Responsive Web Design vs Adaptive Design
The difference between responsive design and adaptive design is that responsive design adapts the rendering of a single page version. In contrast, adaptive design delivers multiple completely different versions of the same page.
They are both crucial web design trends that help webmasters control how their site looks on different screens, but the approach is different.
With responsive design, users will access the same basic file through their browser, regardless of device, but CSS code will control the layout and render it differently based on screen size. With adaptive design, there is a script that checks for the screen size, and then accesses the template designed for that device.