explaingit

designmodo/flat-ui

Analysis updated 2026-06-24

★ 15,183JavaScriptAudience · designerComplexity · 2/5LicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

Flat UI Free is a Bootstrap theme that restyles the framework's components in a flat visual style, shipped as compiled CSS, JS, icon fonts, and LESS sources.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((Flat-UI))
    Inputs
      LESS sources
      HTML markup
    Outputs
      Compiled CSS
      JS components
      Icon fonts
    Use Cases
      Style a Bootstrap site
      Drop in flat theme
      Build a landing page
    Tech Stack
      Bootstrap
      LESS
      JavaScript
      Bower
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Code map

Detail Auto

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filefunction / class

What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Apply a flat visual style to an existing Bootstrap site by dropping in the compiled CSS.

USE CASE 2

Customize colors and typography by editing the LESS source variables and recompiling.

USE CASE 3

Use the bundled icon font and form components on a marketing landing page.

USE CASE 4

Reuse the SASS port to integrate Flat UI into a Rails or modern build pipeline.

What is it built with?

BootstrapLESSJavaScriptCSSBower

How does it compare?

designmodo/flat-uigrab/front-end-guideapexcharts/apexcharts.js
Stars15,18315,24315,098
LanguageJavaScriptJavaScriptJavaScript
Setup difficultyeasyeasyeasy
Complexity2/51/52/5
Audiencedesignerdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min

Built against legacy Bootstrap 3 and Bower, modern projects may need the third-party SASS port or manual integration.

Dual licensed under CC BY 3.0 and MIT: use freely in personal and commercial projects with attribution to Designmodo.

In plain English

Flat UI Free is a visual design theme for Bootstrap, a popular front-end framework (a pre-built collection of CSS styles and JavaScript components) that makes it easier to build responsive websites that adapt to different screen sizes. Flat UI redesigns many of Bootstrap's built-in interface components to give them a "flat" visual style, meaning clean, two-dimensional designs with bold colors and no drop shadows or gradients. The package includes compiled CSS and JavaScript files you can drop straight into a project, as well as the original source files written in LESS (a CSS pre-processor that adds variables and other features to standard CSS). Fonts with icons are also included. The directory structure separates source files from the compiled, ready-to-use distribution files. To get started you can download the latest release as a zip file, clone the repository with git, or install it using Bower (a package manager for front-end dependencies). After installation, running npm install and bower install fetches the required dependencies. Documentation for all included components is available in the docs folder and hosted online. A SASS (another CSS pre-processor) port is also available from a third-party contributor. The typeface used is Lato. Flat UI Free is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 and the MIT License, making it free to use in personal and commercial projects.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to add Flat UI Free to a vanilla HTML page and use its button and form styles.
Prompt 2
Walk me through customizing Flat UI's LESS variables to change the primary color and rebuild the CSS.
Prompt 3
Replace default Bootstrap 3 components on my site with Flat UI versions without breaking the grid.
Prompt 4
Integrate the SASS port of Flat UI into a webpack project and tree-shake unused components.
Prompt 5
Use Flat UI's icon font in a static landing page and list the available glyphs.

Frequently asked questions

What is flat-ui?

Flat UI Free is a Bootstrap theme that restyles the framework's components in a flat visual style, shipped as compiled CSS, JS, icon fonts, and LESS sources.

What language is flat-ui written in?

Mainly JavaScript. The stack also includes Bootstrap, LESS, JavaScript.

What license does flat-ui use?

Dual licensed under CC BY 3.0 and MIT: use freely in personal and commercial projects with attribution to Designmodo.

How hard is flat-ui to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated easy, with roughly 5min to a first successful run.

Who is flat-ui for?

Mainly designer.

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