CSS - display: flex vs inline-flex

#webdev #css #frontend #web

inline-flex

A child container with display: inline-flex does not automatically fill the parent container. Its size depends on its content and any additional styles applied to it.

flex

A child container with display: flex automatically fills the parent container's width because flex behaves like a block-level element, which expands to fit the parent's available width by default.

Example

HTML

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" />
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="src/style.css" />
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>inline-flex</h1>
    <div class="container">
      <div class="inline-flex-c">
        <div class="child">child 1</div>
        <div class="child">child 2</div>
      </div>
    </div>

    <h1>flex</h1>
    <div class="container">
      <div class="flex-c">
        <div class="child">child 1</div>
        <div class="child">child 2</div>
      </div>
    </div>
  </body>
</html>

CSS

body {
  background: transparent;
  color: #fcbe24;
  padding: 0 24px;
  margin: 0;
  height: 100vh;
  font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen,
    Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;
}

.container {
  background-color: white;
  color: black;
}

.inline-flex-c {
  display: inline-flex;
  background-color: palevioletred;
 }

.flex-c {
  display: flex;
  background-color: chocolate;
}

.child{
  border-color: greenyellow;
  border-style: solid;
}

Result

The flex container stretches to occupy the full width of its parent container. In contrast, the inline-flex container only occupies the width required by its content.