What is a framework in programming? Frameworks are ready presets of code with the possibility of further customization according to your needs to build an app or any other software product. Frameworks may include compilers, code libraries, toolsets, and APIs that bring together all the different components for project development. Their key benefits in JavaScript development are:
- no need to start coding from scratch
- extendability
- time and cost-effectiveness
- reusability
- ability to deal with the newest technology and patterns.
What is a JavaScript framework?
Now, programmers use frontend JavaScript frameworks for web apps and custom software development and stand independent in this competitive marketing era.
The JavaScript framework is a functionality that provides JS developers with a set of predefined codes to achieve some everyday development tasks. They are a helpful tool for:
- Development of large apps that must be scaled
- Adding interactivity to dynamic websites
- Creating mobile apps
- Server-side rendering and programming
- Development of games, which is quite new, however, an interesting trend
- Developing server apps
List of the Most Popular JavaScript Frameworks
As JavaScript continues to evolve as one of the most popular coding languages, it is no wonder its frameworks are expanding and growing. Some frontend frameworks have growing communities, while others are only starting to emerge. Online business owners often want to know what are the best JavaScript frameworks in 2023. Here is our investigation and our top list.
Popularity Trends
The following Google search trends graph represents search interest for React, Angular, Vue, React, and NodeJS during the last 12 months (a value of 100 is the peak popularity for the term).
React continues to keep top popularity scores, while Angular is still hot and is quite close to its main competitor.
In the meantime, Vue.js is something lots of developers are considering learning next as a Web Framework, according to Stack Overflow’s latest Developer Survey.
Twitter, Aliexpress, BBC, and more than other 183 000 websites use NodeJS. Let’s have a deeper look at each one.
React
React is not a framework in the pure sense of this meaning; it’s rather a declarative and flexible JavaScript library designed for building user interfaces of web and mobile apps. An essential distinction between React and other frameworks is that it is mostly focused on rendering the UI, and it does not impose any restrictions on your app design. So, you can supplement it with other JS libraries.
On the other hand, a framework implies structure and convention that developers must follow. In some cases, a framework creates limits, as it might be difficult to mix a framework with other JavaScript code.
As a lightweight JavaScript library, React enables the development of reusable UI components, which include data that will change over time. React.js is used to render views, such as HTML pages, dynamically based on some data. Your components tell the library what you want to render. React will update and render only the right components when your data changes.
Facebook developed and first deployed React.js on Facebook’s newsfeed in 2011 and one year later on Instagram. Today, React.js holds a leading position in the JavaScript frameworks list. To see how this technology became widespread, let’s have a look at a recent developers survey made by the global tech platform Stack Overflow. React appeared to be the most trending and wanted technology.
Conclusion about React.js in brief
React.js is a simple, fast, and scalable solution. The component-based approach, use of plain JavaScript, and well-defined lifecycle make React.js very simple to build web as well as mobile apps. It uses a specific syntax, JSX, to mix HTML with JavaScript code. React is a perfect choice for complex web development, where you need to handle the view layer for web and mobile applications.
React uses one-way data binding. Its popular extension, Redux, controls data flow to components through one control point. This way of working makes it easier to debug self-contained components of large applications.
All the applications built with ReactJS are super easy to test. Developers can treat React views as functions of the state. So, they play with the state they pass to React view and test the output and triggered actions, functions, or events.
Last but not least, a decisive advantage of React is cross-platform development. React Native combines the best parts of native development with React so that you can develop IOS, Android, and Web applications at the same time.
Angular
Unlike React, Angular is an all-in-one JavaScript framework with state management, routing, XSS protection, HTTP module, form validation, and many more. Angular is a structural framework used for the development of dynamic web applications. Angular allows developers to use HTML as their template language and extend its syntax to express the app’s components. While React provides just the view, Angular enables the Model View Controller design pattern.
Angular 2, a major upgrade of AngularJS, is a complete JavaScript front-end framework. The first version of Angular, initially released in 2010, used JavaScript at its core, but later Google developers’ team decided to rewrite all the applications from scratch using Typescript. As a result, they released the second version of Angular. This framework is mainly maintained by Google and by a community of developers and companies to address the challenges encountered in app development.
Angular 2 is built on TypeScript, which uses ES6 syntax and compiles to vanilla JavaScript. Typescript allows us to write a class, interface, and module statements just like in Java or C#. It boosts the performance of the technical solution as the code written in Typescript is less inclined to run-time errors. Angular 2.0 is highly appreciated amongst coders and businesses for its high-functioning solutions. It is widely adopted nowadays for web and mobile app development.
Main features of the framework
There are several major blocks of Angular architecture. A module, similar to a class described by a code block, performs a particular single task. Angular has a feature of modularity, where a single application is built by separating it into many modules.
A component is a core part of the code and belongs to the controller class. View of the application and logic on the page and on-click execution depends upon the component. The view of the component is defined with a template. We add template expressions into the code in order to display value. You can connect CSS stylesheets with a component using encapsulated inline styles.
Metadata is used to extend the functionality of the class. We can use the class metadata (i.e., @Component decorator) to define any component in the Angular app.
Data Binding is the most powerful feature of Angular 2. It is a bridge between Model and View, and it synchronizes automatically. The framework supports three types of binding: source-to-view (property, attribute, interpolation, class, style binding), view-to-source (event binding), and two-way binding.
Dependency Injection enables attaching the functionality of components at runtime. Components can be easily maintainable, reusable, and testable with dependency injection.
Vue.js
Vue.js is a JavaScript framework JS developers use to build user interfaces and single-page applications. You can easily integrate it into web development projects using other JavaScript libraries. Google’s software engineer Evan You created this progressive JavaScript framework in 2013. He aimed to provide developers with a ready-made solution for fast prototyping of complex user interfaces of web apps.
Vue.js allows developers to code in a highly reusable way. We can create components we use as “HTML-like” tags on the page and bind data, functions, and other properties to every element. Instead of writing all our HTML code inside an HTML file, we mix it with JavaScript (Vue.js), adding interactive elements and providing efficiency. Its core concepts include using components, implementing the virtual DOM, and declarative rendering. They make Vue.js a robust app development tool.
Vue.js provides built-in data binding. It makes configuration much easier compared to other JS frameworks. Vue supports easier integration with HTML elements and is much easier to understand, learn, and use. However, this JavaScript framework is still new to the market, although fast-growing, and doesn’t provide lots of valuable solutions and resources. Vue has less community support than React and Angular technologies.
Node.js
Node.js is not just a framework but a platform that allows running JavaScript scripts outside the browser and executing it on the server side. JavaScript coders can produce backend applications with Node JS. It is well-scalable as it relies on the non-blocking I/O model.
This platform was designed to develop fast and scalable web applications easily. It is a perfect solution for creating applications that require a continuous connection from the browser to the server. This server environment represents a “JavaScript everywhere” paradigm, written in JavaScript and C/C++. It is lightweight and efficient for data-intensive real-time apps. Node JS is often used to build real-time apps such as news feeds, chat, and push notifications.
Before Node.js was created, JavaScript language could be used only for front-end development. Software developers had to use a different programming language for the server side, and backend and frontend coding consisted of two flows. NodeJS makes JavaScript a full-stack application development language.
JS codes can now create both the front-end and back-end of an application in one common programming language, JavaScript. The development environment helps to automate routine tasks and make the app deployment faster and more efficient.
JavaScript framework market share
JavaScript framework market share alters periodically, so when you ask which JavaScript framework I should use for a custom software development project, there is no single correct answer. While Vue Js is often said to be the most comfortable JavaScript framework to learn and use, Angular has remained quite popular during the last several years, yet complicated.
Choosing a JavaScript framework should depend on your business and the specifics of the software projects you want to develop. If you are looking for expert advice in the field or you need React, Vue, Angular, or Node JS programmers for your app development, do not hesitate to get in touch with ELITEX.
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