Flexbox Vs. Grid: Understanding the Differences

CSS is a powerful language for designing and building layouts in web development. Among its various features, Flexbox and CSS Grid are two layout models that have revolutionized the way we design web interfaces. In this post, we will discuss the differences between Flexbox and Grid, their advantages, and when to use each one.

Introduction to Flexbox

Flexbox, or Flexible Box Module, is a one-dimensional layout model. It’s a way to lay out items in a container and change their alignment, direction, order, and size to best fill available space.

Here’s an example of a basic flex container:

.container {
  display: flex;
}

With this simple declaration, child elements of .container will lay out in a row from left to right.

Introduction to Grid

CSS Grid, on the other hand, is a two-dimensional layout system. It’s meant for laying out content in rows and columns at the same time. You can control the widths of columns and the heights of rows, something you can’t do with Flexbox.

Here’s an example of a basic grid container:

.container {
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(3, 1fr);
  grid-template-rows: repeat(3, 1fr);
}

This grid container will have 3 equally sized columns and 3 equally sized rows.

Main Differences

Here are the differences and the things that make each of these CSS properties unique.

Dimension

The primary difference between Flexbox and Grid lies in their dimension. Flexbox is primarily for one-dimensional layouts - either a row or a column. Grid is for two-dimensional layouts, where both rows and columns might be of concern.

The application in which you’d use these properties depends mostly on your content.

Content-Driven vs. Container-Driven

Flexbox is content-driven. This means it best serves when the size of the content or the number of items will dictate the final layout.

Grid is container-driven. It is more suited to laying out a larger scale layout where the placement and proportion of the grid and items are known ahead of time.

Alignment

Both Flexbox and Grid offer a variety of alignment capabilities. However, because Grid is two-dimensional, it provides more alignment options and can handle both columns and rows simultaneously, which can’t be done with Flexbox.