Bootstrap is a popular front-end framework for building responsive mobile-first websites and web apps. It was created in 2011 by developers at Twitter and contains pre-built UI components and CSS styles for common patterns like navigation bars, dropdowns, and progress bars. Bootstrap uses a responsive 12-column grid system and has gone through several major releases to support new features and a mobile-first approach. It is free to use, well-documented, customizable, and has a large community of developers.