Software Alternatives & Startups

Material Design Lite VS Angular Material

Compare Material Design Lite VS Angular Material and see what are their differences

Material Design Lite

Material Design Lite Components in HTML/CSS/JS

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Open source
Angular Material

Angular Material is both a UI Component framework and a reference implementation of Google's Material Design Specification.

Rating
0 reviews

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Material Design Lite should be more popular than Angular Material. It has been mentioned 4 times since March 2021.

social mentions
4 vs 1
CSS Framework popularity
100% vs 0%
alternatives listed
98 vs 182

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

Material Design Lite
Angular Material
Website getmdl.io material.angularjs.org
Pricing
Open source
Listed in

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Material Design Lite 5 features
Angular Material 6 features
  • Lightweight
    Material Design Lite (MDL) is a lightweight CSS and JavaScript framework that doesn't rely on any external dependencies, making it easy to integrate into projects while ensuring faster load times and better performance.
  • Google's Material Design Aesthetics
    MDL provides components and styles consistent with Google's Material Design guidelines, allowing developers to create visually appealing and modern user interfaces.
  • Easy to Use
    MDL uses straightforward HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, enabling developers, even those with minimal experience, to quickly build and design web applications.
  • Responsive Design
    Material Design Lite is built with mobile-first, responsive design principles, ensuring applications look good on both mobile and desktop devices.
  • Component Rich
    MDL offers a variety of ready-to-use UI components such as buttons, cards, menus, sliders, and more, which can speed up development time.

Possible disadvantages

  • Limited Customization
    While MDL offers a set of predefined styles for consistency, it can be challenging to customize beyond the provided options without delving deeply into the CSS.
  • No Longer Actively Maintained
    MDL is no longer actively maintained by Google, meaning there are no updates or improvements, potentially affecting compatibility with modern browsers and devices over time.
  • Basic Components Compared to Other Frameworks
    Compared to comprehensive frameworks like Angular Material or Bootstrap, MDL offers a relatively basic set of UI components, which might not satisfy all project needs.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Use
    While basic uses of MDL are simple, more advanced implementations might require a deeper understanding of the framework, which can impose a steep learning curve for new developers.
  • Potential Performance Overhead
    MDL's JavaScript components can add unnecessary overhead if not managed carefully, especially in complex applications where performance is critical.
  • Consistent Design
    Angular Material provides a set of reusable, well-tested, and accessible UI components based on the Material Design specification, ensuring a consistent look and feel across your application.
  • Pre-built Components
    Offers a wide range of pre-built components including forms, navigation, buttons, and data tables that significantly speed up the development process.
  • Responsiveness
    Components are designed to work smoothly on various screen sizes and resolutions, making it easier to create responsive applications.
  • Integration with Angular
    Tightly integrated with Angular, making it easier to implement and maintain. It also leverages Angular’s features like reactive forms and change detection.
  • Theming and Customization
    Supports extensive theming and customization options, allowing developers to tailor the look and feel of their applications to match brand requirements.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    Comes with detailed and comprehensive documentation, providing examples and guides to help developers get started quickly.

Possible disadvantages

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to the extensive feature set and the intricacies of Material Design, there is a learning curve involved which might be difficult for beginners.
  • Large Bundle Size
    Integrating Angular Material can add to the bundle size of your application, which may affect the loading time and performance, especially for smaller projects.
  • Limited Customizability
    While it offers theming, there are limitations on how much components can be customized compared to creating bespoke solutions.
  • Performance Overhead
    Some components come with additional performance overhead due to their complexity and the use of multiple dependencies.
  • Dependency Management
    You need to manage and maintain additional dependencies that come with Angular Material, which can complicate the build process and dependency management.
  • Opinionated Design
    Being based on Google’s Material Design, it might impose design choices that might not align with every project's design requirements.

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Material Design Lite 3 videos + Add
Angular Material 3 videos + Add

What is Material Design Lite?

More videos

  • - Intro to using Material Design Lite
  • - Material Design Lite: All About Android 221

Angular Material Data Table Tutorial

More videos

  • - Angular Material’s Trees - Tina Gao
  • - Angular Material in practice – Thomas Burleson

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
Material Design Lite
Angular Material
100% 100%
0% 0%
21% 21%
79% 79%
37% 37%
63% 63%
22% 22%
78% 78%

User comments

Share your experience with using Material Design Lite and Angular Material. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

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Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Material Design Lite 4 mentions
Angular Material 1 mention
  • Where can i find premade components like Navbars, Headers, Cards, Footers, etc.
    Https://getmdl.io/ No specific framework (e.g React, Angular) required. Source: almost 4 years ago
  • The React roadmap for beginners you never knew you needed.
    Materialize, Material UI, Material Design Lite. - Source: dev.to / almost 5 years ago
  • How do i use material design in an html page ?
    I would recommend looking into an alternative such as https://getmdl.io/. Source: about 5 years ago

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Alternatives to Material Design Lite and Angular Material

When comparing Material Design Lite and Angular Material, you can also consider the following products.