There are many good CSS frameworks available but not all of them are lightweight. Lightweight CSS frameworks are not only going to make your website faster but also helps to improve overall performance. Therefore it’s better to adopt a lightweight framework for your next project. So in this post, I will share some most popular and lightweight CSS frameworks with their features.


What is a CSS framework?

A CSS framework is a simple CSS(which can consist of javascript files also) file with pre-styled classes. So that we can use those classes in our markup. While there are many good frameworks available but the most popular of all time is bootstrap.

Bootstrap is good as it provides many built-in components but it's not that lightweight. So don’t worry I have made a list of frameworks that are lightweight but have much to do with.


Lightweight CSS frameworks

Choose a perfect framework according to your project is quite tough. Day by day web design is improving and many new tricks, techs are developing. So before you choose a framework you must check out its capabilities. But don’t worry the list of lightweight CSS frameworks will help you with it.


Bulma

Bulma is a flexbox based modern CSS framework with more than 42k+stars on Github. If you are familiar with css3 then you may know how popular flexbox is. It becomes so much popular in a short period. It's one of the best competitors of bootstrap and by default, it doesn’t need javascript. If you ever work with bootstrap before you may know it has a js file that needs jquery. Therefore you have to use jquery for bootstrap but there are far better options available than jquery.

So Bulma will be a perfect choice if you love flexbox and don’t want to use jquery.


You can check out their official website here. They have made good documentation also.


Spectre

Spectre is also a lightweight CSS framework, use it as a starting point for your projects. It provides flexbox based, responsive, and mobile-friendly layout. It has everything you will ever need for your modern web design projects. While it's just released recently but still has 10k+ stars at Github.

So if you want less complication and faster workflow then choose it over others. I am sure you will love to explore the features of Spectre.

They also have well-maintained documentation, check it here.


Pure CSS

First of all pure is the most lightweight framework developed and maintained by yahoo. It's not like a framework but it provides a set of modules. It doesn’t have many components it just provides a base, grid, forms, tables, menus, and buttons. The entire set of modules is just 3.8KB*minified and gzipped. While it's much small in size but made with mobile in mind. However, if you are working on a small project or want to start from scratch then pure will be the best choice. It will make your website lightning fast. You can check out their official website here. Pure is much popular too with more than 21.3k+ GitHub stars.


Skeleton

Skeleton is not a framework it’s a boilerplate but isn’t less than any framework. It provides a base structure for your project and helps you to accomplish the task faster as much as possible. You don’t have to worry about typography, tables, grids, buttons. It's surely one of the best boilerplate available out there. Finally, I would say if your project is small but needs a modern look then definitely choose it. Don’t worry about its community support because it has already got 18k+ stars.

You can check their official website here.


Kube CSS

Kube is another lightweight framework with some built-in components. It performs well and supports almost all the latest design concepts. So you can surely use it in any medium scale project. The only minor drawback of Kube is to use its components you have to include its javascript file. While it's much popular at GitHub with 1.3kstars. Anyway, they have well-maintained documentation, you can check it here.



Milligram

It is truly lightweight. Just imagine it just takes 2kb to when minimized. It not only gives you a clean UI look but also decorates your code in an organized way. If you are looking for something that is lighter than bootstrap but keeps the feel of a minimal UI look then it should be milligram. It has about 9.1k stars in github.

You can check the documentation here.


So these were the best lightweight CSS frameworks that I prefer when I don't want my project to be too heavy. If you know about other lightweight CSS frameworks do tell us in the comment section below.