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Semantic UI VS Material Design Lite

Compare Semantic UI VS Material Design Lite and see what are their differences

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Semantic UI logo Semantic UI

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

Material Design Lite logo Material Design Lite

Material Design Lite Components in HTML/CSS/JS
  • Semantic UI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-20
  • Material Design Lite Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30

Semantic UI features and specs

  • Intuitive Class Names
    Semantic UI uses human-readable class names that describe their purpose, making it easy to understand and write code without consulting documentation frequently.
  • Customizability
    Semantic UI allows for deep customizability with its theming, letting developers adjust the default designs to match specific project requirements.
  • Comprehensive Components
    Semantic UI provides a wide range of pre-built components like buttons, forms, and modals, which can significantly speed up development time.
  • Flexibility
    The framework offers flexibility in terms of its modular structure, enabling developers to import only the components they need.
  • Detailed Documentation
    Semantic UI has detailed and well-organized documentation, which helps developers quickly resolve issues and understand how to use various features.

Possible disadvantages of Semantic UI

  • Large File Size
    The framework's comprehensive nature can lead to larger file sizes, which might affect the load times of web applications.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its intuitive naming conventions, the breadth of components and features can result in a steep learning curve for new developers.
  • Community Support
    Unlike more popular frameworks like Bootstrap, Semantic UI has a smaller community, which can mean fewer third-party plugins and community support.
  • Incomplete Integration
    Some integrations with newer JavaScript frameworks such as React or Vue might require extra effort or third-party libraries, given that Semantic UI is not natively designed for them.
  • Infrequent Updates
    The development and updates to Semantic UI have been less frequent compared to other UI frameworks, potentially leading to compatibility and security issues.

Material Design Lite features and specs

  • 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 of Material Design Lite

  • 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.

Semantic UI videos

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Semantic UI In 60 Minutes

Material Design Lite videos

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What is Material Design Lite?

More videos:

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Semantic UI and Material Design Lite)

Semantic UI

Material Design Lite

Design Tools
90 90%
Design Tools
10% 10
CSS Framework
87 87%
CSS Framework
13% 13
Developer Tools
89 89%
Developer Tools
11% 11
Development Tools
82 82%
Development Tools
18% 18

User comments

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

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Semantic UI and Material Design Lite

Semantic UI Reviews

22 Best Bootstrap Alternatives & What Each Is Best For
I chose Semantic UI because of its intuitive and accessible approach to design. Its use of human-friendly HTML sets it apart from many other frameworks, making it a more natural choice for developers prioritizing user-friendly designs. From my perspective, Semantic UI is the best tool for creating websites and applications that are easy for both developers and end users to...
Source: thectoclub.com
10 Best Free React UI Libraries in 2023
The styling of Semantic UI React is based on the Semantic UI theme and it's also free from jQuery. Apart from that, there are other useful features like augmentation, shorthand props, auto controlled state, etc.
Source: www.wearedevelopers.com
11 Best Material UI Alternatives
Semantic UI supports theming and customization, allowing developers to customize the appearance of their UI components to align with their project’s branding. With its intuitive syntax and detailed documentation, Semantic UI is a valuable tool for designing and developing modern web interfaces.
Source: www.uxpin.com
Top 10 Best CSS Frameworks for Front-End Developers in 2022
If you’re just starting out with CSS and UI, go for Tacit, Pure, or Skeleton. However, to build more complex elements, you’ll need a more inclusive framework like Foundation, Tailwind, or Bootstrap. You can get an easy learning curve through Bulma or Semantic UI.
Source: hackr.io
15 Best CSS Frameworks: Professional Bootstrap and Foundation Alternatives
If you exclude the fact that Semantic UI doesn’t have the utility classes Bootstrap offers, it is a comprehensive CSS framework that you should try. The best Semantic feature allows you to write HTML code without using BEM methodologies.
Source: www.webdesignerdepot.com

Material Design Lite Reviews

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

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Semantic UI should be more popular than Material Design Lite. It has been mentiond 19 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.

Semantic UI mentions (19)

  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    Semantic UI: A fully semantic front-end development framework. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Ant Design – the second most popular React UI framework
    Semantic UI[1] was one I used to use, both the plain CSS one as well as the React version of the library. Version 3.0 is coming (eventually), which has left it a bit outdated for a while, but it's still a solid UI library imho. I have been switching away to Tailwind. [1]: https://semantic-ui.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Ask HN: I'm bad at design, which stops me from finishing side projects. Advice?
    What stack are you using? I personally recommend utilizing readily available components: https://ui.shadcn.com/ https://mui.com/ https://semantic-ui.com/ etc.. - Source: Hacker News / over 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
  • Software Design Document - Lite
    Honestly you should build a webpage and use a UI library if you want markdown with some extra pop. Check out semantic ui. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

Material Design Lite mentions (4)

  • Where can i find premade components like Navbars, Headers, Cards, Footers, etc.
    Https://getmdl.io/ No specific framework (e.g React, Angular) required. Source: over 2 years ago
  • The React roadmap for beginners you never knew you needed.
    Materialize, Material UI, Material Design Lite. - Source: dev.to / over 3 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: over 3 years ago
  • For some reason, button is not misaligned in CodePen but when the exact same code is in a normal HTML file, its misaligned and it looks weird
    Sorry if I'm not providing much context, but I'm using Material Design Lite (https://getmdl.io). Strangely, it doesn't work in other online HTML "compilers" like W3Schools TryIt. Source: almost 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Semantic UI and Material Design Lite, you can also consider the following products

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

UIKit - A lightweight and modular front-end framework for developing fast and powerful web interfaces

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

Bulma - Bulma is an open source CSS framework based on Flexbox and built with Sass. It's 100% responsive, fully modular, and available for free.

Cirrus CSS - The SCSS framework for the modern web. It's component based, customizable, and completely open source.

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