12/20/2016 by Chris Selmer
Web Tech in 2017 - CSS Frameworks

I recently asked some of the smartest people I know in the tech community questions about web tech trends for 2017. Here are the results for CSS frameworks. Stay tuned for other categories.

TLDR;

Bootstrap is the overwhelmingly CSS framework pick for current and future projects. A surprising (to me) number of respondents are not using a framework and are rolling their own.

Is this scientific and statistically valid? Nope.

I make absolutely no claim to this being a scientific survey. It is completely biased and skewed by many of my connections coming from my days of leading a Ruby on Rails consultancy. It also has a small sample size, with 49 respondents to my survey.

That said, these results come from some of the smartest and most forward-thinking tech people I know. I find the results to be educational and they will most definitely help inform my technology decision-making in the new year.

CSS Frameworks

I asked questions about the following CSS frameworks:

Findings

Bootstrap is the overwhelming CSS framework of choice. Most people (62.5%) that responded to the survey are using Bootstrap as their CSS framework in current projects, and almost half (45.7%) said that they’d choose it for their next project.

I had been expecting a framework like Foundation to be the second-most popular, but many people are either going without a framework or rolling their own. Almost 40% of respondents chose this option in their current projects, and about 20% would do the same for a future project.

Beyond Bootstrap, Semantic-UI seems to have caught the interest of some respondents - no one reported using it in existing project, but several (3) are interested in pursuing it on a future project.

Semantic-UI is on my list to try out in 2017, as are other intriguing frameworks mentioned by respondents: Polymer (paper-elements) and Bulma.io.

Original questions and full results below.

What CSS framework/s are you CURRENTLY using on projects?

CSS frameworks currently used on projects

Frameworks entered for ‘Other’ included: SCSS, Polymer (paper-elements), Basscss, Tachyons

Framework Count
Bootstrap 30
None/Roll own 18
Foundation 8
Materialize 4
SCSS 1
Polymer 1
Basscss 1
Tachyons 1
Semantic-UI 0

What CSS framework would you choose for a NEW project?

CSS frameworks currently used on projects

Frameworks entered for ‘Other’ included: Polymer (paper-elements), Bulma.io, Basscss, Tachyons, Neat

Framework Count
Bootstrap 21
None/Roll own 10
Materialize 4
Semantic-UI 3
Foundation 2
Bulma.io 1
Polymer 1
Neat 1
Basscss 1
Tachyons 1

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