> As a non-designer, I am finding it easier and easier to get something professional looking up

The reason you find it getting easier is not to be found in any of these tools, but in your repeated effort to "put something up" and getting better at it.

You are learning how to design by doing design.

That's true, but guidance on how to get better at design is much more available than it used to be. I remember creating web sites 20 years ago and getting feedback that they looked dreadful. I had no idea why people didn't like them; I liked them! It turns out I like lots of things that most people don't and I needed guidance to find out what most people like.

20 years ago we were also much more limited in our options- 216-color web-safe palettes, minimal styling & layout, low-resolution displays, etc.

> That's true, but guidance on how to get better at design is much more available than it used to be.

Absolutely. It's a wonderful time to learn.

Maybe, maybe not.

My design sense remains abysmal. Being able to use something like Bootstrap to get a sensible look and feel is a big boon.

I'm in the same boat.

I struggle hard with the UX, but I'm amazed that with modern tools I can create a rudimentary, but clean design in Sketch, code it, and manage the infrastructure behind it.

Even 10 years ago, these were 3 to 5 completely distinct skillsets (designer, frontend, backend, infrastructure, DBA).

The divide between these roles you mentioned has gotten bigger over time in my opinion. It's maybe easier nowadays to put together an okay-looking proof-of-concept app, but when getting into large apps and high traffic, the stack has gotten more complicated to do right. You don't just roll out server-rendered MVC app, but need front-end with 3 layouts for different devices and state management more complex than on the back-end. Or maybe that's just my feeling.

Can you explain how you get a solid looking template and what you do to customize it and where Material UI comes in?

Bulma is a gamechanger for me in this regard. I can get something professional looking up and running with literally no design experience.

There are obviously limitations to it, but for my use cases it's great.

I'm an API guy who uses Python and Hy and I'm getting started with some front-end programming on my weekends to have some hobby projects with a public face. It annoys me that every website template now expects you to install via npm. Bulma is all-out with that.

If you dig down, it's apparently because the DSL Sass is used to generate CSS. But there are Sass compilers in C and Python and probably in Prolog at this juncture.

Bulma looks fairly similar to Bootstrap v4 as far as visual output goes.

Any major reasons to use one or the other?

We looked into both when writing an open-source admin interface for NestJS. We went for bootstrap because:

- Nobody likes bootstrap, but everybody knows bootstrap (good for an open-source lib) - Better browser compatibility - Better accessibility - Plenty of UI widgets built on top of bootstrap (we don't use them, but people using the lib could) - About as big as each other

No solid reasons honestly, other than personal preference. Bulma just looks better out of the box to me.

Seconded. Bulma is the tool of choice for 99% of my projects. I have all the CSS classes almost memorized.

Same here, it is easy to impress your clients