Website and web application development continues to be a major priority for companies of all sizes. One of the most difficult aspects of any JavaScript engineering project is selecting the right framework to organize the programming team under. While there are currently more JavaScript frameworks in use than ever before, the top JavaScript development services overwhelmingly rely on three of these frameworks to complete the vast majority of their work. Either of these six approaches can be used to ensure success in any web development project.
What is a Javascript Framework?
Building a well-written and functional application is a very difficult undertaking, one which requires an enormous amount of talent and resources. However, it also requires more than money and experienced software developers–such a project needs structure and a clear plan of action in order to succeed. JavaScript frameworks help provide such structure to an application development project by laying out a set of JavaScript code libraries with pre-written code snippets that allow engineers to quickly build a website or web application from the ground up. Read on to learn more about the six most popular frameworks in use today.
React
By far the most popular JavaScript framework, React calls itself “a JavaScript library for building user interfaces.” Originally released as an open-source project in 2013, the bare-bones framework is responsible for bringing functional programming principles to the mainstream. While other JavaScript frameworks like Angular are full-service, React relies on third-party vendors to provide state management, routing, and data fetching to its users.
One of the reasons that React remains so popular is because of the existing community of passionate developers who preach the benefits of React to their professional network. Some of the benefits associated with this framework are a large number of resources and third-party libraries available to developers, as well as its suitability to cross-platform development teams intent on launching applications across a range of devices. However, the huge amount of information can pose a challenge to newcomers since best practices are not always clear and the learning curve can be steep. Companies interested in outsourcing JavaScript often opt to use React because of its widespread adoption throughout the industry.
Angular
Angular is the second-most popular JavaScript framework in use today. The heir to AngularJS, this full framework has become incredibly popular for developers who are coming into JavaScript from Java and C# programming languages. In contrast to React, Angular features a complete framework with internal data fetching, development language, and state management. This framework also uses TypeScript as its development language and its relation to Java has caused Angular to be adopted by many large corporations.
The main benefit associated with the Angular framework is the ease of use for developers experienced in Java and object-oriented programming. In addition, Google offers excellent user support when developers encounter problems. Two of the main challenges associated with the Angular framework are the steep learning curve and the fact that many novice developers struggle with TypeScript if they do not have a background in Java or C#.
Vue
Vue may be one of the most recent JavaScript frameworks on this list, but it also has the fastest-growing user base of any framework reviewed here. Created in 2013 by developer Evan You, Vue does not come with the type of corporate support that Angular and React enjoy (Google and Facebook, respectively). However, this user-supported platform is able to compete with other popular frameworks through individual and commercial donations.
While Vue is a full-service framework akin to Angular, it also offers much of the flexibility that has made React so popular with web developers. In addition, this “progressive framework” is widely considered to be one of the easiest Javascript frameworks to learn, which is why it has seen rapid adoption by both major corporations and JavaScript development companies. It also comes with excellent documentation and offers the best performance of the top five JavaScript frameworks.
Ember
Ember has traditionally been one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks found around the globe, although usage has fallen in recent years as newer frameworks such as React, Angular, and Vue have become favored. Created by Yehuda Katz, the Ember framework is based on the model-view-ViewModel pattern, which provides developers with a crucial active view describing behaviors, data-bindings, and events.
The main benefit associated with the Ember framework is the clear list of best practices that allow project managers to quickly assess their work against industry standards. In addition, this full-featured framework contains everything necessary to develop a web page or application, and the framework itself is well established. However, Ember is very large and comes with a challenging learning curve, one which prevents many new developers from attempting to learn the language. In addition, its lack of current popularity means that companies may struggle to find experienced programmers and may need to turn to JavaScript development services to find programmers who are fluent in the language.
Backbone
Like Ember, Backbone has long been considered one of the top JavaScript frameworks for development, although it has lost popularity over the past couple of years. Created by Jeremy Ashkenas in 2010, this framework simplifies development by providing more structure for front end applications. This framework also uses the Model-View-Controller paradigm to create web applications, where the Model = HTML, View = CSS, and Controller = Browser. Many other popular web programming frameworks, such as Ruby on Rails, CakePHP, and Django, use this same approach.
One of the main advantages of Backbone is the stability of the framework. The author, Jeremy Ashkenas, has refused to release updates to the framework since 2010. While the lack of updates has prevented this framework from integrating new ideas and features, it provides the web development approach with some much-needed stability. However, the static nature of this framework also means that Backbone has steadily lost ground to new, more-efficient frameworks that have been created in the past several years.
Meteor
One of the least well-known JavaScript frameworks out there today, Meteor has the potential to become one of the most popular tools in the web developer toolkit in the near future. This full-stack framework allows developers to spend time learning one basic tool–which they can use for nearly every aspect of their application development cycle. The ease-of-use of this approach, combined with the shortage of experienced web developers, has made this framework popular for companies who need to get new software engineers up-to-speed immediately.
Meteor is notable for having one of the most active and engaged user bases of any current JavaScript framework. This makes learning this approach quite easy for a newcomer and promises to help this framework spread rapidly over the next several years. In addition, it can be used to build an application’s user interface but is especially useful because it can be combined with a user interface-specific framework, using Meteor on the backend alone. The sheer amount of flexibility offered by this JavaScript framework makes its future very promising.
