SCSS vs CSS: What is the Difference?

Better looks are important while making a website. That’s the place where CSS and SCSS come into play. Both of these tools help developers create and design web pages. However, knowing the difference between SCSS and CSS is also important. In this blog, we will understand what CSS and SCSS are, use cases of both of them, and the CSS vs SCSS in detail with examples.

Table of Contents:

What is CSS?
What is SCSS?
Difference Between CSS and SCSS
Conclusion

What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is the standard stylesheet language that is used to style HTML elements on the webpage. In simple words, it helps in defining the colors, font type, spacing, layouts, and more of HTML elements.

CSS Syntax:

selector {
    property: value;
}

Selector: It is the target HTML element that you want to style.

Property: The style that you want to apply to HTML elements like font, color, and font-size.

Value: Each property has various possible values.

Example: Basic HTML And CSS Example

Html

Explanation: In this example, the <style> tag is always placed under the <head> section to define CSS. Here, <h1> gets the dark blue color and is centered, and the <p> tag gets the font size of 16px.

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CSS Use Cases

CSS is important for every website. It is used from a simple landing page to a complex web application. Here are some popular use cases of CSS:

It is used for styling texts and elements on the website.
It is helpful in controlling the position of elements using flexbox and grids.
It is helpful in creating responsive designs.
It is used to add Animations and Transitions to a website.

Advantages of Using CSS

Here are some of the advantages of using CSS in web development:

CSS helps you to keep the structure separate from presentation.
External CSS files help in improving the performance of the website.

Disadvantages of Using CSS

Here are some of the disadvantages of using CSS in web development:

Different web browsers (like Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge) may understand CSS rules differently.
As the project grows, the number of CSS files increases, which makes it difficult for developers to manage those files.

What is SCSS?

SCSS stands for Sassy CSS. It is defined as a preprocessor scripting language that is nothing but an extension of regular CSS with extra features like variables and functions. SCSS is the superset of CSS. Everything you can write in plain CSS is valid in SCSS.

A preprocessor allows you to write code in a more powerful and flexible way. That code is then compiled into standard CSS before it is used by browsers.

Example: HTML File Using the Compiled CSS

//index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>SCSS Example</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
</head>
<body>
  <div class="box">This is styled using SCSS</div>
</body>
</html>

//style.scss

$box-color: lightcoral;
$text-color: white;

.box {
  width: 200px;
  height: 100px;
  background-color: $box-color;
  color: $text-color;
  text-align: center;
  line-height: 100px;

  &:hover {
    background-color: darkred;
  }
}

SCSS Use Cases

SCSS is used in medium to large-scale projects where code reusability is important. Here are some popular use cases of SCSS:

SCSS allows you to define the variables, and these variables are reusable in the code.
SCSS works correctly with UI frameworks and component-based architectures like React.
You can create responsive layouts easily with SCSS.

Advantages of Using SCSS

Here are some of the important advantages of using SCSS to build websites:

You can define the properties in the form of variables, and those variables are used multiple times in the code.
It helps you to write clean code with fewer bugs, and it also makes updates easier.

Disadvantages of Using SCSS

SCSS offers many benefits, but it also comes with some drawbacks. Here are some of the disadvantages of using SCSS:

Browsers do not understand SCSS directly. It is important to compile it into regular CSS, and for doing this, various tools are there like SASS CLI, Webpack, and Parcel.
Nesting is good, but doing too much nesting sometimes makes the code harder to read.
Not used in building small projects.

Difference Between CSS and SCSS

Features	CSS	Sassy CSS
Definition	It is a standard stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of HTML elements.	It is the extended version of CSS. In other words, it is a superset of CSS with some more features, like mixins, variables, and nesting.
File Extension	.css	.scss
Variables	Variables are not supported here.	Variables are fully supported here and contain the values of the properties in CSS.
Nesting	Nesting is not supported.	Selectors can be nested inside other selectors,
Mixins	Mixins are not available in CSS.	In SCSS, @mixin and @include are used to create reusable blocks of code.
Modularity	In CSS, styles can be split into multiple files, but there is no built-in import system.	It supports modular architecture using @use.
Performance	No build step is required, and directly interpreted by browsers. Thus, it is faster than SCSS.	It is comparatively slower than CSS.
Ease of Use	It is easy to learn and use.	It requires more time to learn.
Use Case	Best for building small and medium-scale websites.	Best for building production applications.

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Conclusion

Both CSS and SCSS play an important role in making websites. Choosing one of them for building projects depends on the project’s needs and complexity. CSS is simple and easy to start, while SCSS is sometimes hard to understand for beginners. CSS is sufficient for making various applications. But SCSS is important in creating production-level applications.

SCSS vs CSS – FAQs

Q1. Is SCSS better than CSS?

SCSS is better than CSS because it offers you more features compared to CSS, like variables, nesting, and mixins. It helps in code organization and code reusability.

Q2. What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is the standard stylesheet language that is used to style HTML elements on the webpage.

Q3. What is SCSS?

SCSS stands for Sassy CSS. It is defined as a preprocessor scripting language that helps in organizing code properly and allows you to use the same code again and again.

Q4. Can I write CSS in SCSS?

Yes, you can write standard CSS inside an SCSS file without any problem.

Q5. Is Bootstrap CSS or SCSS?

Bootstrap is made using SCSS, which helps the developers write cleaner and reusable code.

SCSS vs CSS