Choosing the Right Tech Stack: A JavaScript Framework Comparison


Introduction


In the world of JavaScript frameworks, you get plenty of options. Your choices will impact how your business flourishes in the upcoming years. But how do you make the decision? Plenty of popular JavaScript frameworks can help you reach your goals. With time, more frameworks and libraries are coming, making the decision to pick the right JavaScript framework challenging. In this blog post, we'll look at popular JavaScript frameworks, compare them, and learn what you should look for when choosing the framework for your next web project.

Popular JavaScript Framework to Consider


As a web developer, you have multiple choices. However, to keep the valuable content to you, we'll choose the popular web frameworks that can meet the demands of current and future web development. Based on multiple criteria, such as ecosystem, learning curve, performance factors, tooling, enterprise support, and completeness of what's on offer, we choose three frameworks: Angular, React, and Vue.

Angular


Angular JS is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks. It is also the oldest JavaScript framework in our list, with its first version launched in 2009. However, its initial launch saw multiple changes, including a rewrite in 2014. In 2016, Angular 2 was released, whereas at the time of writing, the latest version is Angular 16. The core motivation of Angular is to give teams the ability to create Single-Page Applications (SPAs). It is also fine-tuned to offer performance. Moreover, it is also easy to maintain. Its angular-CLI command-line tool makes it easy for the teams to create applications faster -- which is essential for modern agile development. Angular relies on regular DOM, which can impact loading time as it loads the entire HTML structure whenever the state changes. On top of that, Angular is relatively challenging to learn. As Angular supports MVC architecture, you can use Angular JS to create complex web applications without relying on external libraries. Regarding numbers, Angular is popular with almost 90.8K stars.

React JS


React or ReactJS or simply React.js is one of the best JavaScript frameworks. It was created by Jordan Walke, a Facebook employee, in 2011. However, it was released to the public in 2013. Like Angular, it also got rewritten, but not as extensively as Angular. React's core idea is to give developers the tool to create a simple, scalable UI for web applications. With React, you can create native user interfaces that are fast and responsive. It achieves a fast and responsive loading time due to virtual DOM, which doesn't require loading the entire DOM structure. It is capable of loading only specific HTML sections. Working with React is also more intuitive, thanks to it keeping the logic and markup in a single file. Also, teams can start implementing React from the get-go as it is easy to learn. But, if you're building a web app with MVC architecture, there are better choices than React, as it only offers one view. This also means that if you build a complex web application, you must rely on the other libraries. React.js has 214K stars on GitHub at the time of writing.

VueJS


If you want to develop single-page web apps, VueJS is your best choice. Evan You created VueJS. He released its first version in 2014. He only wanted to offer a better incremental alternative to Angular, which is progressive, lightweight, and adaptable. With Vue, you can get started quickly. As it is lightweight, you'll need to rely on other libraries to create a fully functional web app. Vue offers an easy way to connect to other libraries to ensure a smooth development process. It is also easy to learn. Vue.js builds takes the best bit from Angular and React and provides an easy way to build web apps. However, it needs to gain popularity, which can result in limited community exposure. If you get stuck with a problem, you may need to spend more time resolving it. At the time of writing, the Vue.js GitHub repository has 28.3K stars.

Which JavaScript Framework is the right pick for your project?


So, the question remains -- which JavaScript framework should you choose for your next project?

Let's answer them below.

When to Choose Angular JS?


You should choose Angular if you're going to:

  • Build a complete web application without the need to rely on third-party libraries.
  • Your team is technically capable of learning Angular and implementing it. You have the time and budget to use Angular in your project. However, with Angular CLI, the development speed of Angular projects has improved significantly.
  • You're looking for decent performance tooling with access to performance features such as bundling, lazy-loading, server-side rendering (Angular Universal), and Ahead-of-Time compiling.
  • You're looking for the most secure JavaScript framework.

When to Choose React JS?


You should choose React if you're going to:

  • Build a front-end heavy web app with multiple components and interactions.
  • Building a snappy web app with no pre-defined structure or approach.
  • You're looking for good performance out of the box. React JS provides access to built-in performance features such as Tree-shaking, Bundling, and server-side rendering.
  • Looking to build small to medium-scale single-page or cross-platform mobile apps.

When to Choose VueJS?


You should choose VueJS if you're going to:

  • Looking for a lightweight framework with excellent flexibility to plug in libraries.
  • Develop single-page, high-performance, dynamic apps.

Making the right choice - Best JavaScript Frameworks?


Reading this article might give you a good idea of where to start. However, there are multiple factors that you must identify before making a choice, especially if you're new to all of these. It's best to first identify your project requirements and then learn about JavaScript's framework learning curve, performance, flexibility, maintainability, and long-term viability. If you're unclear, you find yourself in a mess down the years. However, to summarize,

  • Choose Angular if you want a complete package to develop complex enterprise-level secure apps.
  • Choose React if you want a high-performance UI framework with excellent tooling, library support, and access to new technology and talent.
  • Choose Vue.js if you have developers who work in a structured manner to create high-performance single-page apps.

Are you still contemplating your choices? Then, we're here to help. [Bytecific] is a group of talented developers with years of experience building web apps. We'll learn about your project requirements and carefully identify the factors most impacting you. With this knowledge, we'll recommend the "right" JavaScript framework. We also offer complete web development to turn your ideas into reality.