Material Design Lite vs Polymer

Struggling to choose between Material Design Lite and Polymer? Both products offer unique advantages, making it a tough decision.

Material Design Lite is a Development solution with tags like material-design, responsive-design, web-components.

It boasts features such as Responsive layout system, Material Design compliant visual components, Customizable themes, Lightweight and modular code and pros including Open source and free to use, Good documentation and community support, Components work across modern browsers, Easy to customize and extend components.

On the other hand, Polymer is a Development product tagged with web-components, javascript, library, frontend.

Its standout features include Component-based architecture, Interoperability with other libraries, Declarative programming model, Data binding support, Template stamping, Shadow DOM encapsulation, Cross-browser support, and it shines with pros like Good documentation, Large community support, Performance optimizations, Simplifies web component development, Encapsulation promotes reusability, Lightweight library.

To help you make an informed decision, we've compiled a comprehensive comparison of these two products, delving into their features, pros, cons, pricing, and more. Get ready to explore the nuances that set them apart and determine which one is the perfect fit for your requirements.

Material Design Lite

Material Design Lite

Material Design Lite (MDL) is an open-source HTML/CSS/JavaScript framework that implements Google's Material Design specifications. It provides responsive, customizable, cross-browser compatible components like buttons, cards, menus, and more out-of-the-box.

Categories:
material-design responsive-design web-components

Material Design Lite Features

  1. Responsive layout system
  2. Material Design compliant visual components
  3. Customizable themes
  4. Lightweight and modular code

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Open source and free to use

Good documentation and community support

Components work across modern browsers

Easy to customize and extend components

Cons

Less features than other Material frameworks

Not as flexible as pure CSS solutions

Relies on Sass/node for theming

Not actively maintained anymore


Polymer

Polymer

Polymer is an open-source JavaScript library for building web applications using Web Components. It allows developers to create custom, reusable HTML elements with encapsulated functionality and styles.

Categories:
web-components javascript library frontend

Polymer Features

  1. Component-based architecture
  2. Interoperability with other libraries
  3. Declarative programming model
  4. Data binding support
  5. Template stamping
  6. Shadow DOM encapsulation
  7. Cross-browser support

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Good documentation

Large community support

Performance optimizations

Simplifies web component development

Encapsulation promotes reusability

Lightweight library

Cons

Steep learning curve

Limited IE11 support

Upgrade issues between major versions

Not ideal for very large applications

Some browser inconsistencies