Twitter Bootstrap Vs Themeforest Admin Themes

Question

I'm building a web application and eventually would want to use Yii framework. But right now I'm in the process or prototyping the web application itself. While I like Twitter Bootstrap, what I'm curious are,

1. If I buy an admin template from Themeforest, would that in anyway provide more complete capabilities than Bootstrap? Has any one used these templates and what was your experience / opinion?

2. Say I complete the wire framing using either Bootstrap or a theme from Themeforest, how easy would it to be Yii'ify it?

Answer 1

I start recently new project with Twitter bootstrap and it was very very easy to replace standard css/js files from basic Yii project to those from bootstrap.

Ofc you have to design and build markup your website then. With Themeforest you get already designed HTML pages with CSS and JS.

Those are completely different ways to go. First one is if you're designer or you have one at your disposal. Also you should know frontend programming pretty well (HTML, CSS, JS and etc). Second approach saves you time and doesn't require many additional skills for frontend programming. But you limit yourself pretty much into what template gives you. If you would have to create new type of page, that template doesn't offer - you will have to follow template's general style.

Myself, i prefer the first route, as i have designer that makes all designs for me in Adobe Illustrator and i have good frontend programming skills, so i can create markups from AI files. Yii along with Twitter Bootstrap allows me to save time at doing standard things multiple times and suits perfectly to my programming style.

TLDR: If you want bother just about PHP and backend - go Themeforest. If you want to have full control about your website creating process - go straight Twitter bootstrap.

Also check out Kickstrap, which is due to be released 15th of April. Kickstrap is version of Twitter boostrap on steroids. It has already several themes precreated, HTML5 Boilerplate included, Font Awesome inside and much more.

Answer 2

I suggest to give a look also to this extension:

http://www.yiiframework.com/extension/bootstrap

It's a porting of the twitter bootstrap framework in Yii.

It gives you the advantage of having the full features of Yii and twitter bootstrap toghether.

Answer 3

As per my opinion Bootstrap 3.0 recommended for Admin Themes.

What you need to do first is define our color schema, branding and mock-up. I am using Bootstrap Magic for generating CSS.

You can refer Free Bootstrap Admin Template for getting start as a Bootstrap 3 Responsive Admin Template