CSS: Advantages and Disadvantages - Learn CSS for Free and Fun

Advantages of CSS

Using CSS we can keep the content of an html file and the style and layout of the file separate
from each other. This gives several advantages to CSS over the traditional HTML.

 CSS keeps the file size smaller

Unlike HTML where we need to write the code to specify the font size, color, style etc. for
every single page of a document that consists of more than one page, In CSS we need to
specify the attributes only once for each element and the specified style will automatically
be applied whenever the element occurs. Since the style and layout elements are
separated from the HTML this allows the document to be much smaller in size.

 The pages of the website loads faster

Since the HTML pages have less code after the style and layout is separated from it, the
pages will take less time to load.

 Lower bandwidth requirement

When the pages of a website take lesser time to load, the bandwidth requirement of the
server is also reduced. This also makes CSS a cost effective option.

 CSS saves time

With CSS, changing the style of a document becomes very easy and it also saves much time.
In HTML if we want to make even a small change in the entire website (such as changing
the font style), we need to open every single page and alter the font style manually, which
makes the process to time consuming. However, with We just need to open the CSS file
where the layout of the site is stored and change the font style, which in turn, will change
the font style of the entire website.

 CSS is easier to manage

As to make a change throughout a website that uses CSS, one need to make an edit only in
a single file, it is easier to manage CSS. This greatly helps when the website has several
pages.

Disadvantage of CSS

One major disadvantage of CSS is its incompatibility to different browsers. While some
browsers show partial compatibility to Style Sheets and support only some of the features
of style sheets, very few browsers such as the early versions of Internet Explorer and
Netscape show almost complete incompatibility to CSS.
However, the latest browsers versions show more standards-compliant and have largely
overcome the compatibility problem.