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Skeleton

A small, plain CSS starting point for responsive, mobile-friendly web pages.

GitHub Download 2.0.4
Stars
19.3k
Forks
3.1k
Licence
MIT
Language
CSS
Last update
3.0 years ago
Type
Library

No commits in over a year — check for forks or alternatives before adopting.

What it is

Skeleton is a small CSS boilerplate that gives you a responsive grid and basic styling for raw HTML elements, so pages look reasonable on phones and desktops. The download includes its CSS, Normalize CSS as a reset, a favicon, and a starter index.html. It is described as a starting point rather than a full UI framework, and needs no build step.

  • Start a simple responsive one-page site from the included index.html
  • Add a responsive grid to an existing HTML page
  • Customize the commented skeleton.css as a base for your own styles

Great for

  • Developers who want a simple responsive grid without a build tool
  • Prototypes and small landing pages
  • People who prefer writing plain CSS and HTML
  • Projects that need a light starting stylesheet to customize

Not ideal for

  • Teams that need a large set of prebuilt components, since the README says it is not a UI framework
  • Projects that rely on the latest CSS features, since it targets broad browser support rather than modern-only browsers
  • Anyone needing long-term stability from the main branch, since the README says the repo is under active development and recommends the zip for stable use
Step-by-step guide: how to use SkeletonInstall, first run, examples, tips and FAQs
Skeleton alternativesHTML5 Boilerplate vs SkeletonBootstrap vs SkeletonPure vs SkeletonMilligram vs Skeleton

How to get it

  1. 1

    Download the app

    Clone the repository

    git clone https://github.com/dhg/Skeleton.git
  2. 2

    Run it

    • Download the zip from the release link or clone the repo.
    • Unzip the folder and open index.html in a browser.
    • Edit index.html and css/skeleton.css to match your project.
  3. 3

    Get the most out of it

    • Use the zipped 2.0.4 release if you want a stable version instead of the active main branch.
    • Check the community Sass and LESS extensions if you want to change grid, color, or media queries with a preprocessor.
    • Keep the bundled normalize.min.css as the reset so browser defaults are consistent.

Downloads

Source code (.zip)master branch · straight from GitHubRelease 2.0.41 files incl. Skeleton-2.0.4.zipOfficial website & docswww.getskeleton.com

Strengths

  • Small, about 400 lines of commented CSS according to the README
  • No compiling or installing; plain vanilla CSS
  • Available under the MIT license

Trade-offs

  • Styles only raw HTML elements plus a grid, so you will write most components yourself
  • Main branch is under active development; the zip release is the stable option per the README
  • Last push in the metadata is from November 2023, and the README does not describe recent updates

How it compares

ProjectStarsTypeLevelUpdatedBest for
Skeleton (this)19.3kLibrarybeginner3.0 years agoDevelopers who want a simple responsive grid without a build tool
milligram10.2kLibrarybeginner2 months agoDevelopers who want a light starting point for a simple website or prototype
bootstrap175kLibrarybeginner4 days agoDevelopers building responsive websites or web app interfaces quickly
pure14.5kDev toolbeginner30 days agoDevelopers who use zsh and want a simple, readable prompt

Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.