Choosing the Right JavaScript Framework for Your Front-End Development
Exploring the scope of the 5 best JavaScript frameworks for front-end developments in 2020
JavaScript, often abbreviated as “JS”, is a high level and multi-paradigm language which supports event-driven, functional and imperative programming styles. JavaScript was initially used mostly for client-side development purposes but with the time and its rapid pace of development, JavaScript became of use as a server-side programming language as well. Still, JavaScript frameworks are one of the most favored platforms for developers for front-end developments.
Over the years there have been many JavaScript frameworks released and choosing one amongst them can be challenging for developers. Most probably, you might have had a chance to experiment with one or two of the popular JavaScript Frameworks. However, somewhere in your mind, you might be still a little unsure about the best one to devote yourself to mastering. To simplify this choice of a JavaScript framework for client-side development, we should reduce our options to several top solutions.
In this blog, I’m going to discuss the top five front-end JavaScript frameworks that are globally recognized and voted by a community of programmers.
1. ReactJS
ReactJS is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks in today’s time. It’s maintained by Facebook and is a specialized tool for building dynamic user interfaces of the web pages with high incoming traffic. ReactJS is implemented in over 3 lakh websites currently such as Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Dropbox, Tesla, Netflix, and Reddit.
Here are some key features of ReactJS:
JSX
Any basic websites are built by HTML documents. Web browsers read these documents and display them on your computer as web pages. During this process, browsers create something called a Document Object Model (DOM), a representational tree of how the web page is arranged. Developers can then add dynamic content to their projects by modifying the DOM with languages like JavaScript.
JSX (JavaScript eXtension) is a React extension that makes it easy for web developers to modify their DOM by using simple, HTML-style code. And since React JS browser support extends to all modern web browsers, JSX is compatible with any browser platform you might be working with. This isn’t just a matter of convenience, though using JSX to update a DOM leads to significant site performance improvements and development efficiency.
Virtual DOM
If you’re not using ReactJS (and JSX), your website will use HTML to update its DOM (the process that makes things “change” on screen without a user having to manually refresh a page). This works fine for simple, static websites. But for dynamic websites that involve heavy user interaction, it can be problematic.
However, if a developer uses JSX to manipulate and update its DOM, ReactJS creates something called a Virtual DOM. The Virtual DOM is a copy of the website’s DOM, and ReactJS uses this copy to see what parts of the actual DOM need to change when an event happens (like a user clicking a button).
This kind of selective updating takes less computing power and less loading time, which might not sound like much, but when you start to think about all the dynamics and updating associated with even a slightly complex website, you’ll realize it adds up to a lot.
Even though flexibility is its main advantage, ReactJS nevertheless has issues because of its flexibility. When you have to choose from many additional libraries, you face the dilemma of what exactly you should use with React. You may waste much time trying to figure out the best options. Basically, there’s still no solid development workflow with ReactJS.
But still, ReactJS is identified as one of the best JavaScript frameworks mostly due to ease of learning, reusable components, the virtual DOM, greater developer tools, and the ease of writing with JSX.
2. Angular
Angular is one of the most powerful, efficient, and open-source JavaScript frameworks. This framework is mainly maintained by Google and is used for developing Single Page Applications (SPA). This development framework is known primarily because it gives developers the best conditions for combining JavaScript with HTML and CSS. Over half a million websites like google.com, youtube.com, Paypal, etc. are using AngularJS.
Angular is commonly used to build “Rich Internet Applications”. It aims to simplify both the development and the testing of such applications by providing a framework for client-side Model View Controller (MVC). And also the applications written in AngularJS are cross-browser compliant. Angular automatically handles JavaScript code suitable for each browser.
Some of the core features of AngularJS are as follows −
- Data-binding − You don’t need to write special code to bind data to the HTML controls. This can be done by Angular by just adding a few snippets of code.
- MVC — The framework is built on the famous concept of MVC (Model-View-Controller). This is a design pattern used in most of the modern-day web applications. This pattern is based on splitting the business logic layer, the data layer, and presentation layer into separate sections.
- Writing less code — When carrying out DOM manipulation a lot of JavaScript was required to be written to design any application. But with Angular, you will be amazed by the lesser amount of code you need to write for DOM manipulation.
- Unit Testing ready — The designers at Google not only developed Angular but also developed a testing framework called “Karma” which helps in designing unit tests for AngularJS applications.
Due to these key features, AngularJS has become one of the powerful JavaScript frameworks among the programming community. You can also choose Angular if you don’t like to constantly choose among additional libraries as with ReactJS.
3. VueJS
VueJS is an open-source, progressive JavaScript framework for building creative user interfaces. Integrating into projects that use other JavaScript libraries is simplified with VueJS because it is designed to be adaptable. Currently, over 36,000 websites are using VueJS. Companies like StackOverflow, PlayStation, etc. are relying on VueJS for their websites’ UI.
The concept of VueJS has been taken from Angular and React, but VueJS is better in many ways. It’s a lightweight framework with features such as two way data binding and virtual DOM
VueJS has rapidly gained popularity in the programming community due to some key features. Clear separation of templates, CSS code and JavaScript code has offered a great convenience for the developers. And also the official state management package, “VueX” and official router package, “Vue Router” has made developing procedures pretty simple for the developers. VueJS is said to have one of the simplest and detailed documentation when compared to other JavaScript frameworks. Additionally, due to the absence of JSX as in ReactJS and the absence of TypeScript as in AngularJS and the detailed documentation, the learning curve of VueJS is said to be far less steep. We might opt for VueJS because it’s less complicated than ReactJS and AngularJS. On the other hand, we also believe that having a solid framework (AngularJS) or a solid choice of libraries (ReactJS) outweighs simplicity by a huge margin when developing enterprise-level applications.
The main disadvantage of using VueJS is that it has no reputed company backing it up and hence, it’s not popular as ReactJS and Angular JS which are backed up two giants.
4. Preact
Preact is a comparatively new JavaScript framework which describes itself as a “Fast 3kB alternative to React with the same modern API”. As the description says, Preact is a lightweight alternative for React which is the primary reason that has made it popular within a small time period. Preact was developed with the goal of building a JavaScript framework that’s small in size and yet offers the same API and features that React ships with.
With a total size of 3kb, this means you don’t have to worry about your JavaScript library/framework taking up a major chunk of your app’s total file size. Preact is fast, and not just because of its size. It’s one of the fastest Virtual DOM libraries out there in the market at the current point.
These are some of the goals Preact plans on delivering:
- Performance: Render quickly & efficiently.
- Size: Small size, lightweight (approximately 3.5kb).
- Efficiency: Effective memory usage (avoiding GC thrash).
- Understandability: Understanding the codebase should take no more than a few hours.
- Compatibility: Preact aims to be largely compatible with the React API.
Preact comes with its own advantages. Simple applications don’t require build tools, you can simply run it on the browser. Also, Preact has its own dedicated CLI. Since Preact comes as an alternative to React, it is possible to integrate with existing React projects and also use the well known React API.
5. EmberJS
EmberJS is one of the oldest JavaScript frameworks which has managed to survive, unlike BackboneJS and KnockoutJS who were from the same era as EmberJS. But the fact that Ember is comparatively old doesn’t mean that it’s out of date. In fact, Ember inspired many other JavaScript frameworks. For example, VueJS’s router library borrowed ideas from “EmberRouter”.
EmberJS, the self-described “framework for ambitious web developers” is focused on developer productivity. Ideally suited for single-page applications based on the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) pattern. Yehuda Katz, the creator of Ember.js, was a member of the Ruby on Rails Core team. He used the Ruby on Rails principal “Convention over Configuration” extensively in EmberJS. Even though it’s mostly used for client-side developments, Ember also includes an official data layer which makes back-end integration easy with two-way data binding using Ember data. Ember has its own plugin repository that offers a variety of helpful integrations. Ember’s Ember-CLI, a command-line add-on provides support for various technologies including CoffeeScript, Handlebars, SaaS/Less and more.
If you want to learn a JavaScript framework only for Web with high development velocity, then EmberJS is a robust and excellent framework although it seems to be underrated.
There are other JavaScript frameworks that might have helped you with your developments such as BackboneJS, Svelte, Aureila, MeteorJS, etc. But here, I shortlisted the top five choices that are backed up by npm trends and popularity. Ultimately, the framework you choose to invest in will come down to personal preference and the type of projects you want to work on. However, if you’re a front-end developer, I recommend gaining expertise with one of these mentioned frameworks at least.
I appreciate your valuable time spent on reading this article and feel free to drop your opinions and suggestions! Happy coding and stay safe!
