Front-End Web App Development is witnessing a tectonic shift towards ReactJS adoption. Not long ago in the year 2013, Facebook released ReactJS as a JavaScript library for web front-end development. Over the years ReactJS has become one of the most preferred JS frameworks and it is here to stay. In this article, we will outline the reasons for the landslide victory of ReactJS over its competitors and the benefits of choosing this framework for web app development.
What is ReactJS?
ReactJS is a JavaScript library, which is easy to learn, reusable, fast, and responsive. It is touted to be the best option for building single-page applications of any scale and size. With all these attributes playing out in its favor, ReactJS is all set to dominate the developer community, job market, and technology landscape. Data suggests that ReactJS adoption is nothing less than a wildfire. With a lot of big names under its belt who have already migrated or in the process the growth rate of ReactJS is likely to only go higher in the coming years. Besides Facebook, React JS is used by digital pioneers like Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, Amazon, Instagram, Twitter, Shopify, Microsoft, WhatsApp, Atlassian, Codecademy, Dropbox, New York Times, Asana, Intercom, Slack, Storybook… the list goes on.
Furthermore, ReactJS is among the Top 5 Digital Skills that companies are looking for when hiring developers. The open positions for ReactJS developers grew by a whopping 184% last year compared to 2019. Smart developers know this and are fortifying their skills with ReactJS. According to Statista, JavaScript is a choice of 67% of developers, and ReactJS is the first choice of developers between all the JS frameworks.
Data doesn’t lie: ReactJS- Most Used & Loved Framework
To put it in simple words, front-end developers just love ReactJS. In fact, in a recent survey done by Stack Overflow ReactJS was voted as the most loved framework by developers.
Another report suggests that over 71% of developers who have used ReactJS want to use it again.
According to the below chart from the State of JavaScript report, which shows each technology’s ratio of satisfaction over its user count, in four quadrants:
- ASSESS Low usage, high satisfaction, worth keeping an eye on.
- ADOPT High usage, high satisfaction, technologies safe to adopt.
- AVOID Low usage, low satisfaction, Technologies to avoid
- ANALYZE High usage, low satisfaction, Reassess, is already using it.
ReactJS falls under the ADOPT quadrant (High usage, high satisfaction. technologies safe to adopt). It is not a surprise that ReactJS has garnered 164.1K GitHub stars by the developer community. At the same time, over 9000 companies use the framework in their tech stacks.
ReactJS- Raging Popularity as Web App Development
Before anything else, let us answer the big question – what are the factors behind the raging popularity of ReactJS?
1. Very Easy to Get Started
Thanks to its simple design, use of JSX which is very HTML-like syntax for templating, and highly detailed documentation. Add a small little code generator to the mix and things start to fly, isn’t it?
2. Reusable Code
Developers spend more time writing JavaScript business logic rather than worrying about the framework-specific code.
3. Fast and Responsive
Owing to the virtual DOM implementation and various rendering optimizations the memory data structures in ReactJS are converted to components. These ReactJS components update and modify the browser by running the computation tasks. VDOM renders these components, data, and elements so that they can be processed and utilized further.
4. Server-Side Rendering
Great support for server-side rendering, making it a powerful framework for content-focused applications. fewer browser compatibility issues, data security, and less loading time.
5. One-way Data-Binding
Redux, the most popular framework for managing application state in React, is easy to learn and master. Some values can be passed as components and rendered in HTML tags as properties. But, it is difficult to change and access them directly. However, ReactJS allows developers to access components and directly change them by enabling the call back function. This ReactJS property is referred to as properties flow down and actions flow up.
6. Type Safety
Microsoft’s TypeScript or Facebook’s Flow has native support for JSX and can help in making applications type-safe.
7. SEO Friendly
Applications built on ReactJS are SEO friendly, helping in higher discoverability and visibility of the apps.
8. Native Applications
ReactJS lets developers build Native Mobile Applications by reusing code-With ReactJS you can, not only build high-end Web Applications but also develop Native Mobile Applications (iOS and Android), by using the same code which can be modified with the help of React Native.
Benefits of Choosing ReactJS vs AngularJS or Vue.js
There are approximately 24 JS frameworks. Most popular being ReactJS, AngularJS and Vue.JS. So, how does ReactJS compare to AngularJS and Vue.js? Here’s a quick overview:
AngularJS
Angular is the oldest in the race for JavaScript MVVM framework, founded in 2009, which is awesome for building highly interactive web applications. So, you can also hire AngularJS developers to fasten your development work.
Benefits of AngularJS
- Angular is created to be used alongside Typescript and has exceptional support for it. Thus, the strong type support makes the framework pretty robust to work with.
- AngularJS boasts of some new features like Angular-based npm libraries from CLI, generation and development of Angular-based Web Components, etc.
- AngularJS has detailed documentation that empowers the developers with all the necessary information.
- It enables singular behavior i.e., one-way data binding, thus the app resulting in minimized risks of errors.
- The MVVM model (Model-View-View Model) enables developers to use the same set of data and work independently on the same section of the app.
- Dependency injection of the features related to the components with modules and molecularity in general.
- The AngularJS structure and architecture is specifically designed for enhancing scalability of flexible projects.
Drawbacks of AngularJS:
- It can be difficult to learn in comparison to the other options in the comparison.
- Relatively slower performance, according to different benchmarks.
AngularJS vs ReactJS
- ReactJS supports Unidirectional data binding and AngularJS support Bi-directional data binding.
- Compared to ReactJS, AngularJS is difficult to understand. The reason is the support of third-party syntax and libraries.
- ReactJS is an Open Source Framework while AngularJS is an MVC framework.
- ReactJS works on Virtual DOM and AngularJS works on Regular DOM.
Vue.JS
Vue.js, a JavaScript framework, was launched in 2013. It is a flexible framework with advanced web tools to develop modern SPAs (single-page applications) and front-end web apps.
Benefits of Vue.JS:
- Detailed Documentation- Vue.js has very clear documentation which can shorten the learning curve and makes it easy to start.
- Familiar Interface- It provides a rapid switching period from other frameworks to Vue.js because of the similarity with other frameworks.
- Better Integration- This framework can be used for developing both single-page applications and also complex web app interfaces.
- Focus on scaling to develop pretty large reusable templates.
- Tiny size- Vue.js is a lightweight framework of around 20KB. As a result, it is a fast and flexible framework that allows for efficient performance.
Drawbacks of Vue.JS:
- A small developer community and lack of support make it hard for developers to find solutions to problems.
- While enterprises like Xiaomi and Alibaba have adopted Vue.js and it has helped in popularizing the framework. The popularity ratio remains higher in China and a major part of the content and discussion around the framework is in Chinese.
- Vue.JS has a two-way data binding for managing DOM updates. The issue with the reactivity system is that it renders only the chunks of data that were triggered and often makes mistakes during data reading, which requires data to be flattened.
Vue.JS vs ReactJS
- Vue uses HTML templates while React uses JSX. JSX or JavaScript Expressions is integration of CSS and HTML into JavaScript. It is an XML-like syntax that enables developers to develop UI components that are self-contained along with view-rendering instructions.
- Apps built on React have faster performance than the ones built on Vue. The addition or extension of a component makes the Vue app slower to load.
- ReactJS caters to the view layer of an application that is made up of components and Since doesn’t have a built-in architecture pattern. Vue follows the View Model approach and undertakes the pattern on MVVM especially while developing a large-scale application.
In Conclusion:
A lot of factors are involved while choosing the best framework for web app development. Speed, performance, stability, affordability are a few variables that make ReactJS a perfect choice for the development of web apps, especially for large-scale enterprises. No wonder, even giants like Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, trust this framework. These frameworks are evolving at a faster rate and are in close competition with each other. For the success of any app, the best technology and design have to come together.
Given the ever-evolving landscape of technology it can be difficult for enterprises to have skilled resources in all these areas. However, a staff augmentation partner like EngineerBabu can help you find the best developers across technologies and skills. We work with our customers and support them at every step of the way to ensure a great experience at very competitive pricing. Connect with us.