Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Element UI VS Foundation

Compare Element UI VS Foundation and see what are their differences

Element UI logo Element UI

A Desktop UI Library. Element, a Vue 2.0 based component library for developers, designers and product managers.

Foundation logo Foundation

The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world
  • Element UI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-29
  • Foundation Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-20

Element UI features and specs

  • Comprehensive Component Library
    Element UI offers a wide range of well-designed components that cover most use cases, making it easier to develop complex interfaces.
  • Consistency
    The UI components maintain a consistent look and feel throughout the application, providing a professional and unified user experience.
  • Customization
    Element UI is highly customizable, allowing developers to easily modify the appearance and behavior of components to match their design requirements.
  • Documentation
    The library comes with comprehensive documentation, which includes examples and detailed guides to help developers quickly get up to speed.
  • Active Community
    It has an active community and regular updates, which means that any issues are quickly addressed, and new features are frequently added.
  • Integration with Vue.js
    Element UI is specifically designed for Vue.js, providing seamless integration and making it a go-to choice for Vue developers.

Possible disadvantages of Element UI

  • Bundle Size
    The complete library can be quite large, which may impact the performance and loading times of your application if not handled properly.
  • Limited to Vue.js
    Element UI is built specifically for Vue.js and is not easily compatible with other JavaScript frameworks, limiting its versatility.
  • Customizability Limitations
    While it is possible to customize the components, doing so can sometimes be complex and may require deep knowledge of the library and Vue.js.
  • Learning Curve
    For developers who are not familiar with Vue.js, there is a learning curve associated with both the framework and the Element UI components.
  • Dependency Management
    Managing dependencies and ensuring compatibility between different versions of Vue.js and Element UI can be challenging.
  • Scoped Stylings
    The styling of components may sometimes conflict with the scoped styles in your application, requiring additional adjustments.

Foundation features and specs

  • Customizability
    Foundation offers a high level of customizability, allowing developers to adjust the framework to meet specific project requirements.
  • Responsive Design
    Foundation is built with mobile-first design principles, ensuring that applications look and function well on a variety of devices and screen sizes.
  • Semantic Code
    The framework encourages the use of semantic HTML, making code more readable and improving accessibility.
  • Range of Components
    Foundation provides a wide array of pre-built components such as buttons, forms, and navigation bars, which can accelerate development time.
  • Strong Community Support
    The Foundation community is active and provides extensive documentation, forums, and additional resources to help developers.
  • Flex Grid
    Foundation's Flex Grid system provides a powerful and flexible way to create responsive layouts that adapt to different screen sizes.

Possible disadvantages of Foundation

  • Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive features and customizability, Foundation can have a steep learning curve for beginners.
  • Size
    The full-featured version of Foundation can be quite large, potentially slowing down load times if not optimized properly.
  • Browser Compatibility Issues
    While generally robust, Foundation has been known to have occasional compatibility issues with certain browsers, necessitating additional fixes.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    Foundation relies on jQuery for several of its components, which can be seen as outdated or unnecessary by some modern developers.
  • Complexity for Small Projects
    For smaller projects, Foundation might be overkill in terms of features and setup, making simpler frameworks or no framework a more optimal choice.

Element UI videos

Vue.js Element UI Component Library | Demo & Review

More videos:

  • Review - Element UI Vue Introduction (Component Framework) On Basics (First Look)

Foundation videos

BEST & WORST NEW FOUNDATIONS

More videos:

  • Review - BEST & WORST NEW FOUNDATIONS
  • Review - BEST & WORST FOUNDATIONS | Luxury & Drugstore

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Element UI and Foundation)
Design Tools
21 21%
79% 79
Development Tools
37 37%
63% 63
CSS Framework
13 13%
87% 87
Developer Tools
14 14%
86% 86

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Element UI and Foundation

Element UI Reviews

14 Best Vue UI Component Libraries 2023
This library is developed mostly by Chinese contributors and the original documentation was written in Chinese. It’s highly suggested to check out the internationalization guide before starting a project, as the default language of the project is Chinese. Element is a great kit for developing complex desktop UIs by teams of developers, designers, and product managers.
Source: athemes.com
15 of the Most Interesting Vue UI Component Libraries for 2023
Element, too, has significant documentation in Chinese, although Spanish and English translations are provided. Non-native Chinese speakers should go through the internationalization documentation before using Element in their projects.

Foundation Reviews

22 Best Bootstrap Alternatives & What Each Is Best For
The reason I picked Foundation for this list is its strong emphasis on creating responsive designs, a feature that many developers value in the era of mobile browsing. This framework differentiates itself with an ingrained mobile-first approach, ensuring that applications look great on smaller screens without sacrificing functionality or aesthetics on larger ones.
Source: thectoclub.com
15 Top Bootstrap Alternatives For Frontend Developers in 2024
Semantic, coherent, and fully customizable, the Foundation empowers developers to create designs that are not only visually appealing but also adaptable to various screen sizes. Starting with small devices, developers can gradually enhance the complexity of their designs, ensuring a fully responsive experience layer by layer.
Source: coursesity.com
9 Best Bootstrap Alternatives | Best Frontend Frameworks [2024]
Not only this, but they also have ‘Foundation for Emails’, which is a framework to code responsive HTML emails. Hence, whenever you are looking for an alternative to Bootstrap, do give Foundation a try.
Source: hackr.io
11 Best Material UI Alternatives
Foundation is a responsive front-end framework with CSS and JavaScript components for building modern, mobile-friendly websites. It offers a comprehensive toolkit with a modular approach, allowing developers to customize and tailor their designs to meet specific project requirements.
Source: www.uxpin.com
Top 10 Best CSS Frameworks for Front-End Developers in 2022
One of the most advanced and sophisticated UI frameworks, Foundation enables quick website development. Just like Bootstrap, Foundation follows a mobile-first approach and is fully responsive. It is very suitable for huge web applications that need a lot of styling. Foundation is customizable, flexible, and semantic. And, there are over 2k contributors on Github and decent...
Source: hackr.io

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Foundation seems to be a lot more popular than Element UI. While we know about 21 links to Foundation, we've tracked only 2 mentions of Element UI. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Element UI mentions (2)

  • Awesome | Top 9 UI Frameworks for Vue.js
    Element is a UI library for building web applications, primarily targeted at desktop applications. It is simple to use and offers a wide variety of components and features. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
  • How can I make a page look more professional?
    Thanks for the input, I use this library which already has it's own design and margins so I just used the default ones for certain items, I did alter some of the css for other items. I do see how that could make everything square up better and look more consistent. Source: about 4 years ago

Foundation mentions (21)

  • Blazor #3 - How to Install Foundation into a Blazor Project
    Foundation is a mobile-first responsive front-end framework that provides a range of CSS and JavaScript components for creating websites quickly. It’s often seen as a competitor to Bootstrap, offering more flexibility and customization options. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    Foundation: An easy-to-use, powerful, and flexible front-end framework for building web applications on any device. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Show HN: LangCSS – An AI Assistant for Tailwind
    Here is a thought you might want to consider and see if it makes sense. This is personal, but I also believe this is where design codes (especially CSS) are going to go. It is not going to be Tailwind or more new frameworks. Honestly, I think all of these Bootstrap, Foundation, and Tailwind, etc. Are like middle-layer abstractions are for designs that are neither small nor large. Bootstrap won because of the... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Front-end Framework: Comparing Bootstrap, Foundation and Materialize
    Foundation is another popular open-source front-end framework, similar to Bootstrap, but with its own set of features and design principles. It was created by ZURB a design and development company in 2011. And is also maintained by a community of developers. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • I hate CSS: how can I build UIs?
    Are you cool with JS frameworks? If so, you can use a higher level of abstraction that takes care of the CSS for you. If you just want to mock something up, you can use a pre-built UI system / component framework and just put together UIs declaratively, without having to worry about the underlying CSS or HTML at all. Examples include https://mui.com/ and https://chakra-ui.com/ and https://ant.design/ Really easy... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Element UI and Foundation, you can also consider the following products

Material UI - A CSS Framework and a Set of React Components that Implement Google's Material Design

Bootstrap - Simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and JS for popular UI components and interactions

Materialize CSS - A modern responsive front-end framework based on Material Design

Ant Design - An enterprise-class UI design language and React implementation with a set of high-quality React components, one of best React UI library for enterprises

Semantic UI - A UI Component library implemented using a set of specifications designed around natural language

DevExtreme - HTML5 Widgets & SPA Framework for Desktop and Mobile