Advantages and Disadvantages of CSS

What is CSS?

There are three pillars of web development - HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. HTML is used to structure the content, CSS is used to style the content and JavaScript is used to make it dynamic.

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets is a design language that makes the web page visually appealing. If HTML is the architectural blueprint of a house that defines its structure, CSS is its design and interior. Through CSS, we can render various functionalities to make the look and feel of the website rich. It goes without saying that HTML and CSS go hand in hand and are closely associated with each other. Although a website can run without CSS, it will be ordinary and not outstanding.

There are various advantages of CSS. It is majorly responsible for rendering color, font size, font style, and much more. It works by providing various style options to the HTML elements. Refer to the article- What is CSS, to know more information.

Advantages of CSS

You might wonder what are the other advantages of CSS apart from styling the page. With CSS, customization of a web page becomes easy. It is also simple to accomplish the completion of a greater amount of styling with minimal effort. Let us look into the advantages of CSS.

Consistency & Maintenance

One of the greatest advantages of CSS is its consistency. Since it is consistent, the developer does not have to put in a lot of effort. The formatting can be changed easily and the changes made get reflected to the web pages using that style sheet. CSS is also very easy to maintain. All the elements to be styled can be included in a single page and the formatting is applied. To change the style of a single element, very little editing is required. Also, the changes are reflected throughout wherever that particular styling is used.

Flexibility

A greater flexibility can be achieved using CSS. It is compatible with both big and small screens. A responsive design can be created using CSS which is the best fit for all types of screens. An optimal user experience is provided to the users.

Page Load Efficiency

As we know with the increase in the size of the code, the loading speed of the page decreases. CSS enables us to style the elements using less code. It increases the page load efficiency. To style multiple elements with a similar style, we can apply that style to a group of elements. This abates the need to write code individually for each element.

Enhanced Design Options

CSS can style the web pages with a variety of styles. While using only HTML, a plain and basic web page can be created. A visually appealing web page can be created using CSS. This results in an increased engagement on the page.

Platform Independence

CSS is said to be platform-independent as it provides features like media queries and responsive design that can enable the developer to write code to run on various devices. There is no need to write an entirely separate style sheet for each individual platform or device.

CSS Minification

CSS Minification is used to minify the CSS code by reducing its size. The size can be reduced by removing comments or extra whitespaces which are not required in the code for styling. The page load speed improves significantly because of it.

Cascade and Inheritance

Cascade in CSS is used to decide which style to apply for a particular element when there are multiple conflicting styles. It allows the elements to be styled according to various parameters like its source order or importance. Inheritance is used to inherit the properties of a parent class to the child class. Only some of the properties like font or text color are inherited. Both cascade and inheritance help in an organized and efficient styling. It also saves time and aids in less code.

Class and ID Usage

HTML provides the feature of class and IDs. Using classes, we can style a group of elements. This saves code and also helps in efficient styling. Using IDs, we can style individual elements with a particular style. This can help to isolate styles to specific components.

CSS Sprites

The technique of CSS Sprites is used to optimize the performance of a website. It aims to combine multiple elements into a single image. This decreases the number of server requests. Also the loading time is reduced as instead of several images, the browser needs to download and render only one image.

Disadvantages of CSS

The advantages of CSS are now known to us. Let us now comprehend the disadvantages of CSS that the developers need to keep in mind.

Cross-Browser Issues

One of the major disadvantages of CSS is its cross-browser problem. Before making the websites live, tests are conducted to check their compatibility. Although everyone nowadays prefers the most popular browsers like Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Safari etc., there might be a few exceptions. If these tests are not performed, it might result in an unexpected performance on that particular browser.

Learning Curve

Although CSS is an easy language to learn, some of its syntax is quite complicated. There are also different levels of CSS like CSS1, CSS2, and CSS3. They are different from each other in a few aspects. This can create confusion among the learners. Also, as developers, one might have to switch from one level to the other depending upon the requirements of the project.

Complex Layouts

If there is a complex layout, it might be difficult to create the same using CSS. There can be several intricacies that might arise due to the position and responsiveness.

Over Specificity

Over Specificity is an issue in CSS where the selectors are defined as having a lot of levels. In the case of nested selectors or over-specified selectors, the code is not quite readable and it is difficult to make changes.

File Size

If the web page and its styling are very large, it can hamper the performance of the website. A large sized file can degrade the loading time of the website.