CSS - display: flex vs inline-flex

inline-flex

A child container with display: inline-flex does not automatically fill the parent container. Its size depends on its content and any additional styles applied to it.

flex

A child container with display: flex automatically fills the parent container's width because flex behaves like a block-level element, which expands to fit the parent's available width by default.

Example

HTML

  
    <meta charset="UTF-8">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="src/style.css">
  
  
    <h1 id="inline-flex">inline-flex</h1>
    <div>



<p>CSS<br>
</p>

<pre class="brush:php;toolbar:false">body {
  background: transparent;
  color: #fcbe24;
  padding: 0 24px;
  margin: 0;
  height: 100vh;
  font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen,
    Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Open Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif;
}

.container {
  background-color: white;
  color: black;
}

.inline-flex-c {
  display: inline-flex;
  background-color: palevioletred;
 }

.flex-c {
  display: flex;
  background-color: chocolate;
}

.child{
  border-color: greenyellow;
  border-style: solid;
}

Result

The flex container stretches to occupy the full width of its parent container. In contrast, the inline-flex container only occupies the width required by its content.