Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Stylus VS HTML5 Boilerplate

Compare Stylus VS HTML5 Boilerplate and see what are their differences

Stylus logo Stylus

EXPRESSIVE, DYNAMIC, ROBUST CSS

HTML5 Boilerplate logo HTML5 Boilerplate

A rock-solid default for HTML5 awesome.
  • Stylus Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-20

Stylus is a revolutionary new language, providing an efficient, dynamic, and expressive way to generate CSS. Supporting both an indented syntax and regular CSS style.

  • HTML5 Boilerplate Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-30

Stylus features and specs

  • Simplified Syntax
    Stylus provides an optional semicolon-free and curly-brace-free syntax, making the code cleaner and easier to write.
  • Extensive Feature Set
    Stylus offers a wide range of features like mixins, nesting, variables, functions, and built-in functions, which increase its flexibility and power.
  • Preprocessor Enhancements
    Stylus includes advanced features that are not available in CSS alone, such as mathematical operations, conditionals, and loops, which can make stylesheets more dynamic and maintainable.
  • JavaScript Interoperability
    Stylus allows embedding of JavaScript expressions and logic directly within the stylesheets, providing developers with additional functionality and control.

Possible disadvantages of Stylus

  • Learning Curve
    The flexibility and multitude of features in Stylus can introduce complexity, making it harder for beginners to grasp quickly compared to more straightforward CSS preprocessors.
  • Less Popularity
    Stylus is less popular than other preprocessors like Sass or LESS, which might result in fewer learning resources, community support, and third-party tools.
  • Potential for Overuse
    The advanced features could lead developers to overuse them, resulting in overly complex code that is difficult to maintain and understand.
  • Build Tool Dependencies
    Integration of Stylus into a project generally requires additional build tools and configurations, which can add to the setup and maintenance overhead.

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.

Analysis of HTML5 Boilerplate

Overall verdict

  • Yes, HTML5 Boilerplate is widely regarded as a good starting point for web developers who want to ensure their applications are optimized and maintainable from the onset.

Why this product is good

  • HTML5 Boilerplate is designed to be a robust, adaptable, and fast foundation for building web applications. It provides best practices for cross-browser compatibility, performance optimization, and a solid structure, while also including modern HTML5 features and enhancements.

Recommended for

  • Web developers seeking a solid foundation to start new projects
  • Developers who want to ensure best practices in performance and cross-browser compatibility
  • Teams prioritizing rapid development with a maintainable architecture
  • Projects that require modern HTML5 features

Stylus videos

Best stylus for iPhone! Don't waste your money!

More videos:

  • Review - What is the best iPad stylus?
  • Review - Review: MEKO 2-in-1 Stylus (2nd Gen)

HTML5 Boilerplate videos

HTML5 Tutorials #5 - HTML5 Boilerplate

More videos:

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

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Stylus and HTML5 Boilerplate)
Developer Tools
69 69%
31% 31
CSS Framework
0 0%
100% 100
Browser Extension
100 100%
0% 0
Design Tools
41 41%
59% 59

User comments

Share your experience with using Stylus and HTML5 Boilerplate. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

Stylus Reviews

112 Best Chrome Extensions You Should Try (2021 List)
Stylus offers functionality to install and write themes. It is an open-source community-driven extension that makes it much better than its counterparts. Using Stylus, you can install themes from popular repositories, backup your installed styles, and much more. Watch the above video to learn more about Stylus.

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

Social recommendations and mentions

HTML5 Boilerplate might be a bit more popular than Stylus. We know about 18 links to it since March 2021 and only 14 links to Stylus. 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.

Stylus mentions (14)

  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    Stylus: Provides a more efficient and elegant way to generate CSS. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • 33 front-end development tools developers use in 2024
    Sass, Less and Stylus, extends CSS by adding variables, nesting mixins, and other features. It's an excellent solution for organizing huge and complex stylesheets. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • BEM Modifiers in Pure CSS Nesting
    I hate preprocessors. Be it SASS, SCSS, LESS, Stylus, or any other. Really, without any exceptions. Though, I think my hatred for preprocessors is not because of the technology itself, but because of how other people use them. Throughout my development career, I have often encountered tickets where a seemingly simple task, like changing the text size, which should take minutes, ended up taking me hours. This is... - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Future of CSS: Functions and Mixins
    Traditionally CSS lacked features such as variables, nesting, mixins, and functions. This was frustrating for Developers as it often led to CSS quickly becoming complex and cumbersome. In an attempt to make code easier and less repetitive CSS pre-processors were born. You would write CSS in the format the pre-processor understood and, at build time, you'd have some nice CSS. The most common pre-processors these... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Quick Guide To CSS Preprocessors
    The Stylus is built on Node.js. It differs from Sass and Less, which are more opinionated to the syntax; the stylus allows you to omit semicolons, colons, and braces if you want at any time. Another cool feature is that the stylus has a property lookup feature. You can do that easily if you set property X relative to property Y's value. The stylus can be more concise because of its flexibility, but it depends on... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
View more

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 / 3 months 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: over 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: over 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

What are some alternatives?

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

Sass - Syntatically Awesome Style Sheets

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

Dark Reader - Reduce eye strain in your browser with this extension that provides a dark theme for browsing.

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

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.

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