Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Font Awesome VS Material Design for Bootstrap

Compare Font Awesome VS Material Design for Bootstrap and see what are their differences

Font Awesome logo Font Awesome

Font Awesome makes it easy to add vector icons and social logos to your website. And version 5 is redesigned and built from the ground up!

Material Design for Bootstrap logo Material Design for Bootstrap

Material Design for Bootstrap is a Bootstrap compatible theme for use in Bootstrap based application.
  • Font Awesome Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-09
  • Material Design for Bootstrap Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-25

Font Awesome features and specs

  • Comprehensive Icon Library
    Font Awesome offers a vast collection of icons, providing a wide range of options for different use cases and making it easier for developers to find the perfect icon to fit their needs.
  • Easy Integration
    Font Awesome can be easily integrated into web projects using either a CDN link or by downloading the icon set. This makes it convenient for developers to start using icons quickly without extensive setup.
  • Scalability
    Since Font Awesome icons are vector-based, they are infinitely scalable without losing quality. This ensures that icons look sharp on all devices and screen resolutions.
  • Customizable
    Font Awesome icons can be customized easily with CSS, allowing developers to change colors, sizes, and even create animations to match the design of their projects.
  • Consistent Design
    The icons in Font Awesome are designed to be consistent with each other in terms of style, line weight, and aesthetic, which helps in maintaining a uniform look across a web project.
  • Accessibility
    Font Awesome includes ARIA attributes and support for screen readers, ensuring that icons can be interpreted correctly by assistive technologies for better accessibility.

Possible disadvantages of Font Awesome

  • File Size
    Font Awesome can add substantial size to web projects, particularly if the entire library is imported. This can slow down load times, especially on mobile devices or slower internet connections.
  • Dependence on External Resources
    Using a CDN for Font Awesome can create a dependency on external resources. If the CDN is down or blocked, the icons will not display correctly.
  • License Fees
    While Font Awesome offers a free version, the Pro version with more icons and features requires a subscription. This can be a limitation for projects with tight budgets.
  • Overhead for Simple Projects
    For small projects that only require a few icons, using Font Awesome can be overkill. The overhead of including the entire library may not be justified when only a handful of icons are needed.
  • Potential for Version Conflicts
    Using Font Awesome alongside other libraries or different versions of Font Awesome can sometimes lead to conflicts, resulting in icons not displaying correctly or styling issues.
  • Limited to Available Icons
    Despite its large collection, users are restricted to the icons available in Font Awesome. Custom or niche icons that aren't included in the library will need to be sourced or created elsewhere.

Material Design for Bootstrap features and specs

  • Aesthetic Appeal
    Material Design for Bootstrap provides a modern and visually appealing look by integrating Google's Material Design philosophy with Bootstrap components, which can enhance the user experience and make applications more attractive.
  • Familiarity
    Developers familiar with Bootstrap will find it easy to adopt Material Design for Bootstrap due to its inherent Bootstrap architecture, easing the learning curve while adding Material Design elements.
  • Responsive Design
    Material Design for Bootstrap maintains Bootstrap's robust responsive grid system, enabling designers to create mobile-friendly and adaptable web pages with Material Design aesthetics.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    The framework offers extensive documentation, examples, and community support, which simplifies the development process and allows for easier troubleshooting and customization.
  • Customization
    It allows for significant customization where developers can override component styles, mix colors, and use variables to align with brand requirements while maintaining Material Design standards.

Possible disadvantages of Material Design for Bootstrap

  • Performance Overhead
    Integrating Material Design with Bootstrap can lead to additional CSS and JavaScript overhead, potentially impacting the performance of the website if not optimized.
  • Complexity
    Combining two design systems can introduce complexity, as developers may need to navigate through both Material Design principles and Bootstrap's framework, which could increase development time.
  • Inconsistencies
    There might be inconsistencies or conflicts between Material Design components and Bootstrap components, particularly when attempting customizations or using third-party plugins not designed for Material Design.
  • Dependency on Bootstrap
    For projects that do not require all the functionalities of Bootstrap, using Material Design for Bootstrap might introduce unnecessary dependencies, resulting in a heavier and bloated front-end.
  • Limited Advanced Components
    While it covers most basic components, developers looking for advanced and highly specialized elements may find Material Design for Bootstrap lacking compared to more dedicated Material Design libraries.

Font Awesome videos

Star Ratings With JavaScript & Font Awesome

More videos:

  • Review - Add Font Awesome Icons to our Buttons, freeCodeCamp Bootstrap Review, lesson 13
  • Review - Add Font Awesome Icons to all of our Buttons, freeCodeCamp Bootstrap Review, lesson 14

Material Design for Bootstrap videos

VueBootstrap vs Material Design For Bootstrap (WHICH ONE SHOULD I CHOOSE?)

More videos:

  • Review - Material Design for Bootstrap PRO - 5 min Quick Start

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Font Awesome and Material Design for Bootstrap)
Web Icons
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Vector Icons
100 100%
0% 0
Web Frameworks
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Font Awesome and Material Design for Bootstrap

Font Awesome Reviews

Revolutionize Your Icon Collection: 5 CSS Icon Sites to Boost Your Web Designs
Font Awesome is one of the most comprehensive libraries of CSS icons available, with over 1,500 scalable vector icons that can be customized using CSS classes.
7 Best Free Icon Libraries
While Font Awesome was a font-based asset library i.e font icon library, Bootstrap chose to use SVG-based icons. At this time, Bootstrap Icons consists of over 1,000 ready-to-use library icons in the alpha version.
Source: www.atatus.com
The Best Free And Paid Icon Fonts - Font Awesome Alternatives
On the Internet, you can easily find many services that give everyone thousands of beautiful icons for free or for a fee. With their help, you can design a website or a page on a social network. There are many alternatives to Font Awesome, but, unfortunately, there are few Russian-language sites. Although, even without translation, it is clear how to find the desired icon...
Source: www.wcido.com
9 FontAwesome Alternatives That Are Equally As Good
FontAwesome is by far one of the most popular source for font icons, with a huge collection of icons. But it is highly unnecessary to download the whole collection when you need to use just a few.
10 Best Fontello Alternatives 2021
Similar to other vector makers and Fontello, you can use Font Awesome to create custom icons of your own using a variety of colors, shapes, and font styles. When you’re done, you can share your newly minted icons with others or save them directly on your computer.

Material Design for Bootstrap Reviews

We have no reviews of Material Design for Bootstrap yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Font Awesome seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 130 times since March 2021. 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.

Font Awesome mentions (130)

View more

Material Design for Bootstrap mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Material Design for Bootstrap yet. Tracking of Material Design for Bootstrap recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Font Awesome and Material Design for Bootstrap, you can also consider the following products

Flaticon - A database of free vector icons.

ASP.NET - ASP.NET is a free web framework for building great Web sites and Web applications using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

The Noun Project - Creating, Sharing and Celebrating the World's Visual Language

Ruby on Rails - Ruby on Rails is an open source full-stack web application framework for the Ruby programming...

Icons8 - Free app for Mac & Windows already containing 39,800 icons. Allows to search and import icons…

jQuery UI - Curated set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library