The platforms of JavaScript probably are the best frameworks for developers as well as business organizations nowadays. Already, there is a vast ocean of JavaScript frameworks, with new ones pouring in constantly.  Frontend developers have difficulty in making up their minds as to which framework to stick to, particularly for single-page apps.

There are so many JavaScript frameworks and libraries to choose from on the web. Among the most popular however include React, Angular, Ember, Meteor, and Vue. The frameworks of JavaScript are preferred over others due to their functionality and interoperability. The libraries offer a better functional approach, good scalability, and most important of all platform independence.

JavaScript at present is used on the client and server-sides. The platform helps in designing an enriched user experience with many features to alter web pages in real-time. For fast web application development, JavaScript is the most preferred and acts as the perfect skeleton for single page applications, enabling developers complete focus on the interface elements, expanding the platform capabilities.

To further determine the best JavaScript framework to choose that best fits your web programming requirements, take a closer look at the five best JavaScript frameworks. 

Five best JavaScript Frameworks

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React JavaScript Framework

The brain-child of Facebook: it’s the framework in which the highest viewed social media platform, Facebook is based on. It’s supported by the FB team and also the driving force behind Instagram. It’s the choice of developers for many reasons to create dynamic and high-traffic web apps. 

Deemed as the quickest growing framework, with over 1000 GitHub contributors which increases the use of ReactJS in development with high demand.

React acts as a View in the MVC framework, and could be integrated seamlessly and smoothly into any architecture. One component file has the HTML markup and the business logic. You can either use Flux or a similar JS library for components communication. 

The seamless transfer of data between components is easy with the help of the props objects and the state. Credits to the Virtual DOM and special reconciliation algorithm, front-end gets a considerable boost. Changes could be done by developers in real-time, without having to update the View each time.

Pros:

The major component of boosting performance is the virtual DOM. Since React is framework-friendly, you could integrate it with other frameworks for inflated compatibility and performance. Moreover, it could be utilized on the client and the server-side. 

Cons:

Its flexibility is also its downside. It’s not easy to choose from the overabundance of frameworks. It works only on the MVC Framework’s View layer. 

In spite of the inclusion of the major code libraries, in some instances it still needs more code. And since it’s more of a library instead of framework, data changes need manual processing. 

Angular JavaScript Framework

The web-app platform is type-script based, making it exceptionally agile. Led by the Angular team at Google, a community of members and testers, it’s an open-source solution. Referred often as an MVW framework, it’s considered the best to use, particularly among startups and medium-size enterprises.

What sets Angular apart from the rest of the JavaScript frameworks is its two-way data binding, which makes backend changes reflect in real time on the user interface. As the most sought-after apps for Single Page Applications, an Angular JS development company enjoys high demand. 

It’s preferred for hybrid mobile apps as well. Features like switches, sidebars, and overlays integrate dynamic functionality to apps. It came about in 2016 with the version 2.0, the immediate release occurred in Angular 4 in the following year, with updates at regular intervals. Angular 5 was released in 2017 followed by 6 in the middle of 2018, then Angular 7 in September of the same year.

The diagram of the architecture identifies eight major building blocks of Angular 2 app.

Components – are a logical code for a JS app, consisting of a class, template, and metadata. 

Modules – used in creating a particular set of instructions. Rather than coding everything in a single place, you could build individual modules, which depend on the functionality. A module contains an export array, bootstrap array, and an import array as well.

Metadata – has the extra data defined for classes and is defined with a decorator.

Data binding – used for binding classes properties in the components.

Directives – a custom element of HTML. Used for extending the HTML functionality, with two directives as part of the Browser Module module.

Services – service is built to provide common functionality across various program modules. 

Templates – used for rendering the View for an app, consisting of the HTML code required for binding, rendering, and directives.

Dependency injection – used for extending module functionality during runtime.

Pros:

Yields huge performances, which is made possible by type-scripting. It offers libraries and functionalities for nested components, as well as web components support.

Cons:

It modifies a pre-existing DOM, which makes it slow and inefficient compared to React. It maintains a physical distance between the JavaScript driving an app and the HTML rendered.

Vue.js JavaScript Framework

Was introduced in 2016. It instilled the better parts of React, Angular, and Ember and put into a handy package. Vue’s learning curve was better than Angular and React.

What makes it stand out among the rest is the two-way binding, optional JSX support, Vue-cli, server-side rendering, and more. The ecosystem of the framework is composed of a view-loader as a component, library, Chrome, Vue.js devtools, Firefox, as well as a dedicated library Vuex to manage app state with the framework. Thus, it’s the better option than its counterparts for SPAs and cross-platform solutions.

You might see the Vue library as a combination of React and Angular, and somehow it’s true. It borrows the concepts of both React and Angular concepts. Layouts and logic, together with stylesheets are stored in a file. It also utilizes props objects and states, the same as React.

A reason to opt for Vue over React nonetheless is that React apps used the Redux library. As the app grows in size, building mini changes across files has the tendency to be tedious. This makes the Vue framework more favourable than others.

Pros

A collection of the best parts of the majority of frameworks. Thus, understanding the ease and deployment comes around. Very flexible, as well as facilitates a two-way communication, with a virtual DOM as well.

Cons

The downfall with Vue is its high flexibility. The high integrity makes choosing one for development hard. Most users of the Vue.js framework belong to non-native English speakers’ closed communities. The barrier in language is one of the reasons why developers are wary of using it.

React Native JavaScript Framework

It was a breakthrough when it comes to mobile application development. Before React, developing an Android and iOS app required various code sets. The whole deployment and coding functionality varied, and took a big toll on the expenses. 

React Native was launched by Facebook a few years back, revolutionizing the phone apps concept. You could write an app code and deploy at the same time on iOS and Android. The great success was the write once, deploy anywhere concept and React since then has been the foremost choice of native application development.

The framework takes the development of mobile apps to an all-new level, using CSS-like stylesheets, JS code, and HTML tags for lay-outing.

Pros

The concept of one framework, numerous platforms is a great React Native bonus. It has an extremely streamlined UI, and you could make apps faster with them.

Cons

The navigation is a turnoff, and transitions are not smooth either. It lacks the required custom modules for native application development. Native developers moreover are still required to accomplish the task.

Ionic JavaScript Framework

It’s all about performance and nothing else. A cross-platform, and open-sourced, it’s used for developing hybrid mobile apps. A mobile HTML5 framework, it’s solely aimed at performance, using hardware acceleration. What’s great is that it does not require a third-party JS library. 

Ionic could be teamed up with Angular.js for building an interactive application. It comes with a set of its own icon set, called the Ionicons. Then it’s teamed up with reusable HTML classes for building an interactive mobile user interface. The HTML5 framework works with the help of Cordova or PhoneGap. 

Pros

A once code for all Ionic2 Concepts makes it favourable for developing an app.  Moreover, it’s open source and thus free entirely. The open source advantage of the huge developer community, as well as testers ascertain that the framework is top notch at all times. The open source benefit of a big community of developers and testers ensures that Ionic is on the top always.

Cons

Because of the code simplicity, creating an in-app navigation could be burdensome. It’s a very complicated task. The performance of the in-app is swift as the app when developed for individual devices. Because Angular.js is a must for Ionic 2, Angular.js knowledge is a critical factor in app development.

JavaScript is highly favoured among all the other programming languages. A few benefits are the following.

1. Safety. They are in continuous iteration, therefore they have a large community of members, as well as testers. 

2. Expense. Web applications cost an arm and a leg as most frameworks cost more. Most of the frameworks of JavaScript however are free of cost. This lowers the costs of web development drastically.

3. Efficiency. As earlier mentioned, the JavaScript frameworks are cutters of cost. In addition, they are also time savers, credits to the prebuilt functionalities for a faster web application development.

Conclusion

The whole website development community is extremely agile and continuously updates. Every month, a new framework is being released.  Those that are released are under constant upgrades and enhanced with the latest functions. We hope this guide helps you to choose the right JavaScript framework for you.

Author Bio:

Olivia D. is a technology observer, writer and blogger. Being a tech geek, she keeps a close watch over the industry focusing on the latest technology news and gadgets. Follow me on Twitter.

Are you using a JavaScript framework? Let us know in our latest Developer Economics survey.

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