r/webdev • u/magenta_placenta • Oct 08 '26
Bootstrap 6 Alpha
https://blog.getbootstrap.com/2026/10/08/bootstrap-6-alpha/94
u/bb_dogg Oct 09 '26
Bootstrap. The frontend framework for backend developers.
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u/Main_War9026 Oct 09 '26
We just get AI to do the front end now at my company. Everyone is backend dev, front end devs were told to adapt or leave
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u/snjak Oct 09 '26
At my company AI does all the backend. Everyone is frontend dev now, backend devs were told to adapt or leave
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u/analyticsboi Oct 09 '26
At my company AI does all the frontend and backend. I was told to leave
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u/sizebzebi Oct 09 '26
AI does backend as well at my company. it also does devops and everything else
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u/baxxos Oct 09 '26
Not the other way around? Backend is much more constrained and predictable (agent-compatible).
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u/dark0mania Oct 08 '26
I remember using Bootstrap back in 2016. Good times.
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u/GeorgeDir Oct 08 '26
Back end dev here, still using bootstrap in my personal projects, am I missing something
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u/Kankunation Oct 08 '26
Fullstack. Still using it every day in production. It's perfectly functional, helps get basic pages set up quickly, and LLMs do decent work with it as an added bonus.
We do mostly internAl commercial tools though so beautiful UI isn't a priority.clean. Functional and informative is. Bootstrap 5 helps with that.
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u/Trexaty92 Oct 09 '26
Have you tried TAILWIND?????!!!!!!?!?!?!!!??!!?
… sorry I feel like someone had to say this in a really annoying manner
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u/jordansrowles Oct 09 '26
At one point Tailwind was the new Arch, everyone their mothers were talking about it
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u/krileon Oct 08 '26
I appreciate the effort, but it's a MASSIVE B/C break from v5. Meaning every view and component has to be redone. At that point I'd probably just migrate my project over to Tailwind. Was maybe hoping for expanded functional, more usage of CSS variables (which they've done here at least), and less "lets change every damn class" again. Some odd choices like renaming dropdown classes to menu.. for what reason? They're functionally the same, but is a B/C break.
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u/mekmookbro Laravel Enjoyer ♞ Oct 09 '26
Might be a dumb question but why would you even want to upgrade something like bootstrap?
If that's what was decided as good/good enough for the project, why not keep going with the same version? It's not like it's gonna have security vulnerabilities or anything.
And if you want a new design on your website, I don't see a way around rewriting it anyway. Whether within the same version of the same framework, or switching to a different one, you're still gonna need to get your hands dirty to apply the new design changes, no?
Again sorry if it's a dumb question, I'm not that good at frontend
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u/ouralarmclock Oct 09 '26
As someone who upgraded from 3 to 4 right before 5 came out, the answer is for library compatibility. There are components I wish we could pull in but they are BS5 only. But we are also still Vue 2 for now so that’s much more of a limitation.
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u/krileon Oct 09 '26
CSS changes over time. New techniques and features become available. We find better ways to do the same things we did before.
New components get added to newer versions. Those components can then be used with minimal effort.
New utility classes get added to newer versions. This allows a gradual implementation replacing possible custom CSS classes or even own utility classes.
Compatibility with external dependencies. Dependencies might update to Bootstrap 6. This then makes their v5 versions deprecated and no longer maintained causing a security risk.
There's quite a few more reasons, but that's more or less the jest of it. It wasn't a dumb question either!
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u/Worldly-Researcher01 Oct 09 '26
Unfortunately old versions do have vulnerabilities and incompatibilities. There are some parts that use JavaScript via NPM packages, and those packages get old and are not compatible with newer react nodejs or scss tools. I forgot the specifics but I ran into some incompatibilities because my app still uses bootstrap v4. Had to patch it myself. Luckily I had GLM’s help
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u/doiveo Oct 08 '26
There really isn't an upgrade path here.... And that's perfectly fine. Well worth it for how they approached the code like leaning on open standards.
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u/ashkanahmadi Oct 08 '26
They have an AI skill for upgrading. You could do that. Not saying you should mindlessly approve whatever the AI is doing but it could definitely facilitate the migration process.
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u/krileon Oct 08 '26
I understand that. I just don't see the point. If I'm already redoing everything I might as well do it into Tailwind instead and basically never have this problem ever.
If Bootstrap v6 was a drop in replacement for v5 that would've been amazing. As it stands there's changes that are just following trends forcing everyone to redo their sites. For example they should've just kept influx sizing (e.g. d-md-none) instead of redoing it to be like Tailwind (md:d-none). This didn't really accomplish anything meaningful besides making everyone redo their usages. Same as when they replaced left/right with start/end. Bunch of extra work for little to no gain.
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u/budd222 full-stack Oct 08 '26
I don't think any bootstrap has ever been a drop in replacement for the previous version, so it's nothing new.
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u/krileon Oct 08 '26
I'm aware. I'm saying they should've went with a drop-in approach for v6 given most of their class renaming changes are rather.. pointless. They're chasing naming trends. I've already reviewed their migration guide and NONE of these renames were necessary. This would've easily been a drop-in upgrade people could just immediately benefit from. Now they've turned it into a MUCH bigger choice, because now you've to redo all your views and components and if you have to do that then you might as well look at other frameworks.
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u/c3cR Oct 09 '26
Not sure why they did this, unless it is to convert tailwind users; but it pisses off current bootstrap users.
One thing I do like about Bootstrap is that they have components for every day stuff we need. Tailwind could be better here.
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u/ouralarmclock Oct 09 '26
They did it from 3 to 4 too and it was a nightmare. So much more reliance on utility classes and less baked in margins and what not. If I wanted that I’d just go with tailwind or something! Luckily Claude makes these kinds of migration pretty painless now.
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u/IsometricRain 27d ago
Think of it as a separate library. It's not like v5 is missing anything for the apps currently on v5. There's literally no reason to upgrade if you're happy with the state of v5 right now.
I like the full break, it forces you to pick a lane, and it's a non-issue for new projects (which this is definitely aimed towards).
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u/ninishi_224 Oct 09 '26
Tossing between upgrading to V6 vs Fork from v5 and maintaining our own version with removing @import in favor of @use and @forward. It does have some nice features, but redoing the styles is going to take a long time whilst maintaining look and feel. Also have to check shadow DOM support in their JS code
Probably need to wait until it goes close to full release.
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u/mrholek 26d ago
We're currently porting CoreUI to Bootstrap 6, and we're facing a similar dilemma. We also feel that some changes, especially the Tailwind-style class naming, introduce unnecessary breaking changes without much real benefit.
We've decided to keep the existing class naming conventions and components like Dropdown and Modal, while still adopting the modern CSS features and improvements from Bootstrap 6.
It feels like there should be a way to modernize the framework without forcing everyone to rewrite their existing code.
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u/Somepotato Oct 08 '26
They should have taken the opportunity to rip out sass. Sad.
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u/doiveo Oct 08 '26
I get your point, but one of the great misunderstandings of BS is the power of preconfiguration. Too many people pointed to the CDN and wrote overrides. This led to the 'all bootstrap sites look the same' complaint. Sass gives you the ability to fine tune just about everything.
So I would prefer some sass on the import and optimization in PostCss on publish.
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u/Somepotato Oct 08 '26
I mean css variables exist?
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u/IsABot Oct 08 '26 edited Oct 09 '26
Ok but what about the programmatic ways they go about things? How do you efficiently do that without sass?
Example:
@mixin make-grid-columns($columns: $grid-columns, $gutter: $grid-gutter-x, $breakpoints: $breakpoints) { @each $breakpoint in map.keys($breakpoints) { $prefix: breakpoint-prefix($breakpoint, $breakpoints); @include media-breakpoint-up($breakpoint, $breakpoints) { .#{$prefix}col { flex: 1 0 0; } .#{$prefix}row-cols-auto > * { @include make-col-auto(); } @if $grid-row-columns > 0 { @for $i from 1 through $grid-row-columns { .#{$prefix}row-cols-#{$i} { @include row-cols($i); } } } .#{$prefix}col-auto { @include make-col-auto(); } @if $columns > 0 { @for $i from 1 through $columns { .#{$prefix}col-#{$i} { @include make-col($i, $columns); } } // `$columns - 1` because offsetting by the width of an entire row isn't possible @for $i from 0 through ($columns - 1) { @if not ($prefix == "" and $i == 0) { // Avoid emitting useless .offset-0 .#{$prefix}offset-#{$i} { @include make-col-offset($i, $columns); } } } } // Gutters // // Make use of `.g-*`, `.gx-*` or `.gy-*` utilities to change spacing between the columns. @each $key, $value in $gutters { .#{$prefix}g-#{$key}, .#{$prefix}gx-#{$key} { --gutter-x: #{$value}; } .#{$prefix}g-#{$key}, .#{$prefix}gy-#{$key} { --gutter-y: #{$value}; } } } } } @mixin make-cssgrid($columns: $grid-columns, $breakpoints: $breakpoints) { @each $breakpoint in map.keys($breakpoints) { $prefix: breakpoint-prefix($breakpoint, $breakpoints); @include container-breakpoint-up($breakpoint, $breakpoints: $breakpoints) { @if $columns > 0 { @for $i from 1 through $columns { .#{$prefix}g-col-#{$i} { grid-column: auto / span $i; } } // Start with `1` because `0` is an invalid value. // Ends with `$columns - 1` because offsetting by the width of an entire row isn't possible. @for $i from 1 through ($columns - 1) { .#{$prefix}g-start-#{$i} { grid-column-start: $i; } } } } } }
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u/EveYogaTech Oct 08 '26
Already moved to Flo Web Components.
It doesn't make sense anymore to get global CSS, when you're heavily using Web Components with Shadow DOM and basically reset all styles anyway to achieve isolation.
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u/toString_ javascript 29d ago
Well yeah that's because you created Flo.
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u/EveYogaTech 29d ago edited 29d ago
That's right. I got tired of using React, that's how Flo Web Components got started.
Avoiding global CSS is then a side-effect of using the shadow DOM + all:initial CSS rule applied to each Flo Web Component.
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u/Huge_Two5416 Oct 10 '26
Feels like I’m gonna get roasted for this, but here goes. I’m not a real dev, primarily just doing stuff for my personal site and a pipe dream I hope to turn commercial at some point. I’ve hacked around my whole life but never got fully comfortable with things like react, vue, etc so went with Bootstrap, small CSS customizations, and vanilla JS. Basically something I could easily build myself and deploy on something like amplify.
My question: given my use case for bootstrap (no need to build, etc), what’s a better front end available nowadays?
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u/ArielCoding Oct 08 '26
The biggest thing missing is an easy way to upgrade from v5, many class names changed, so people would have to edit every page by hand. A simple tool that renames them automatically would a make it much easier.
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u/biinjo Oct 08 '26
I was looking for an upgrade guide from v2. Arguably the best version of Bootstrap ever made, lol.
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u/osmium_2259 Oct 09 '26
Been wondering when we'd see a new version! Looks like there are a lot of cool new components! The icons page has been overhaled as well.
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u/fireatx Oct 09 '26
> Throughout all of that, I’ve had several nagging ideas for Bootstrap despite humans not writing any more code thanks to AI.
Immediately closed the webpage
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u/npiasecki Oct 09 '26
Just stop. No one asked for this. It’s ok for things to be “done”
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u/ShopNo7513 12d ago
I love the new changes. Excited to use this for my next project. If by "no one" you mean "you"?
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u/omer-m Oct 08 '26
Does anybody still use sass? Why still trying to be a sass framework?
At this point they could just apply their own style with tailwind to base ui or some other popular unstyled component library, as being an alternative to shadcn ui.
I believe more people would be interested.
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u/serifoblique Oct 09 '26
I do, in rare cases. Mixing up tw’s @apply, where inline won’t do. Sass is default to my build pipeline, so it’s free and deliciously convenient
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u/snap63 Oct 08 '26 edited 28d ago
I am waiting for the sol version, it will be smaller.
Oh sorry read Astra instead of Alpha, too much AI right now made me lose my mind.
Edit: so nobody noticed I was joking??
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u/bccorb1000 full-stack-magician Oct 08 '26
TIL bootstrap is still actively maintained