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Difference Between CSS and SCSS

Last Updated : 15 Jan, 2025
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CSS is a stylesheet language whereas SCSS is a preprocessor scripting language that is a superset of CSS. This article will cover the detailed differences between CSS and SCSS.

CSS

  • CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is a stylesheet language for designing the layout of web pages.
  • It is simple to use and follows a cascading hierarchy to apply styles to HTML elements.
HTML 
<html>
<head>
    <style>
        h1 {
            color: darkblue;
            text-align: center;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
    <h1>Welcome to CSS</h1>
</body>
</html>

SCSS

  • SCSS (Sassy CSS) is a preprocessor scripting language that extends CSS with features like variables, nesting, and mixins.
  • It makes stylesheets more maintainable and efficient to write.
HTML 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>SCSS Example</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="styles.css">
</head>
<body>
    <div class="box">This is styled using SCSS</div>
</body>
</html>

SCSS File (styles.scss):

SCSS 
$box-color: lightcoral;
$text-color: white;

.box {
    width: 200px;
    height: 100px;
    background-color: $box-color;
    color: $text-color;
    text-align: center;
    line-height: 100px;

    &:hover {
        background-color: darkred;
    }
}

Compiled CSS (styles.css):

CSS 
.box {
    width: 200px;
    height: 100px;
    background-color: lightcoral;
    color: white;
    text-align: center;
    line-height: 100px;
}

.box:hover {
    background-color: darkred;
}

Differences between CSS and SCSS


CSS

SCSS

Definition

Cascading Style Sheet is a stylesheet language used to define the presentation and layout of a webpage written in HTML or XML.

Syntactically Awesome Style Sheet SCSS (Sassy CSS) is a preprocessor scripting language that is a superset of CSS.

Syntax

CSS follows a plain-text syntax

 SCSS follows a structured syntax with additional features such as variables, nesting, and mixins.

Variables

CSS uses plain text and keywords for styling

SCSS allows you to define variables to store commonly used values such as colors, font sizes, and spacing

Nesting

 CSS requires you to write each selector separately.

SCSS allows you to nest selectors within other selectors, making it easier to write and read complex stylesheets,

Mixins

CSS does not provide functionality to use Mixins

SCSS allows you to create reusable code snippets using mixins, which are like functions in programming languages.

File Extension

CSS files use the .css file extension

SCSS files use the .scss file extension.

Compilation

CSS files are interpreted by web browsers directly

SCSS files must be preprocessed into standard CSS files using a preprocessor such as Sass

Features

CSS Does not use additional features

SCSS contains all the features of CSS and contains more features that are not present in CSS 



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