Plugins To Extend Bootstrap

 Everybody is familiar with Bootstrap. It is the most popular, fast, and convenient framework for developing mobile-first responsive websites and apps. Bootstrap is famous thanks to its flexible and fully responsive grid system, that allows building apps both for mobile and desktop. Nowadays Bootstrap offers much more than a grid system, it contains its own SVG icon library, typography, tables, dozens of components, like a carousel, close button, dropdowns, and much more.  

Other than that, you can find UI packages, libraries, components, and plugins on the Internet to improve your app. Developers from all over the world try to contribute to the development of Bootstrap and make the framework better. Although these developers are not from the Bootstrap development team, sometimes they make quality libraries and components that are fully compatible with the original Bootstrap library and extend it. Such libraries and plugins get their recognition on GitHub with a lot of stars and contributors. 

We are going to speak about essential Bootstrap plugins that can be helpful to your next project. Before we start, it would be good to discuss the difference between such concepts as plugins and components. They may sound similar and sometimes they are confused or misused indeed, so we define these concepts to clarify what this article is about (about plugins). 

Plugins and components the difference 

Plugins are small program codes that extend the functionality of the main application for which they work. They add specific features to an existing application. In the official documentation, Bootstrap offers a list of plugins that you can use for your app. The list includes 12 custom jQuery plugins like modal, dropdown, alert, button, carousel, etc.  

Components are reusable blocks of code. Components are typically more complex, with extensive functionality and capabilities. They vary depending on the complexity of the functionality they provide: it can be a simple and lightweight UI element like a button or a little separate application with its own functionality, database, and representation. According to the official Bootstrap documentation, Bootstrap offers a huge list of components, such as dropdowns, alerts, buttons, input groups, page header, etc. 

Buttons, alerts, dropdowns are both plugins and components? Is there any mistake? 

Well, no. As we have mentioned, components vary from very simple tools such as buttons and alerts to very complex libraries that even can be named small applications.  

 

Bootstrap open-source projects

Bootstrap admin panels and dashboard templates

Sing App

Web-site: https://flatlogic.com/templates/sing-app-html5-lite
Github page: https://github.com/flatlogic/sing-app
Demo: https://flatlogic.com/admin-dashboards/sing-app-html5-lite/demo
License: MIT
Github stars: 1.1k
Contribution guideline: Yes

Sing App is a bootstrap admin template based on Bootstrap 4 with more than 30 pages. It has 100% Responsive layout. Sing is a perfect choice both for a small startup and an established enterprise.

Features and pages:

• Bootstrap 4 & SCSS,
• responsive layout,
• styled Bootstrap components like buttons, modals, etc.,
• dashboard sample,
• typography,
• tables,
• notifications,
• base charts,
• icons,
• maps,
• hover sidebar.

The project has good documentation and a contribution guide. It also has a good team behind it that constantly updates and improves the product. It is a good project to contribute because it is not so popular, and you can see the result of your work instantly. You can also check out other free bootstrap admin templates.

Tabler

Web-site: https://tabler.io/
Github page: https://github.com/tabler/tabler
Demo: https://preview.tabler.io/
License: MIT
Github stars: 21.3k
Contribution guideline: No

Tabler is a collection of pre-made components and templates for clear and easy administration panels. Tabler is fully responsive and provides cross-browser support right out of the box. Tabler includes more than 20 individual pages that feature countless components and other functionalities. It’s built using modern technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3. All components can take variation in color and styling that can easily be modified using Sass.

Features

• Responsive: Tabler is responsive in all major browsers;
• Cross Browser: Works with the latest Chrome, Firefox+, latest Safari, Opera, Edge, and mobile browsers;
• HTML5 & CSS3: Tabler includes some subtle CSS3 animations;
• Followed Bootstrap’s guidelines: All code is handwritten and W3C valid;
• Single Page Application versions: Tabler React has React components for Tabler.

Some notable components:

• alerts,
• avatars,
• buttons,
• cards,
• various charts.

Gentelella

Web-site: –
Github page: https://github.com/ColorlibHQ/gentelella
Demo: https://colorlib.com/polygon/gentelella/index.html
License: MIT
Github stars: 19.2k
Contribution guideline: No

Gentelella Admin is a free to use Bootstrap admin template. This template uses the default Bootstrap 4 styles along with a variety of powerful jQuery plugins.

The template uses several libraries for charts, calendar, form validation, wizard-style interface, off-canvas navigation menu, text forms, date range, upload area, form autocomplete, range slider, progress bars, notifications.

The product has a great contribution guide and documentation. It also has a great community around that can help you with bugs and issues.

Overall it is a great tool to contribute to: great community, design and usefulness are all there.

Sb Admin

Web-site: https://startbootstrap.com/themes/sb-admin-2/
Github page: https://github.com/BlackrockDigital/startbootstrap-sb-admin-2
Demo: https://startbootstrap.com/previews/sb-admin-2/
License: MIT
Github stars: 8.1k
Contribution guideline: No

SB Admin 2 is a free, open source, Bootstrap 4 based admin theme. The flat design is inspired by Material design principles. It comes with a total of 16 pages which include a login page and a blank page that you can use to get started with your own project. It has a responsive navbar with drop-down menus, and a multilevel dropdown in the sidebar.

Features

• Focus on utility classes to minimize CSS bloat.
• Custom card and button components.
• Custom utility classes for extended functionality.
• Includes dependency management using npm.
• Chart.js interactive responsive charts.

Unfortunately, the product doesn’t have a contributions guide or any issues management on github. All you can do is simply leave an issue review on the website, which makes it not really a good fit for a project to contribute to.

Bootstrap UI Kits/Design Systems

Bootswatch

Web-site: https://bootswatch.com/
Github page: https://github.com/thomaspark/bootswatch
Demo: –
License: MIT
Github stars: 12.2k
Contribution guideline: Yes

Bootswatch is a collection of open source themes that you can download for free and drop into your Bootstrap site.

Notable features

• Easy to Install. You can simply download a CSS file and replace the one in Bootstrap.
• Customizable. Changes are contained in just two SASS files.
• Tuned for the latest versions for Bootstrap.
• API ready.

Bootswatch is open source and the team is open to modify the themes. You can contribute in several ways: Issues, Documentation and Code.

Bootstrap Material Design

Web-site: https://fezvrasta.github.io/bootstrap-material-design/
Github page: https://github.com/FezVrasta/bootstrap-material-design
Demo: https://fezvrasta.github.io/bootstrap-material-design/docs/4.0/examples/
License: MIT
Github stars: 20.2k
Contribution guideline: Yes

Material Design for Bootstrap is one of the best ways to use Material Design guidelines by Google in Bootstrap 4 applications. You can just change the CSS file in your app, and everything simply converts in Material Design. The library is 100% responsive and mobile-friendly.

Components and pages:

• pricing section,
• checkout,
• blog,
• dashboard,
• sign-in,
• footers and navbars,
• grids and tables.

The project has very carefully crafted contributing guidelines that include directions for opening issues, coding standards and notes on development.

Shards UI

Web-site: https://designrevision.com/downloads/shards/
Github page: https://github.com/DesignRevision/shards-ui
Demo: https://designrevision.com/demo/shards/
License: MIT
Github stars: 1.6k
Contribution guideline: Yes

Shards is a modern design system based on Bootstrap 4 that comes with 10 custom components and two pre-built landing pages.

Look for Twitter Bootstrap alternatives

 

Why you should look for Twitter Bootstrap alternatives? 

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework that is used for building responsive web interfaces. Nowadays, Bootstrap is not only an adaptive grid system but a full-fledged toolkit with components and JS plugins. A part of Flatlogic web templates is made with Bootstrap (check out a bootstrap dashboard theme). In this article, we will speak about different frameworks that can offer a grid system and look through popular toolkits with components and UI elements.

But first, answer the main question: if Bootstrap is so popular and recognized, why should we use alternatives?  

The answer is simple: you may find a front-end framework from this article that will be convenient for your project. It doesn’t imply that that grid system you like is better than Bootstrap, as well as it doesn’t mean that it gives you all components you need for any app (it can be either a framework or toolkit with a prebuilt grid system). 

If you feel overwhelmed with Bootstrap, or think that it doesn’t fit your programming style, or if development with Bootstrap becomes a headache, you should give a try to another technology. Don’t forget that all frameworks are tools to achieve some specific purposes, so it’s a good practice to clearly define your task before you start looking for instruments to complete it. We are here to help you get acquainted with these instruments that can become viable alternatives for Bootstrap. We divided the top into two blocks: first includes all frameworks and libraries that are built according to Material Design principles, frameworks from the second block doesn’t use Material Design.