Center an Element in Bootstrap Navbar

Bootstrap Center Navbar Items

You will need to modify some CSS rules for Navbar component. So add a class center to nav.navbar and the following rules:

.navbar.center .navbar-inner {
    text-align: center;
}

.navbar.center .navbar-inner .nav {
    display:inline-block;
    float: none;
}

Working demo (Bootstrap 3.3.7)

Bootstrap: center some navbar items

You just needed a couple of styles to get the behaviour that I think you wanted. It looks like you were going the display:inline-block route to center the elements, so I'll just continue along that approach. To your existing styles, add/modify definitions so that these styles are included:

.nav.nav-center {
    margin:0;
    float:none;
}

.navbar-inner{
    text-align:center;
}

With that, the two options should move to the exact center of your navigation bar. Here's a JSFiddle example to show you what this would look like. I hope this is what you were looking for! If not, let me know and I'll be happy to help further.

How to center nav-items in Bootstrap?

Use the flexbox and margin utils responsively...

Bootstrap 4 alpha 6
http://codeply.com/go/YvzHvQQRAs (center brand & links)

<nav class="navbar navbar-toggleable-md navbar-light bg-faded">
    <button class="navbar-toggler navbar-toggler-right" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarNavAltMarkup" aria-controls="navbarNavAltMarkup" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
        <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
    </button>
    <div class="d-md-flex d-block flex-row mx-md-auto mx-0">
        <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>
        <div class="collapse navbar-collapse mr-auto" id="navbarNavAltMarkup">
            <div class="navbar-nav">
                <a class="nav-item nav-link active" href="#">Home <span class="sr-only">(current)</span></a>
                <a class="nav-item nav-link" href="#">Features</a>
                <a class="nav-item nav-link" href="#">Pricing</a>
                <a class="nav-item nav-link disabled" href="#">Disabled</a>
            </div>
        </div>
    </div>
</nav>

Bootstrap 4.1
https://www.codeply.com/go/sTJUthyswN (center brand, align left on mobile)

EDIT..

The answer is still basically the same. Use mx-auto to center.

http://codeply.com/go/mycC5z8lpJ (center links, brand left)

<nav class="navbar navbar-toggleable-md navbar-light bg-faded">
    <button class="navbar-toggler navbar-toggler-right" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarNavAltMarkup" aria-controls="navbarNavAltMarkup" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
        <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
    </button>
    <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>
    <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarNavAltMarkup">
        <div class="navbar-nav mx-auto">
            <a class="nav-link active" href="#">Home <span class="sr-only">(current)</span></a>
            <a class="nav-link" href="#">Features</a>
            <a class="nav-link" href="#">Pricing</a>
            <a class="nav-link disabled" href="#">Disabled</a>
        </div>
    </div>
</nav>

If you want the links exactly centered in the viewport, see the 2nd example here: http://www.codeply.com/go/RCBftzZCD8

Other Bootstrap 4 Navbar alignment examples

Also see...

Center an element in Bootstrap 4 Navbar

Center Navbar links without brand pushing it to the right in Bootstrap 4?

How to center navbar in Bootstrap 4 using Flexbox

How to position navbar contents in Bootstrap 4

Bootstrap 4 Navbar align logo center and toggle icon on the left

Center an element in Bootstrap Navbar

In Bootstrap 4, there is a new utility known as .mx-auto. You just need to specify the width of the centered element.

Ref: http://v4-alpha.getbootstrap.com/utilities/spacing/#horizontal-centering

Diffferent from Bass Jobsen's answer, which is a relative center to the elements on both ends, the following example is absolute centered.

Here's the HTML:

<nav class="navbar bg-faded">
  <div class="container">
    <ul class="nav navbar-nav pull-sm-left">
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Link 1</a>
      </li>
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Link 2</a>
      </li>
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Link 3</a>
      </li>
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Link 4</a>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-logo mx-auto">
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Brand</a>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <ul class="nav navbar-nav pull-sm-right">
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Link 5</a>
      </li>
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Link 6</a>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </div>
</nav>

And CSS:

.navbar-logo {
  width: 90px;
}

In Bootstrap 4, is it possible to center the navbar brand and align some text to the left of brand?

In Bootstrap 4 navbar is using flexbox. It helps in centering the barnd name or any name that you need to get centered. so the it can be centered using mx-auto. Then left right menus will not need floats.

 <nav class="navbar navbar-expand-md navbar-fixed-top navbar-dark bg-dark main-nav">
    <div class="container">
        <ul class="nav navbar-nav">
            <li class="nav-item active">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">products</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">Hair products</a>
            </li>
        </ul>
        <ul class="nav navbar-nav mx-auto">
            <li class="nav-item"><a class="nav-link" href="#">VIRTUAL BEAUTY</a></li>
        </ul>
        <ul class="nav navbar-nav">
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">Services</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">Blog</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">Contact Us</a>
            </li>
        </ul>
    </div> </nav>

This will give you a nav bar like the image below.

Reference image from: Center an element in Bootstrap 4 Navbar

Here you can see the actual viewport center is different from the center that brand name is located at. Thats because it takes center in respective to the left and right ends of navigation bar.

The following code can be used to overcome this issue. BY using position absolute.

.abs-center-x {
    position: absolute;
    left: 50%;
    transform: translateX(-50%); }

Hope this helps.

Follow this link It much clearly illustrates the way to do your work.
mx-auto to center navbar- https://www.codeply.com/go/J9rL11Tf7h
Navbar center and absolute position- https://www.codeply.com/go/BC2gFdZ9fb

How to align center navbar with only bootstrap 4.5.3?

You should wrap the children of the nav tag in a div with classes: mx-auto and d-flex to achieve a fully centred navbar.

<link href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/bootstrap@5.0.0-beta1/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<div class="container">
    <nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg navbar-light bg-light">
      <div class="mx-auto d-flex">
      <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>
      <button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarNav" aria-controls="navbarNav" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
        <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
      </button>
      <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarNav">
        <ul class="navbar-nav">
          <li class="nav-item active">
            <a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
          </li>
          <li class="nav-item">
            <a class="nav-link" href="#">About Us</a>
          </li>
          <li class="nav-item">
            <a class="nav-link" href="#">Shopping</a>
          </li>
          <li class="nav-item">
            <a class="nav-link" href="#">News</a>
          </li>
          <li class="nav-item">
            <a class="nav-link" href="#">Help</a>
          </li>
          <li class="nav-item">
            <a class="nav-link" href="#">Contact Us</a>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </div>
      </div>
    </nav>
  </div>

.navbar-brand {
   position: absolute !important;
}