any reason)

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Aashir Khan

It's really easy to implement Bulma without breaking the workflow.

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Ali Ali

Buddy
Foundation and Boostrap also good.

But why you rely on Frameworks. Write code from scratch. Man

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Aashir Khan

Yep , but what about DRY principal?

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Farah Anjum

Is bulma to web what flutter is to mobile?

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Keith Greer

I'm certainly going to give Bulma a try. With bootstrap you can now pick and choose the UI modules separately. Great post!!

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JULIUS SOLOMON

Tell us about Your bulma experience so far

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rhymes

Built two sites on Bulma. Really liked it!

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Robbie Antenesse

I ❤️❤️❤️ Bulma! It's my go-to CSS framework with Picnic CSS as a close second!