In addition to Idriss answer:

CSS

In CSS we write code as depicted bellow, in full length.

body{
 width: 800px;
 color: #ffffff;
}
body content{
 width:750px;
 background:#ffffff;
}

SCSS

In SCSS we can shorten this code using a @mixin so we don’t have to write color and width properties again and again. We can define this through a function, similarly to PHP or other languages.

$color: #ffffff;
$width: 800px;

@mixin body{
 width: $width;
 color: $color;

 content{
  width: $width;
  background:$color;
 }
}

SASS

In SASS however, the whole structure is visually quicker and cleaner than SCSS.

  • It is sensitive to white space when you are using copy and paste,
  • It seems that it doesn't support inline CSS currently.

    $color: #ffffff
    $width: 800px
    $stack: Helvetica, sans-serif
    
    body
      width: $width
      color: $color
      font: 100% $stack
    
      content
        width: $width
        background:$color
    
Answer from Hash on Stack Overflow
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Scaler
scaler.com › home › topics › scss vs css: key difference between css and scss
SCSS Vs CSS - Key Difference Between CSS and SCSS - Scaler Topics
August 28, 2023 - Here, body is a CSS selector. ... SCSS is more expressive: SCSS uses fewer lines of code than CSS, which makes the code load faster.
Discussions

CSS, SCSS, SASS?

Thank you, will do :)

More on reddit.com
🌐 r/webdev
45
58
February 12, 2015
The difference between Sass, Scss, and Css?
What is the difference between those guys Sass, Scss, and Css? As a developer, what should I use? please, provide a simple explanation for the basic level! More on forum.freecodecamp.org
🌐 forum.freecodecamp.org
0
August 22, 2022
What is the difference between a file .css and a .scss
CSS is the styling language that your browser understands and uses to style webpages. SCSS is a special type of file for SASS, a program written in Ruby that assembles CSS style sheets for a browser. SASS adds lots of additional functionality to CSS like variables, nesting and more which can ... More on teamtreehouse.com
🌐 teamtreehouse.com
1
May 3, 2015
Explain Like I'm Five: What is SASS and LESS?
I'll try to give a simpler explanation, since kevan pointed out that menno's was a little high-level. SASS and LESS are just like CSS except with lots of shortcuts to write things in a much shorter way that you would with just CSS. The simplest example is using a variable. You can write "$brand_color: #FF0000" at the top of your SASS file, and then later on use $brand_color exactly like you would use the hex color like #FF0000. This is most useful when you use it in several places: then if your client decides his brand color is now #00FF00, you just need to change "$brand_color: #FF0000" to "$brand_color: #00FF00" once and that's it. Otherwise you would have to track down every place you used the brand colour and change them individually. You can set more complicated things called mixins too. A common example is to define a mixin called button, which you would use whenever you want to define a button. Mixins are very powerful because they can be modified by parameters. This means that if you realise that the CSS you wrote for two different buttons is identitical apart from some widths, because one button is bigger than the other, you could write a mixin that takes this number as an argument, and then you would not need to repeat yourself. Nesting is really nice because it means you write less. It's hard to explain, just look at the example on the SASS homepage . Because these are all "shorthands" for longer CSS, you need to first turn your SASS file into an actual CSS file, which just consists of expanding your SASS shortcuts into real CSS. For example whenever it encounters @text_color, it replaces it with #FF0000. This is called the compilation step; it is a program on your computer that you need to run, which outputs your CSS file. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/css
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July 8, 2013
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The Knowledge Academy
theknowledgeacademy.com › blog › scss-vs-css
SCSS vs. CSS: What's the Difference?
Traditionally, CSS has been the default styling language for decades. However, SCSS (Sassy CSS) has emerged as a powerful extension, offering additional features that bring a new level of efficiency and organisation to the development process. While both are great options for styling languages, there are several differences between SCSS and CSS.
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Sass
sass-lang.com › guide
Sass: Sass Basics
The SCSS syntax (.scss) is used most commonly. It’s a superset of CSS, which means all valid CSS is also valid SCSS. The indented syntax (.sass) is more unusual: it uses indentation rather than curly braces to nest statements, and newlines instead of semicolons to separate them.
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CodiLime
codilime.com › blog › software development › frontend › css vs. scss variables — main differences and use cases
CSS vs. SCSS variables — main differences and use cases
August 13, 2023 - Here’s an example of CSS code that won’t work: primary-color: #c0d; color: var(--primary-color) + 111; // don't do that ... SCSS stands for Sassy CSS or Sassy cascading style sheets.
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DEV Community
dev.to › mathlete › what-s-the-difference-between-css-sass-and-scss-g2b
What's the difference between CSS, SASS, and SCSS? - DEV Community
August 31, 2021 - It's simply CSS with the same featureset as SASS but requires semicolons and curly braces just like CSS. In fact, you can convert any CSS file to SCSS by changing the doc type from .css to .scss because SCSS is an extension of the syntax of CSS.
Find elsewhere
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SheCodes
shecodes.io › athena › 9861-css-vs-scss-what-is-the-difference
[CSS] - CSS vs SCSS: What is the Difference? - SheCodes | SheCodes
CSS is a styling language, while SCSS is a preprocessor scripting language with variables, nesting, and functions, which makes it easier to manage larger projects. Learn more about the differences between the two here.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/webdev › css, scss, sass?
r/webdev on Reddit: CSS, SCSS, SASS?
February 12, 2015 -

I'm coding my 1st website and I was wondering which style sheet to use. What's the difference between these 3? Is any of them more supported than the other ones, even in way older browsers? Thanks!

Edit: Thanks for all the answers everyone, I get it now. I was just wondering which one of these I should use because I thought SASS seemed easier - no brackets and you can just edit an element's style within anothwr element's style (if that makes sense). But I am now aware that I should stick to "vanilla" CSS until I am very comfortable with it. Thank you once again. Great subreddit!

Top answer
1 of 17
36

Just to give some examples, because that's often a neat way to explain the difference:

CSS (what the browser understands):

h1.foo {
  background: red;
}
h1.foo .bar {
  text-shadow: 0 1px red;
}

SASS (compiles to CSS, supports things like nesting and variables):

$color: red

h1.foo
  background: $color
  .bar
    text-shadow: 0 1px $color

SCSS (SASS, but written with a CSS-like syntax):

$color: red;

h1.foo {
  background: $color;
  .bar {
    text-shadow: 0 1px $color;
  }
}

The latter two compile to CSS when you run them through a program. You then send the compiled files to the browser, since browsers only understand CSS.

2 of 17
18

The key to surviving in modern web development, and software development in general, is to keep things as simple as possible and only let them get more complex as needs require them to. This crap moves and changes way too fast to try and determine what to use at any given moment based only on what others seem to be doing, not to mention that their reasons for doing it that way may have no relation to what you're trying to do and so there's never a canonical "right" answer (and anyone saying otherwise has an agenda that you'd do well to stear clear of).

So, in your case, it's easy: use plain old CSS unless and until you need some specific thing that SASS or LESS gives you. Neither are required to be productive in any way, shape or form and in fact they seem to just get in the way if your project isn't of a sufficient complexity to make what they provide valuable of for no other reason than they introduce a new build step (the lesser the better).

You'll find out pretty quickly if you need variables for example. A lot of the times you really don't. But if you hit a wall with CSS and you think "gee, if I had variables then I could solve this easy" then it's time to migrate. That's how you know, simple. as that.

Until that point, KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid, in case you've never heard that).

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freeCodeCamp
forum.freecodecamp.org › html-css
The difference between Sass, Scss, and Css? - HTML-CSS - The freeCodeCamp Forum
August 22, 2022 - What is the difference between those guys Sass, Scss, and Css? As a developer, what should I use? please, provide a simple explanation for the basic level!
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Visual Studio Code
code.visualstudio.com › docs › languages › css
CSS, SCSS and Less
November 3, 2021 - You can hide VS Code's color previews by setting the following setting: ... You can fold regions of source code using the folding icons on the gutter between line numbers and line start. Folding regions are available for all declarations (for example, rule declarations) and for multiline comments in the source code. Additionally you can use the following region markers to define a folding region: /*#region*/ and /*#endregion*/ in CSS/SCSS/Less or // #region and // #endregion In SCSS/Less.
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BYJUS
byjus.com › gate › difference-between-css-and-scss
Difference Between CSS and SCSS
September 30, 2022 - It does so by specifying every associated CSS in a separate file (.css), minimizing duplication and overall complexity in the context of a structure. The term SCSS is an acronym for Sassy Cascading Style Sheets.
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Medium
elisabethashley.medium.com › scss-vs-css-why-scss-deserves-a-spot-in-your-toolkit-59e01898b8c0
SCSS vs. CSS: Why SCSS Deserves a Spot in Your Toolkit | by Elisabeth Ashley | Medium
January 7, 2025 - Perhaps you don’t shared the emotional pains of CSS that I have. As a programmer, I love SCSS because it brings coding elements back into styling. With features like functions, variables, and mixins, SCSS introduces a dynamic, logic-driven approach. SCSS offers the tools to make styling smarter.
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Sololearn
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What is the difference between Css and Scss | Sololearn: Learn to code for FREE!
December 5, 2023 - They are similar in the sense that you can write normal CSS code in scss(sass). SCSS is a CSS preprocessor which allows you to use functions(mixins), variables, and nest CSS rules in each other.
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GeeksforGeeks
geeksforgeeks.org › css › what-is-the-difference-between-css-and-scss
Difference Between CSS and SCSS - GeeksforGeeks
CSS is a stylesheet language whereas SCSS is a preprocessor scripting language that is a superset of CSS.
Published   January 15, 2025
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InterviewBit
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Zion & Zion
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Sass boasts more features and abilities than any other CSS extension language out there.
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Medium
medium.com › @erennaktas › sass-is-dead-css-vs-sass-2024-a78c65c47a4d
SASS is dead? CSS vs SASS 2024. | Medium
January 17, 2024 - Defining variables, a key feature of SCSS, was not present in CSS. Variable declaration allows us to manage many properties from a single source. However, now we can also define variables in CSS in a similar manner.
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Sololearn
sololearn.com › en › Discuss › 1527652 › what-s-different-between-scss-and-sass
What’s different between SCSS and SASS | Sololearn: Learn to code for FREE!
SCSS is a special type of file for SASS, a program written in Ruby that assembles CSS style sheets for a browser. SASS adds lots of additional functionality to CSS like variables, nesting and more which can make writing CSS easier and faster.