How to decide wich responsive base theme is better for a certain project?

Question

I know that each project is different and there´s no such a thing as one size fits all. BUT, when you want a responsive theme, you have the choice to start it from scratch or use a base theme. The Omega Theme and the adaptive theme are both responsive and very popular. Afetr you tried both maybe you select one according to your personal tastes, but what do you keep in mind yo actually make that choice? Wich features?

Thanks for your insight!

Note: I´ve updated the post to add the Adaptive Theme instead of the mothership. I´ve checked and it seems Omega and Adaptive are very popular responsive grid themes. (Thanks Clive!)

Answer 1

Yes, it really does depend on your needs. I went through this exercise last year. These were my considerations.

Since we are a web design/development shop, we needed a base theme that we could potentially use for the majority of future Drupal 7 work. For Drupal 6, we had been using Zen, but decided to start fresh with D7.

At the time, the decision really boiled down to Omega, Adaptive Theme, and Boron. From here, I worked out what my dream requirements were (in no particular order):

1. Uses 960.gs seamlessly
2. Responsive layouts
3. As much config as possible via the UI
4. HTML5 starter templates
5. Works well with Panels

#1 and #5 are debatable pluses, but were hard requirements.

Something that works well with Context was also nice, but not a hard requirement because we leverage Panels so much. Mobile integration was not a requirement for us, beyond the response layouts, also due to Panels.

At the time, Omega was the only real match. 960.gs can be added to any base theme, but the UI control over the grid and grid assignments is a huge bonus for us (allows clients and non-technical people to change layout without needed to bug the developers).

Now that we have several Omega-derived sites deployed, I still think we made the right decision and am glad we put a lot of thought into the process.

Answer 2

In my experience, it is faster to get a good theme up using Adaptive theme with Pixture Reloaded (or one of the other AT sub-themes) and this is a good choice if you only have a few sites and don't want to dive deep into theming. You are basically accepting the general look and feel of one of the sub-themes and tweaking it for your needs. If that works for you it is a relatively easy way to go.

Omega is a more of a 'framework' and requires more work up front, but is more flexible. There is a very active Omega group on GDO. Also, using Delta and Context is popular for controlling page layout and with Omega Tools you can make a sub-theme from the admin UI and export/import theme settings. If you are going to be doing lots of sites and/or dive deep into theming Omega is a good choice.