Twitter Bootstrap is a popular framework for designing websites. But what are some of the best twitter bootstrap tools?

Chances are, if you’re reading this article, you’re already familiar with Twitter Bootstrap. But, if you’ve never seen those two words next to each other before and are wondering why we’re talking about social media footwear, listen up.

Twitter Bootstrap doesn’t have anything to do with social media or boot laces. It’s a framework for building websites that consists of a both responsive and non-responsive grid layouts, base CSS, components, and javascript. In essence, it’s everything you need to develop the front-end of a website rapidly.

If you’re more interested in the basics, check out our intro article on the topic, or checkout out these 12 resources for Twitter Bootstrap that will have you putting together websites like a BOSS.

While Twitter Bootstrap makes it easy to develop a website quickly, it’s also widely used and well documented, making it easy for the community of users to come up with some really neat tools that will make designing web sites with Twitter Bootstrap even easier.

Let’s dig in.

Twitter Bootstrap Tools

Kickstrap

http://getkickstrap.com

Kickstrap is a framework built on top of the Twitter Bootstrap framework. Basically, it extends Twitter Bootstrap with more functionality through Kickstrap Apps, and makes it simple to update the style by choosing different themes. It comes with 10 themes out of the box, all from Bootswatch. More can be found in the theme section. Apps extend how the site works. Check out this video for a quick overview on how Kickstrap works.

BootTheme

http://www.boottheme.com

BootTheme is a drag-and-drop way to build a website based on Twitter Bootstrap. Just choose your element, drag it on the page to position it, and click on it to edit. Once you have your finished theme, BootTheme makes it easy to download for use. There’s also a gallery on the site to see what others have come up with using BootTheme. If a no-code solution is your thing, this gets you pretty dang close.

PaintStrap

http://paintstrap.com

PaintStrap is a great tool because it does one thing and one thing very well. It generates Twitter Bootstrap themes using Adobe Kuler or COLOURlovers color schemes. All you have to do is put in the link or ID from Kuler or COLOURlovers and with the click of a button, PaintStrap will generate a theme based on your chosen color scheme.

{wrap}bootstrap

https://wrapbootstrap.com

{wrap}bootstrap is a store for pre-built Twitter Bootstrap themes. At a bare minimum, it’s worth looking at for inspiration. However, from the looks of things, there are several really high quality themes available in the $10-$20 range that look quite tasty. Oddly enough, the site has a large number of Admin templates with all kinds of snazzy charts and graphs. All in all, it’s worth a look.

Built With Bootstrap

http://builtwithbootstrap.com

Built With Bootstrap is a website that’s full of design inspiration for those who want to see what other designers have done with Bootstrap. View sites built with Twitter Bootstrap or submit your own. The site itself is a bit of a cash-grab. They make no bones about posting your site there for $45 or selling links to developers who work with Twitter Bootstrap but who isn’t trying to make a buck these days? The fact remains that there are a lot of sites work looking at for inspiration on the website. Worth a look.

Bootswatch

http://bootswatch.com

Bootswatch is a website full of free themes for Twitter Bootstrap. To be fair, “themes” shouldn’t be thought of in the full-fledged way that you might think of a WordPress theme. When it comes to Twitter Bootstrap, themes are more accurately thought of as color combinations. As you can tell from the screenshot above, a theme is a CSS file. What’s nice is that they make an API available to use in your own apps. If you use the WPBS theme for WordPress that’s built using Twitter Bootstrap, they take advantage of Bootswatch, making updating your site’s color choices a breeze.