Hashnode's front-end was using Foundation framework 5 in early 2016. It was simple float based grid system.

We moved to a lesser known flex box library in December 2016. Later realized that we were overriding most of the CSS rules.

At present, we are using our own custom built flexbox based grid system and it's giving us excellent results.

I like the idea of using grids in the design of layouts, but I don't think you necessarily require a 'grid framework' to achieve that. Most of the 'grids' I design to are all in my head and aren't very visible in the CSS I write.

Based on what I've seen people doing with the new CSS Grid Module, I think in the future this will eliminate 'css grid' systems and frameworks like we had in the ("ancient" 🤣) past like 960, and blueprint, or the present like Foundation, Bootstrap, etc.

The CSS Grid feature that was recently rolled out has made implementing a grid system trivial for most frontend developers. Of course, you'll likely still need to provide some fallback for older browsers, and the typical solution of floats and margins will suffice for that.

Nice thing about Grid, however, is that it nullifies floats when it's applied, so just adding its rules on top of the floats is a simple override for newer browsers.

Learn more about Grid here.