Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

HTML5 Boilerplate VS PostCSS

Compare HTML5 Boilerplate VS PostCSS and see what are their differences

HTML5 Boilerplate logo HTML5 Boilerplate

A rock-solid default for HTML5 awesome.

PostCSS logo PostCSS

Increase code readability. Add vendor prefixes to CSS rules using values from Can I Use. Autoprefixer will use the data based on current browser popularity and property support to apply prefixes for you.
  • HTML5 Boilerplate Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30
  • PostCSS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-19

HTML5 Boilerplate features and specs

  • Standardized Best Practices
    HTML5 Boilerplate incorporates industry-standard best practices for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, ensuring a robust foundation for web development projects.
  • Cross-Browser Compatibility
    The template includes code that helps ensure compatibility across different web browsers, reducing the likelihood of rendering issues.
  • Performance Optimization
    The project includes performance optimizations like caching rules and minified files, helping to boost site speed and improve user experience.
  • Security Enhancements
    HTML5 Boilerplate comes with built-in security features such as sensible default security settings and recommendations, making the project more secure out-of-the-box.
  • Responsive Design
    The templates provide a responsive grid layout and other responsive design features that ensure sites look good on various screen sizes.
  • Documentation and Community Support
    Extensive documentation and a strong community make it easier for developers to understand and use HTML5 Boilerplate effectively.

Possible disadvantages of HTML5 Boilerplate

  • Learning Curve
    While documentation is excellent, beginners might find the extensive setup and various options overwhelming at first.
  • Overhead for Small Projects
    The default setup includes many features that might be unnecessary for small or simple projects, leading to potential overhead.
  • Customization Required
    Developers often need to customize the default settings to fit specific requirements, which can add to the initial setup time.
  • Dependence on External Libraries
    It may include or recommend certain libraries or frameworks which might not be necessary for every project, leading to potential bloat.
  • Not Always Up-to-Date
    Despite active maintenance, there can be periods where the project doesn't immediately incorporate the latest web development trends and technologies.

PostCSS features and specs

  • Modularity
    PostCSS is built around plugins, which means you can choose the exact features you need and avoid bloat. This modularity offers high customizability.
  • Performance
    PostCSS is known for its fast performance owing to its efficient processing and the ability to use only required plugins.
  • Large ecosystem
    With a vast set of available plugins, PostCSS can achieve a wide range of functionality, from linting and vendor prefixing to advanced CSS transformations.
  • Active community
    An active open-source community continuously maintains and updates PostCSS and its plugins, ensuring long-term support and innovation.
  • Integration
    PostCSS can be easily integrated into various build systems such as Webpack, Gulp, and Grunt, making it highly versatile in different development environments.

Possible disadvantages of PostCSS

  • Learning curve
    Given its flexibility and the need to configure and choose among many plugins, PostCSS can have a steeper learning curve for beginners.
  • Plugin dependencies
    Relying on multiple plugins can lead to dependency management issues, and possible conflicts between plugins if not carefully handled.
  • Configuration overhead
    Setting up PostCSS might require more initial configuration effort compared to some integrated solutions which provide out-of-the-box functionality.
  • Plugin quality variance
    The quality and maintenance of available plugins can vary, with some plugins being outdated or less reliable than others.
  • Lack of opinionation
    PostCSS's unopinionated nature means it requires developers to have a clear understanding of their needs, potentially leading to inconsistencies in plugin choices if used across different projects.

HTML5 Boilerplate videos

HTML5 Tutorials #5 - HTML5 Boilerplate

More videos:

  • Review - Paul Irish on HTML5 Boilerplate
  • Review - An introduction to HTML5 Boilerplate v5.0

PostCSS videos

UnCSS your CSS! Removing Unused CSS with PostCSS & Parcel

More videos:

  • Review - Terry Smith – Keep your CSS simple with postcss and tailwind
  • Review - #1 PostCSS Обзор

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to HTML5 Boilerplate and PostCSS)
CSS Framework
39 39%
61% 61
Developer Tools
22 22%
78% 78
Design Tools
32 32%
68% 68
Development Tools
46 46%
54% 54

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare HTML5 Boilerplate and PostCSS

HTML5 Boilerplate Reviews

15 Best CSS Frameworks: Professional Bootstrap and Foundation Alternatives
Even though Bootstrap is relatively easy to learn, it is much more than just a front-end template. So what if you need a fully compatible JavaScript, CSS3, and HTML5 template? In this case, HTML5 Boilerplate is a good choice.
20 Best Front-End Frameworks For Bootstrap Alternative
Just like its name, HTML5 Boilerplate provides you HTML5 ready template that has been optimized to meet the most standard of HTML new features. By using this template, you can create a fast, robust and responsive site that is able to adapt to any kind of browser, even the old ones like Internet Explorer.
Source: beebom.com
15 Fabulous Alternatives to Bootstrap, Foundation and Skeleton
HTML5 Boilerplate is a collective effort of prominent web developers in the industry. This platform is perfect for designing adaptable websites that work without any performance issues.
Source: www.agriya.com
The 21 Most Used Bootstrap Alternatives
HTML5 Boilerplate helps you build fast, robust, and adaptable web apps or sites. Kick-start your project with the combined knowledge and effort of 100s of developers, all in one little package.
8 Bootstrap Alternatives
HTML5 Boilerplate isn’t really a framework but rather it is a professional front-end template to give you a head start building a robust and adaptable web app. Boilerplate comes baked with Modernizr, Normalize.css and jQuery to help you create pages that work across browsers and can adapt to browsers that don’t offer support for certain features.
Source: modernweb.com

PostCSS Reviews

We have no reviews of PostCSS yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, PostCSS should be more popular than HTML5 Boilerplate. It has been mentiond 45 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.

HTML5 Boilerplate mentions (18)

  • How to Write a Good index.html File
    Also, if you want a starter template that goes further than just the index.html file, you might want to check out HTML5 Boilerplate. It's a great resource to get up an running really fast when building a Progressive Web App. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • html5 boilerplate with bootstrap
    Download the HTML5 Boilerplate template from the official website (https://html5boilerplate.com/). You can choose to download the standard or the enhanced version, depending on your needs. Source: about 2 years ago
  • How to create a basic webpage. Hey everyone , I need to create a basic web page that has a few hyperlinks at the top, some pictures, and a few paragraphs. I have no clue how to start this, first time doing something like this. Any advice / tips?
    Also https://html5boilerplate.com might be good starting point. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Web Developer path
    Learn to a medium degree of proficiency HTML and CSS. Dig through something like the source code for https://html5boilerplate.com/ and try to understand why they're doing the things that they're doing. Learn Git and use it in practice. Even if you're just working on your own code. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Do you still use HTML5 Boilerplate when starting new projects? what are alternatives?
    Do you guys still use HTML5 Boilerplate when starting new projects? Https://html5boilerplate.com/. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

PostCSS mentions (45)

  • Desktop apps for Windows XP in 2025
    Fortunately we have tools like PostCSS and Babel, that let you target your specific Browser version, and they'll do their best to transpile and polyfill your code to work with that version. This alone will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you if you are working with a lot of code. However, if you are just writing out a few HTML, CSS, and JS files, then that would be overkill and you can just figure out what code... - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Improving Code Quality with Linting
    For example, linting CSS can be beneficial in cases where you need to support legacy browsers. Downgrading JavaScript is pretty common, but it's not always as simple for CSS. Using a linter allows you to be honest with yourself by flagging problematic lines that won't work in older environments, ensuring your pages look as good as possible for everyone. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • 30+ CSS libraries and frameworks help you style your applications efficiently.
    PostCSS PostCSS is a tool for transforming CSS with JavaScript plugins. These plugins can lint your CSS, support variables and mixins, transpile future CSS syntax, inline images, and more. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Webpack Performance Tuning: Minimizing Build Times for Large Projects
    PostCSS is essential to the frontend ecosystem, with 69,473,603 downloads per week, it is bigger than all the above libraries mentioned, and has many features other than polyfilling, it is used by all the frameworks like Next.js, Svelte, Vue, and Tailwind under the hood. LightningCSS, created by the maintainer of another bundler Parcel, and written in Rust, is an excellent alternative. It provides all the... - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • CSS Variable Naming: Best Practices and Approaches
    Stylelint: A modern, flexible linter for CSS that can be configured to check variable consistency. PostCSS: A tool that transforms CSS with plugins, including variable checks. CSS Linter: A specific tool to ensure correct and consistent use of CSS variables. Conclusion 🔗. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing HTML5 Boilerplate and PostCSS, you can also consider the following products

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

Sass - Syntatically Awesome Style Sheets

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

Tailwind CSS - A utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building custom user interfaces.

Foundation - The most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world

Less - Less extends CSS with dynamic behavior such as variables, mixins, operations and functions. Less runs on both the server-side (with Node. js and Rhino) or client-side (modern browsers only).