Bootstrap 2 or Bootstrap 3 for IE 7 Performance Wise

Question

While I know SO does not like A vs B topics hear me out.

Bootstrap 3 has just been released with countless improvements. The one potential deal breaker is it drops IE 7 compatibility. For site's that cater to corporate users this unfortunately isn't practical since that in one particular use case is roughly 10% market still.

So supporting IE7 is a must which one would think that simply means choosing to stick with Bootstrap 2. However, with this https://github.com/coliff/bootstrap-ie7 one can easily add IE7 support back while keeping all the benefits of Bootstrap 3.

The one issue their is you must use boxsizing.htc polyfill for IE 7 users (https://github.com/Schepp/box-sizing-polyfill)

So my question would it be better to stick with Bootstrap 2 or switch to Bootstrap 3.0 with boxsizing.htc? B3 with .htc will be slower for the 10% IE7 users than with B2, but if barely noticeable (especially if server is caching) it would be worth it for the benefits to the rest of the 90%.

If know one knows, the next thing I guess I could test is installing the default B2 and B3 with .htc demo sites and comparing the speeds in IE7.

PS If there is a better polyfill for adding boxsizing to IE7 than the one listed above performance wise let me know.

Answer 1

I faced a similar dilemma with Bootstrap 3/IE7, but landed on a different solution. Like Zout, I couldn't get the patch to work, so I wrote one that doesn't require a polyfill.

It works by falling back to a Bootstrap 2 type grid system of fluid columns with no padding and a left margin beginning with the second column. In IE7 with Bootstrap 3, my site looks perfect.

I've tested it (and it works) with most of the components of Bootstrap. It also includes fixes for IE layout bugs and other odd behaviors.

I just put it on Github yesterday. Hope it helps:

https://github.com/LPology/Bootstrap-IE7Fix