After ten years, a clean break
Bootstrap 5, released in May 2021, makes the most significant breaking change in the framework’s history: it removes the dependency on jQuery. For a decade Bootstrap used jQuery for DOM manipulation, event handling and animations. But in 2021 jQuery is a legacy: modern browsers expose native APIs — querySelectorAll, addEventListener, classList, fetch — that cover nearly all the use cases that once made jQuery indispensable.
The migration to vanilla JavaScript reduces the library’s footprint and aligns Bootstrap with contemporary frontend practices, where bundlers like webpack and Vite reward lightweight dependencies.
Utility API and customisation
Bootstrap 5 introduces a Utility API that allows generating custom utility classes through the Sass configuration file. Utilities — classes like mt-3, d-flex, text-center — have always been a core part of the framework, but in version 5 they become an extensible system: developers can define new properties, values and responsive variants without writing additional CSS.
The CSS custom properties system sits alongside Sass variables, enabling runtime customisation — a foundation for features like dark mode, which Bootstrap will support in later versions.
Grid, breakpoints and new components
The twelve-column grid remains the layout foundation, but gains a new breakpoint: xxl for screens wider than 1400 pixels. With average monitor sizes increasing and ultrawide displays becoming common, an additional breakpoint allows more articulated layouts without custom media queries.
New components include accordion, with animated open and close behaviour and support for mutually exclusive sections, and offcanvas, a sliding side panel useful for mobile navigation menus and filter panels. Both work without jQuery, using the framework’s native JavaScript API.
RTL support
Support for RTL (Right-to-Left) languages — Arabic, Hebrew, Persian — is natively integrated. Bootstrap 5 automatically generates stylesheets with reversed direction via RTLCSS, a tool that transforms CSS properties from left-to-right to right-to-left. For projects that need to support multilingual markets, native RTL support eliminates one of the most laborious customisations.
A mature framework in the post-jQuery era
Bootstrap 5 does not reinvent itself: the twelve-column grid, semantic classes, exhaustive documentation and component-based approach remain unchanged. The change is structural, not stylistic: removing jQuery, modernising JavaScript, extending the utility system and adapting the framework to the expectations of a frontend ecosystem that has changed profoundly in ten years.
Link: getbootstrap.com