Areas Covered by Flexbox Which Are Difficult or Impossible to Achieve With Grid

Areas covered by Flexbox which are difficult or impossible to achieve with Grid

Advantage Flexbox

Here are 13 areas where flexbox comes out ahead of Grid (Level 1):

1. Centering wrapped items. Imagine five elements. Only four per row. The fifth one wraps. In a flex container, that fifth one can be easily aligned across the entire row with justify-content. Try centering this fifth item in a grid container. Not a simple matter.

   • Aligning grid items across the entire row/column (like flex items can)

   • How to center elements on the last row in CSS Grid?

   • How to offset a grid item, also shifting its siblings?

   • Can I have a varying number of columns per row in a CSS grid?

2. Wrapping. Flex items of variable lengths have no problem wrapping. Try getting grid items of variable lengths to wrap. Not possible.

   • How to get grid items of different lengths to wrap?
   • Can grid items wrap?

3. Auto margins. Flex items can be placed, packed and spaced away throughout their container with auto margins. Grid items, however, are confined to their tracks, greatly diminishing the utility of auto margins.

   • Can auto margins work in CSS Grid like they do in Flexbox?

4. Min, Max, Default – all in one. Setting the min-width, max-width and default width of a flex item is easy. How can all three lengths be set on a grid column or row? They can't.

   • Setting the minimum, maximum and default length of a grid column / row
   • Set minimum and maximum widths to grid column using percentages (related, but not exactly the same problem)

5. Sticky footer / header. It's just so much simpler and easier to pin a footer or header with flexbox.

   • How can I have a sticky footer with my CSS Grid layout?

6. Consuming remaining space. A flex item can consume remaining space with flex-grow. Grid items have no such function.

   • Aligning grid items across the entire row/column (like flex items can)

   • Make grid item use remaining space like flex item with flex-grow: 1

   • How to make the items in the last row consume remaining space in CSS Grid?

   • How to make CSS Grid last row to take up remaining space

   • Hiding a left column in CSS Grid

   • How to get the effect of grid layout's grid-template-columns with a variable number of columns?

   • CSS fr / fractional units minimum too large

7. Shrinking. Flex has flex-shrink. Grid has... nothing.

   • Shrink grid items just like flex items in css

8. Limiting the column count in a dynamic layout. With flexbox, creating a wrapping two-column grid that remains fixed at two-columns across screen sizes is no problem. In Grid, despite having all these great functions, such repeat(), auto-fill and minmax(), it can't be done.

   • Make CSS Grid auto-fill only 2 columns

   • CSS grid - maximum number of columns without media queries

9. Creating space between first and last items. In a grid container with a variable number of columns, it's not easy to add an empty first and last column. Margins, padding, columns and pseudo elements each have their limitations. It's simple and easy with flexbox.

   • Add space before and after first and last grid items

10. An important benefit of the inline-level container is lost in some cases. If you have a Grid layout with a dynamic number of columns – meaning you cannot set the number of columns or a width for the container – then display: inline-grid doesn't work. All items stack in a single column. This is because the default setting on grid-auto-columns is one column. In at least some cases, flexbox fixes the problem.

    • How to make a grid container shrink to fit the content?

11. Getting columns with author-defined grid areas to wrap without media queries. Let's say you have a two-column grid containing grid areas that have set locations, and want the grid to automatically transition to a single column (with the second column wrapping below the first) on smaller screens. With grid, you would need a media query. The auto-fill and auto-fit functions will not work because the locations of grid areas have been specified. If you want to avoid a media query, flexbox's flex-wrap function may be useful.

    • Two-Column grid should wrap into One-Column grid

12. There is no column-reverse function in CSS Grid. Getting items to populate a container starting from the bottom isn't possible with a single rule applied to the grid container. With flexbox, however, the task is simple with flex-direction: column-reverse.

    • Filling cells starting from the bottom in CSS Grid

    • https://stackoverflow.com/q/67620185/3597276

13. The resize property on a grid item has no effect on the track. Unless a column or row track is set to auto (content-based sizing), resizing a grid item will overflow the track. Since flexbox doesn't have column and row tracks, it may be a useful alternative.

    • Resize property on grid items results in overlap of other grid items

what is main difference between flexbox and grid in CSS?

The Flexbox works for layout in 1 dimension and the grid in 2.

Is it safe to use Flexbox and Grid freely by now (2020)?

Whether it's "safe" depends on the percentage of browsers your target audience is using. So the problem can be considered subjective.

There is no fatal instability because at the moment it is rich in polyfills and most modern browsers support flexbox and grid layout.

Support tables of flexbox and grid layout:

• https://caniuse.com/#feat=flexbox
• https://caniuse.com/#feat=css-grid

Polyfills:

• https://github.com/FremyCompany/css-grid-polyfill
• https://github.com/jonathantneal/flexibility

Shrink grid items just like flex items in css

New solution

An optimized version of the initial solution using min()

.container {
  display: grid;
  grid-gap: 10px;
  grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fill, minmax(min(200px,100%), 1fr));
}

.child {
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
  justify-content: center;
  padding: 5px;
  border: 3px solid #a07;
}

body {
  margin:0;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="child">
    text
  </div>
  <div class="child">
    text
  </div>
  <div class="child">
    text
  </div>
  <div class="child">
    text
  </div>
  <div class="child">
    text
  </div>
</div>