https://github.com/less/less.js
12k stars, yeah throw it out, it's done.
https://github.com/sass/sass
6k stars, definitely more popular, if less stars means more popular. Obviously more front-end developers love sass! The evidence has spoken.
In What’s New in Bootstrap 4less
less.js
JavaScript2010–2015
less / less.js
less.js
Less. The dynamic stylesheet language.
16Distinct people
16Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
17KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
Less. The dynamic stylesheet language.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 12:24:10 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year16 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2010-04-30 16:03:14 UTC to 2015-08-26 23:36:41 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 2010-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
| 2011 | 2011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 0 | 3 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
This is the Less.js monorepo.
More information
For general information on the language, configuration options or usage visit lesscss.org.
Here are other resources for using Less.js:
stackoverflow.com is a great place to get answers about Less.
Less.js Issues for reporting bugs
Contributing
Please read CONTRIBUTING.md. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.
Reporting Issues
Before opening any issue, please search for existing issues and read the Issue Guidelines, written by Nicolas Gallagher. After that if you find a bug or would like to make feature request, please open a new issue.
Please report documentation issues in the documentation project.
Development
Read Developing Less.
Release History
See the changelog
Contributors
This project exists thanks to all the people who contribute. [Contribute].
Matthew Dean
💻 📖 🚧 📆
Alexis Sellier
💻 📖
Luke Page
💻
Max Mikhailov
💻
Lei Chen
💻 🐛 📖
Daniel Puckowski
💻 🐛
Add your contributions
License
Copyright (c) 2009-2025 Alexis Sellier & The Core Less Team
Licensed under the Apache License.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
16 sourcesLess.js, a CSS pre-processor, releases 2.0
77 points · Open discussionI let go of my initial preference for SASS over LESS when I started working with TBS2, and continue to enjoy working with LESS. On general principles I'd recommend using the official LESS version.
Yes, LESS is actively developed and (incrementally) changing:
https://github.com/less/less.js
As for Bootstrap, I have no insider information, but would be very surprised if they abruptly switched.
On the contrary: last year when I asked @mdo and @fat if Bootstrap would ever go mobile-first (vs the horrible mid-sized-first-and-scale-in-both–directions approach from TBS2), I got a flat "no" in response. [groan]
So I have no idea what those guys might do in the future. But for them to switch doesn't seem likely to me.
FWIW My current project is using TBS3; so far, so good.
In Bootstrap 3.0.3 released> "...we can still style this page using Bootstrap's style definitions by @extend-ing Bootstrap classes..."
FYI, LESS has the same exact functionality since v1.4.0. https://github.com/less/less.js/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md
In Twitter Bootstrap without all the debtIf you no longer support IE7, I think it's time to switch to data uris inlined in your stylesheets. It's easier to maintain, you don't have to care about image sizes, offsets and other annoyances with sprites, and it's trivial to implement as a part of your build process.
There are a bunch of tools available:
https://github.com/nzakas/cssembed
https://github.com/cloudhead/less.js/wiki/Include-Data-URI-B...
http://compass-style.org/reference/compass/helpers/inline-da...
In Sprite Cow: Generate CSS for sprite sheetslessc is part of less.js (https://github.com/cloudhead/less.js/blob/master/bin/lessc), so should be identical, but fair point.
In SimpLESS compiless .less into beautiful .cssAh, that got me looking more closely. There is an option to use yui-compress and it seems with the 1.2.1 version. I use the shortened -x argument.
https://github.com/cloudhead/less.js/pull/504/files
In Twitter's Bootstrap 2 ready for testing and feedbackNodeJS maintainers don't respond to fixes for Node 0.6.x after 4 months
2 points · Open discussionOr less.js, here: https://github.com/cloudhead/less.js/
In The LESS CSS GridJust use less.js for all your hsl needs in IE:
https://github.com/cloudhead/less.js/wiki/Functions
In Mother-effing hsl()Coffeescript [1], Slick [2], Less.js [3] ... great hammers!
-----
[1]: http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/
[2]: http://github.com/mootools/slick
[3]: http://github.com/cloudhead/less.js
In Why I call myself a Javascript ProgrammerThe benchmark file,
http://github.com/cloudhead/less.js/blob/master/benchmark/be...
Which has all the features of LESS in it, and weighs 94KB (3600loc), compiles in 130ms on my macbook pro.
I would say that's plenty fast. You can try it out by running `$ make benchmark`
In Less.js will obsolete CSSIt's interesting looking at his code (http://github.com/cloudhead/less.js/blob/master/dist/less-1....). It's clear, well described, and ambitious.
In Less.js will obsolete CSSThat's one reason why lesscss is being ported to JavaScript.
http://github.com/cloudhead/less.js
In Coding Horror: What's Wrong With CSSShowing the 15 most recent of 16 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.