What is the difference between SASS and SCSS?

SASS is a language extension of CSS that can add new features for writing stylesheets easier. At the same time, Compass is a framework built on top of SASS that provides more functionality and simplifies the development of stylesheets.

This means that every valid CSS3 stylesheet is a valid SCSS as well. The extension we use for scss files is .scss. SCSS uses the indentation of lines rather than brackets or semi-colons to identify the line blocks. Although no longer the primary syntax, the indented syntax will continue to be supported. Files in the indented syntax use the extension .sass

Features of SASS and SCSS

SASS

SASS is a helper tool that makes writing the CSS easier and more efficient. It gives more features that aren't available in regular CSS.

Some of the main features are as follows

• Variables − We can restore the stored data, which makes the stylesheets easier to style later, and we can also restore colors and fonts.

• Nesting − Nesting authorizes us to organize our styles according to the related selectors, which makes us easy to read our code and maintain the code.

• Mixins − Mixins are the key feature of the SASS. We use this to group many declarations of CSS to make it easy, save time and effort, and reuse them throughout our projects.

• Inheritance − one of the great features of SASS is inheritance. We can define a set of styles that can be inherited by other selectors, reducing the lot of code we have to write.

• Control Directives − In SASS, control directives and expressions that include styles under some conditions such as @if, @else, and @for authorize us to create logic in our stylesheets.

• @if, @else − These directives are the same as if and else conditional statements in javascript. It is used to take the expression and execute that expression, whereas else is used to check the expression which is previously executed by the if statement.

• @for − This is used to execute many statements grouped.

SCSS

On the other side, SCSS is also a powerful framework in CSS.

Using loops, variables, and mathematical operations, SCSS assists us in putting down our CSS codes simply, thus making CSS writing more powerful.

Some of the main features of SCSS are as follows

• SCSS contains all the features with CSS and more features not there in CSS, making the SCSS choose the developers very easily.

• SCSS encourages the rules of nesting.

• SCSS has only less coding so that we can write quickly.

• SCSS gives the nesting to use the nested syntax and functions such as mathematical operations, colors, etc.

• It is more powerful and elegant because it is the extension of CSS, making the work easy and quick for developers.

• It can manage many nested styles and classes.

• It authorizes the inline documentation, such as we can add comments beside the code.

Differences Between SASS & SCSS

Now let’s see the main differences between SASS and SCSS −

Key features	SASS	SCSS
Language	SASS is the pre-processor of CSS which extends the capabilities by adding new features.	SCSS is also the pre-processor but is less powerful than the SASS.
Features	SASS extends the capabilities of CSS by adding new features such as variables, nesting, mixins, inheritance, and control directives.	SCSS gives the nested syntax and classes.
Syntax Styling	Sass uses indented syntax, which is as same as Haml.	SCSS uses syntax like CSS, which is block formatting.
CSS compatibility	In SASS, CSS cannot be used as SASS, and SASS cannot be used as CSS.	In SCSS, if the code is valid in CSS automatically, it is valid in SCSS code.
Community support	SASS has a large community that includes students, developers, and more from around the globe.	In SCSS, only a small community, such as small developers, can be used.
CSS Hierarchical Nesting	Regarding SASS, it supports the nesting feature that will be used to nest the CSS selectors to display them in the HTML. Otherwise, it becomes more burden to maintain larger nested CSS	In SCSS, it can efficiently maintain multiple classes and different types of nested styles.

Differences Between the Syntax

The main differences in the syntax are that SASS uses its features in the syntax or else in the code. When it comes to SCSS, it uses CSS features because the features of CSS and SCSS are the same.

The Syntax for SCSS

//SCSS
@mixin cover {
   $color: red;
   @for $i from 1 through 5 {
      &.bg-cover#{$i} { background-color: adjust-hue($color, 15deg * $i) }
   }
}
.wrapper { @include cover }

The Syntax for SASS

//SASS
=cover
   $color: red
   @for $i from 1 through 5
      &.bg-cover#{$i}
         background-color: adjust-hue($color, 15deg * $i)
.wrapper
+cover

Example for SASS

In this, we're using SASS to define variables and styles. We define some basic styles for the body element, including a background color and font family.

Next, we nest the .header selector inside the body selector and define some styles for the ‘element inside ‘.header.’

Users can see in the output that the ‘&’ symbol in ‘&: hover’ will generate a selector of .header a: hover.

// variables
$base-color: #333;
$font-stack: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;
 
// styles
body {
   background-color: $base-color;
   font-family: $font-stack;
} 
//selectors
.header {
   background-color: #fff;
   a {
      color: $base-color;
      text-decoration: none;
      &:hover {
         text-decoration: underline;
      }
   }
}

Output

body {
   background-color: #333;
   font-family: "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif;
} 
.header {
   background-color: #fff;
} 
.header a {
   color: #333;
   text-decoration: none;
} 
.header a:hover {
   text-decoration: underline;
}

Example for SCSS

/* .scss file */
$bgcolor: blue;
$textcolor: red;
$fontsize: 25px; 
/* Use the variables */
body {
   background-color: $bgcolor;
   color: $textcolor;
   font-size: $fontsize;
}

Output

body
{
   background-color: blue;

      color: red;
   font-size: 25px;
}
/* now this can apply the resulting HTML file */

Conclusion

At last, the SASS is replaced by or renamed by SCSS by adding new stylesheets and making some modifications, but still, we can use an old version of SASS. If we want indentation, we can use SASS; if we want block documentation, we can use SCSS.