Nowadays, there are plenty of JavaScript front-end frameworks, each with its strong and weak sides. It’s often pretty hard to choose the right one, especially if you don’t have a substantial technical background. Unique features to be implemented in the final product require a tech stack that fits the requirements of a customer. The question is which exact front-end framework will ensure better results and reasonable investment of time. Today, we’ll take a look at five JavaScript front-end frameworks that have proven themselves best according to our experience.
React
React JS development services have become pretty popular since the first release of this library in 2013. The reason for such popularity among developers and businesses that want to leverage online apps is that React creators have implemented a new way of rendering web pages. This improvement resulted in dynamic and responsive online applications that provide an excellent user experience.
Main Features
Virtual DOM is one of the most significant features of React. It allows avoiding constant updates of the DOM tree, leading to significant lags and a drop in performance in the case of complex web apps. The Virtual DOM, in its turn, contains a copy of a real DOM. React can use it for updating the small parts of the whole web app without affecting it as a whole. Such behavior allows ensuring the high performance of web applications of any complexity.
JSX or JavaScript XML is a JavaScript syntax extension used by React which is close to XML and HTML. The use of JSX makes writing React components easier thanks to its familiarity with the HTML injected into the web page.
One-way Data Binding provides unidirectional data flow, which results in better control throughout the application.
React Native is a framework that helps to leverage the advantages of React for creating cross-platform mobile apps. Developers can use it to create full-featured applications for Android and iOS that will function like native apps.
Developers can reuse code written with React. This feature allows saving time and speeding up the development process. Developers can create isolated React components and then change them without affecting the other web app parts. It will enable making the development process more precise and ergonomic.
React is constantly evolving. Developers actively maintain React and continuously add new features and implement new functionality. That’s why you can use it and not be afraid that at some point, you face a lack of programmers to maintain or upgrade your web app. The functionality of your online application will fully correspond to the latest trends.
React has a great ecosystem. There’s a collection of dozens of ready-to-use React components covering the needs of almost any type of project.
Webix
Webix is a JavaScript library and framework that was created by the brightest minds of XB Software. One of its best features is the ability to speed-up web development without sacrificing the quality of the end-product. Webix provides access to more than 100 full-functional ready-to-use widgets of different complexity levels such as File Manager, Pivot, charts, graphs, menus, layout widgets, and others.
Main Features
Cost-effective web development. Webix allows using a minimal amount of code for creating full-featured web apps with an excellent user experience. The less time the developers spend on coding, the lower the overall project cost will be. If you’re looking for a great UI library for a startup or want to quickly test an MVP version of your app in the market, Webix can be a decent choice.
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Fast time-to-market. One of the main ideas behind Webix is a time-saving approach to web development. With Webix, developers can save at least 3000+ development hours thanks to many widgets and UI controls available out-of-the-box. On average, using this library allows creating user interfaces 30% faster.
Access to a rich library of widgets and UI controls. Webix provides developers with tons of ready-to-use full-functional components. Among them, you can find some that can expand your existing web app’s functionality and provide users with new features.
You can work with framework experts. With Webix, you will get what only a few frameworks can give you: the possibility to cooperate with the company that created it. Our developers have successfully completed more than 150 projects, and we have more than 10,000 active users worldwide.
DHTMLX
DHTMLX is another JavaScript UI framework for web app development that was built by XB Software. This framework is intended for building enterprise web and mobile applications with rich interface and fast performance. One of its main advantages is the ability to utilize ready-to-use complex components for creating comprehensive web applications.
Main Features
Full-featured JavaScript components. Among them, you can find DHTMLX Suite (includes calendar, charts, date picker, form, grid, and other components), Gantt chart, Scheduler, Diagram Library, Pivot Table, File Uploader, Spreadsheet, Rich Text Editor, Kanban Board, and ToDo List.
Integration with popular server-side technologies such as PHP, Java, ASP.NET, Ruby, Grails, ColdFusion, Python, and others.
Client-side integrations allow effortlessly integrating DHTMLX components into your Angular, React, and Vue.js projects.
Fast web apps development. There’s no need to develop each component from the ground up. Instead, you can use one of the ready-to-use components. Simple APIs contribute to a short learning curve allowing programmers to start developing as fast as possible.
Great performance. All components are well-tested and optimized to provide a lag-free experience. For example, the Gantt chart can easily process 10000+ tasks.
Comprehensive documentation. DHTMLX developers provide detailed technical documentation and 1500+ demos and samples.
Vue.js
Vue.js is a relatively new framework that was first released in 2014. Despite this fact, it’s one of the most popular technologies among JavaScript developers. Vue.js separates HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, which is a traditional way of doing things in the world of web development. Also, it can use JSX just like React. This framework doesn’t force developers to change their coding habits.
Main Features
Excellent performance. An effective state management mechanism allows Vue developers to build lag-free and high-performance systems.
The flexibility of Vue.js allows using the most basic features to build full-featured web applications.
A wide variety of development tools is available out-of-the-box. Vue.js developers can use Vuex for state management, Vue Router for app URL management, or Vue Server-Side Renderer for server-side rendering.
Simple customization and optimization, thanks to the component-based flow of Vue.js. This feature helps to use this framework for customization of the existing projects with minimal effort.
Fast development and implementation. Vue.js is a lightweight and easy-to-use alternative to modern JavaScript frameworks.
The comprehensive documentation. Vue.js documentation is written very well, detailed, and structured. It covers every topic that a developer should know.
Virtual DOM is another distinctive feature of Vue.js that allows achieving all the benefits described in the React section.
Angular
Angular is a pure classic. This framework was launched in 2010. It has gained massive popularity since then and remains one of the most popular web development tools. According to a mass survey conducted by StackOverflow in 2019, Angular is the most used web framework after jQuery.
Main Features
Great Performance. With Angular, developers can render the code into HTML & CSS and have the first view of the application on any platform such as NodeJS or PHP, for example. The loading time of Angular-based apps is one of the best among the modern JavaScript frameworks.
Modular structure implies that the whole app is organized into a set of modules. Such an approach allows developers to segregate the overall functionality into exclusive features and reusable chunks of code, resulting in an easy mechanism of dividing the labor among developers. Additionally, it enables lazy loading, which means that a web browser can load different parts of the app in the background so that they appear before the users’ eyes as soon as they rich the corresponding part of the web page.
The component-based architecture allows organizing the app structure as a hierarchical tree of components. Components can be reused in different parts of the application that have similar functionality. This behavior enables easy code reusability, app maintenance, and effortless unit testing.
Angular CLI simplifies and automates such operations as application initialization and configuration.
TypeScript extends JavaScript by adding types to the language. It is pretty efficient when it comes to bug detection, which helps decrease overall development time.
Ivy Render translates the code written using TypeScript and HTML into JavaScript instructions for their further interpretation by a browser. When the app’s components are at the rendering stage, ivy renderer can remove those chunks of code that aren’t used by the application. This technique allows building smaller and faster web apps.
Declarative UI is a feature that allows developers to avoid using JavaScript to define the UI of the app. Instead, Angular allows using HTML, which in most cases will require fewer efforts.
Conclusions
In web development, JavaScript occupies a leading position. Such a state of affairs has led to a wide variety of javascript frameworks and libraries. When you choose a front-end framework that will become one of the cornerstones of a web or mobile application for your business, it’s important to remember that the most popular solution may not always be the right choice.
The thing is that a specific framework is designed to solve a range of particular tasks. Therefore, if you don’t have enough web development experience and aren’t sure which framework can solve your issues, you can rely on our expertise and contact us to start fruitful cooperation.