Some people define a responsive website as one that adapts to terminal devices of different screen sizes, so many treat responsive and adaptive as the same. In fact they differ: in form, both can auto-adapt to different screen sizes, but there is a fundamental difference between them.
Through actual browsing you can tell them apart. Responsive can be called the parent of adaptive: responsive’s original form is adaptive. First, understand both definitions.
What is responsive layout? A responsive layout gives users on different terminals a more comfortable interface and better experience, and with large-screen mobile devices spreading, calling it the trend of the times is no exaggeration. As more designers adopt it, we see not only innovation but formed patterns. Responsive web layout design means one website compatible with many terminals, rather than a specific version for each. In a project you meet different terminals with different resolutions; for a better user experience, your pages must be compatible with multiple terminals.
What is adaptive layout? Adaptive web layout design means the page adapts itself to terminal devices of different sizes: simply, one website shows the same page on devices of different sizes, and the page scales automatically according to screen size.
Overall, responsive and adaptive share similar principles: both detect the device and apply different CSS per device, and both use percentage CSS rather than fixed widths. The difference: a responsive website looks different on different devices, changing its template styles, module layouts and presentation as the device changes; an adaptive one does not. All devices see the same site, merely shorter or with smaller images, without adopting different presentation per device.
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