Top 7 Frontend JavaScript Frameworks and Libraries for Web Development in 2023 [Updated]

What is JavaScript?

JavaScript is a cross-platform programming language that allows you to work with frontend, backend, and mobile app development. It is considered to be one of the most popular and demanded programming languages worldwide. Today, almost no web page is complete without JavaScript-based interactive features.

What is a JS Framework?

JS frameworks are tools for building dynamic web, mobile, and desktop applications in the JavaScript language. With their help, you can develop full-fledged sites and functional modules alike. Full-fledged frameworks are much better suited for the first task, while for the second, it is recommended to use lighter weight frameworks or libraries.

The State of JavaScript In 2023

The world of JavaScript is constantly transforming and evolving.

StackOverflow survey results showed that JavaScript is the most commonly used programming language across the web.  

By the year 2023, 57.8% of developers agreed that JavaScript is progressing in the correct direction and nearly 19% of developers strongly confirm this statement.

In terms of how satisfied survey respondents are with the general state of web technologies, the findings are as follows:

More than half of survey respondents are happy with the state of web tech as a whole compared to less than 5% of unhappy ones. 

Back to the StackOverflow results, React.js has the position of the most used frontend framework.

The advantages of using JS Frameworks

From a large number of advantages, we can distinguish several key ones:

1. Easy implementation of SPAs (Single Page Applications) and PWAs (Progressive Web Applications);
2. Organised application structure;
3. Shorter and cleaner code, which positively affects the speed of development, as well as the support and elimination of errors;
4. App modularity, which makes it easier for several developers to work on the application simultaneously;
5. The ability to quickly create a mobile and/or desktop cross-platform application from its web version using systems such as PhoneGap or Apache Cordova.

Angular

Angular is a framework from Google for building client applications. First of all, it is aimed at developing SPA solutions. In this regard, Angular came from Angular JS. At the same time, it’s not an update to its predecessor, but a fundamentally new framework.

Advantages:

• Thanks to the size of its community, there is a huge number of books, online resources, and conferences dedicated to Angular. This allows developers to stay relevant, and lets clients easily find companies to support their project.
• When creating templates in Angular, the declarative programming paradigm is applied, which makes the script more lightweight and easier to read and maintain. It happens due to the fact that the code describes the needed result instead of the steps required to accomplish it.
• A large number of useful features allows you to create the most user- and developer-friendly SPAs.
• Angular lets you organise applications from separate modules, which can be mutually dependant or autonomous.
• Angular modules are versatile and easy to manage. This modularization allows developers to load only the services they need at a given time, thus making automated testing more efficient. Plus, there is no need to remember the order of loading modules in case you adhere to the principle of “one file – one module”.
• Angular uses two-way binding: any changes in the user interface are immediately reflected in the application objects and vice versa. The framework itself monitors browser events, model changes, and user actions on the page to immediately update the necessary templates.

Angular Updates

Since the release of our article, there have been two large updates of Angular. Here is the list of the new features in a few words.

What was new in Angular 14:

• A new feature called Standalone Component enables you to build your own components and use them anywhere in your app. The biggest benefit of standalone components is that you don’t have to worry about whether they’ll function with all the other various features of your app because they’re simpler to customise than other types of components.
• A rigid form of types can now be imposed on your forms using TypeScript. This makes it simpler to ensure that your forms are valid because each entry will be checked against its type when it is submitted and validated.
• The new Angular CLI functionality known as Angular CLI Auto-Completion offers auto-completion for the Angular command line interface (CLI). The feature uses the IntelliJ IDEA Plugin, which is built on TypeScript definition files.
• A brand-new diagnosis technique known as ng-template-error is available. When your application throws an error during runtime, this diagnostic will display the offending code within the error message.
• You can immediately alter the title tag of your pages from the <head> of your stylesheet. Now that HTML has more capabilities, you can input more information in the title tag.

What is new in Angular 15:

• Single-file components. This function is very important. It implies that component layouts can now be created as separate files rather than components. Sharing common styling choices and other components between apps or files will be easier as a result.
• Module loaders. Another intriguing new tool for Angular developers is module loaders. They enable users to import the appropriate modules at runtime without relying on WebPack or a similar loader. Any build system you use, such as Babel, Webpack, or Gulp, can be hacked with a module loader. Additionally, they don’t require any additional expenses because they are so lightweight.
• New API system. A new API method is presented in Angular 15 to make it simpler for developers to use modules. They can now be used out of the box – a significant shift from the previous versions, which lacked built-in support for them. With the new API system in Angular 15, interacting with APIs is also made simpler, since you no longer need to create code for every endpoint. To build data models, gain access to authentication systems, and work with JSON data from an API endpoint, you can use already existing tools. And having less written code improves the performance of your program.
• Stability. The new Angular 15 is compatible with earlier iterations of the framework. This is a crucial feature because it allows you to continue using your current applications without having to think about them evolving over time. Access control for form inputs has been enhanced with the new forms in Angular 15. Now you can limit input values based on type or length, making your forms more secure and less error-prone, no matter the intricacy.
• Image directive. A new directive called the image directive can be used to add a picture to the DOM. You can also select its size and placement on the screen. A brand-new HTML markup rule is the Image rule. The input and the output are its two components. Anything from file paths to picture arrays can be used as input. You can define the CSS and JavaScript for your image as well as any other styles required for your app in the output.
• MDC Based Component. The MDC-based component is a brand-new type of component that enables you to use TypeScript to create your components in a much more declarative manner than before. It also makes it simpler to modularize your application by allowing you to use additional modules like NgModule and components.  So rather than constantly inventing the wheel, you can reuse your components in various applications.

React

React is an open-source JavaScript library for developing user interfaces. It has been developed and maintained by Facebook, Instagram, and the community of individual developers and corporations. Its goal is to provide high speed, simplicity, and scalability. Moreover, React is often used in tandem with other libraries for developing user interfaces.

Advantages:

• You can always tell how your component will be rendered by merely looking at the source code. If you know the state, you know the result – no need to trace the progress of the program. This is especially helpful when developing a complex application as a team.
• Linking JavaScript and HTML in JSX makes the components easier to understand. Linking functionality directly to markup and packaging it into a portable, self-contained “component” will make your code significantly more effective.
• Client rendering is the reason why certain services are so slow. You can render React right on the server, which makes for far faster performance.
• Thanks to the support of Facebook, there is a huge amount of documentation and online resources on the network that can help you in learning and using React.
• A simple component model and server-side rendering functionality allow for a faster, more flexible approach to work while using smaller block sizes.

React Updates

There was one major update of React.js to version 18. Let’s see what’s new:

• Automatic batching. React can batch numerous state updates into a single re-render to improve performance. Without automatic batching, changes could only be batched inside React event handlers. Updates inside of promises, setTimeout, native event handlers, or any other event were not batched in React by default. But now these updates will be immediately batch processed with automatic batching.
• Transitions. To differentiate between urgent and non-urgent updates, React has introduced a new idea called a transition. Updates that are urgent represent hands-on activities like typing, clicking, pressing, and so forth. In order for urgent updates to match our preconceived notions of how physical objects act, there needs to be an immediate response. They feel “wrong” otherwise. But it’s different with transitions, since the user doesn’t anticipate seeing every intermediate value displayed on the screen. So it’s often best to use both, but differentiate between them using the new TransitionAPI.
• Suspense features. If a portion of the component tree isn’t quite ready to be displayed, Suspense allows you to declaratively define the loading state for that portion. The “UI loading state” becomes a first-class declarative notion in the React programming model thanks to the suspense. As a result, we can create more advanced features on top of it.
• New client and server rendering APIs. The APIs have been redesigned to support client and server rendering. With these adjustments, users are now able to use the outdated APIs in React 17 mode while upgrading to the new APIs in React 18.
• Strict Mode Behaviors. Strict Mode now has a new development-only validation thanks to React 18. Every time a component mounts for the first time, this new check will automatically unmount and remount each component, restoring the prior state on the second mount. 

Vue

Vue is a progressive framework for building user interfaces. Unlike large monolithic frameworks, Vue is perfectly suitable for gradual implementation. Its core primarily solves the problems of the presentation level, which simplifies integration with other libraries and existing projects. What’s more, Vue is great for building complex single-page applications when it is used in conjunction with modern tools and additional libraries.

Since the release of our article, there have been no major updates on Vue.

Advantages:

• Vue.js allows for a fast transition from other frameworks such as Angular and React, due to their similarities in terms of design and architecture.
• Reinforced HTML means that Vue.js has a lot in common with Angular. This can help you optimize HTML block processing using different components.
• Vue.js helps develop fairly large reusable templates in no time, thanks to the simple structure of the framework.
• Vue.js has a lot of quality documentation that can increase the learning speed for programmers and save a lot of development time for those with basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript.
• Vue.js can be conveniently used both for building single-page applications and for progressive web application interfaces. Most importantly, small interactive features can be easily integrated into existing infrastructures without negatively impacting the entire system.

Svelte

Svelte.js is a modern open-source JavaScript framework that allows you to write easy-to-understand JavaScript code that is then compiled into a highly efficient program reactively running in the browser.

Since the release of our article, there have been no major updates on Svelte.

Advantages:

• Svelte is a component framework designed to compile components at build time. With this approach, you can load just one bundle.js per page to render the entire application. This makes the web solution quicker and the coding process – easier.
• Svelte renders the DOM using reactive programming, which is, in general, much faster than the Virtual DOM. As a result, Svelte provides one of the quickest renderings from any framework.
• Svelte is beginner-friendly. There is no need to manipulate the DOM when you use it. You also don’t need to comprehend framework-specific state wrappers. Variables can be accessed directly from markup, and this greatly simplifies the process of creating a new application. With Svelte, programmers can learn the basics of the component’s state work without getting lost in all the intricacies that tend to plague similar frameworks. Some technicians presume that Svelte allows writing less code. Because code is terse there is less boilerplate, which leads to having less bugs.
• Svelte is open-source software developed by enthusiasts. Thus, using the Svelte framework is not costly and allows you to implement many features for free. Also, Svelte has an active developer community on GitHub that you can join and where you can always ask for help or contribute to this technology.
• It’s a compile-time framework and doesn’t require any framework-specific runtime. It has the smallest package size of any framework.

Preact

Preact was developed as a performance-driven, lightweight alternative to React to create a JavaScript framework that was small but still provided React’s API and features. 

Preact and React share many similarities, including JSX, support for the React DevTools, HMR, and SSR, as well as the same modern API, components, and virtual DOM. Furthermore, there is no need to be concerned about speed degradation because Preact components are compatible with React. 

Additionally, the program is open-source and accessible to everyone online for free use. Given that its initial releases took place in the middle of 2015, it’s intriguing that the Preact community isn’t as big as that of other JS web frameworks. 

Since the release of our article, there were no major updates of Preact.

Advantages:

1. Preact JS’s small size of only 3kb is actually its primary benefit. This contributes to it being among the lightest frameworks or tools you will ever encounter. Preact, unlike its older sibling React, which has an altitude of about 40kb, delivers a faster render performance despite being smaller.
2. Preact is significantly more efficient at using memory than React is, which means the garbage collector will have less work to do.
3. Preact provides a powerful command-line interface tool that will help you create innovative projects fast without having to deal with web pack or Babel.
4. Preact has advanced capabilities even though it is a subset of React. The most important of them is actually the LinkState module, which optimizes state changes. React updates the state using arrow functions inside of a render() procedure. This specific method is inefficient and contains a ton of extraneous code. Preact resolves this problem by utilizing the LinkState module, which, when passed an event and returned a handle function, is in charge of automatically making changes to the component state.
5. Preact makes use of the same ES6 API as React. This suggests that transitioning from React to Preact is simple for developers even when a project is already in production.

Backbone

One of the most popular JavaScript frameworks on the market, Backbone.js, relies on MVP designer patterns. Although it is a library, it is frequently mistaken for a JavaScript framework because it enables the creation of single-page apps. The library offers models, routes, and collections, which can be used to build client-side web apps. 

Generally speaking, Backbone.js is designed to build single-page applications and coordinate various web app components. 

Since the release of our article, there have been no major updates of Backbone.

Advantages

1. When talking about download times and responsive apps, project weight is crucial. The capacity of Backbone.js is almost 7.6 kb, meaning it’s very light. It is built on the Underscores.Js libraries and completely removes the need for jQuery. Plus, the small size makes Backbone projects easy to scale. 
2. Backbone.js’ central concept is extensibility. It contains several tools that can be used for scaling software. Backbone.js can also be used to develop MVC frameworks. It’s made especially easy with the LayoutManager, which provides graphics for overviews, and Marionette, which improves program code structuring. 
3. Backbone supports abstract code, which serves a crucial role in programming. It also makes use of object-oriented programming, since it can conceal anything but object-specific data. Furthermore, Backbone uses RESTful API instead of DOM in order to support JSON and model-specific data formats. 
4. Backbone is easy to learn thanks to several factors. It has a ton of online literature and guides that can be read, and has been used in numerous applications. It can also easily synchronise with the backend of your software. And if the API is set up correctly, Backbone.js can effortlessly read, write, and delete several operations at a time. 
5. When a project expands, the jQuery declarations multiply and become dispersed, complicating the code and making it hard to understand. This issue is resolved by the event-driven communication used in Backbone.js. All the possible changes can be controlled by adding listeners to model properties. 
6. With backbone.js, writers can use standardised code instead of adhering to backbone conventions, since the latter can result in longer commands. 

Ember

Ember is a free open-source client framework for creating web apps, originally built on SproutCore MVC. By offering a comprehensive solution that includes data management and application flow, it enables you to build client-side JavaScript applications. Ember.js’s most recent stable version, 4.11.0, was made available on March 5, 2023.

Advantages:

1. Ember has a sizable and well-developed package environment, so you can be confident in being able to create the solutions you need. Additionally, the framework includes a devoted website with proper categorisation of all the packages, along with detailed documentation and individual ratings for each. You can make use of the standard NPM tools or quickly build your own add-ons by running the command “Ember add-on name”.
2. You can communicate with the computer’s running system using Ember’s Command Line Interface for Ambitious Web Applications. You will receive a project framework with fantastic add-ons as a result, ensuring quick rebuilds and live reloads. This is the main tool for creating codes, performing live recompilations, and conducting tests in browsers. Most well-known frameworks, including Ember, use a CLI utility, proving how versatile it is. With the help of the Ember CLI, a complete app can be created quickly with just one command. It is also possible to determine the features that the application will have from the get-go.
3. With the launch of Ember 2.0, the concept of stability without stagnation was first presented. It means that even though continuous improvement is the end goal, no one should be left behind. Ember is consequently backwards-compatible, meaning that no version update should break applications that are using earlier versions. The upgrading process will proceed without issue, and the user will be fully notified of any impending changes.
4. Many well-known frameworks have community as one of their key selling points, and Ember JS is one of them. You can be certain that any issue you can possibly run into has already been solved, since Github has around 900 authors and Stackoverflow has more than 24,000 questions relating to Emer. The public is welcome to participate in the community’s completely open conversations, too. Additionally, the library contains a wealth of literature on how to get the most out of the framework.
5. The Ember team issues a new Ember edition yearly. Every release is focused on a specific theme. For example, Ember Octane is linked to performance and productivity. According to the official website, Ember Octane focuses on doing more with less, meaning it’s easier to learn, while being more lightweight and agile. Ember Octane includes native JavaScript classes, incremental rendering, tree shaking, rehydration, and other features.

Comparison of JS Frameworks

Now that we’ve read the main information about the most popular frontend JavaScript frameworks and libraries, let’s compare all of them using a table.

Framework	React	Vue	Angular	Svelte	Preact	Backbone	Ember
Virtual DOM	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Size	133KB	23KB	500KB	13KB	3KB	5KB	679KB
Data Binding	One-way and two-way	Two-way	Two-way	Two-way	One-way and two-way	One-way	Two-way
Routing	Third-party	Built-in	Built-in	Third-party	Third-party	Third-party	Built-in
State Management	Redux, MobX	Vuex	RxJS, NgRx	Stores	Redux, MobX	Third-party	Ember Data
Server-Side Rendering	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Accessibility	Requires manual implementation	Built-in	Built-in	Requires manual implementation	Requires manual implementation	Requires manual implementation	Built-in
Routing	React Router	Vue Router	Angular Router	Third-party	Third-party	Third-party	Ember Router
Developer Tools	React developer tools	Vue.js devtools	Angular CLI	Svelte devtools	Preact developer tools	Third-party	Ember Inspector
Type of Architecture	Component-based	Component-based	Component-based	Component-based	Component-based	MVC	MVC

 

As you can see, there are a lot of features and factors to consider before choosing a framework for your project. Our team has developers working with various frameworks, so we decided to ask them why they’re working with the technologies they’ve chosen.

 

Vitali Akulovich, a frontend engineer, has experience in both Angular and React development. Here’s what he says:

Over the past few years, I have been working with front-end development, and I have had to use both frameworks, Angular and React. Working with each of them brought me a lot of joy. I love the flexibility these frameworks provide, allowing me to quickly build and customize websites. However, sometimes you have to face difficulties when working with some platforms or browsers. Overall, the Angular and React frameworks are great tools for developers.

Nikita Gresskiy, a frontend engineer, shared his thoughts about React and Vue development:

I like React because it’s easy enough to implement the necessary logic on it. Since the advent of functional components and hooks, the readability and perception of the code have improved significantly. Nevertheless, you need to understand that React is still a library, and in especially large projects, maintaining a clean architecture in conjunction with good optimization can become quite problematic.

Vue reminded me of React with its component structure, that is, having its logic and markup in one place. However, for a person who is just learning Vue, it may seem strange to have several tools that can perform the same action.

We asked Margarita Dudkina about her experience with Angular development:

Angular is very convenient to use for large projects, and one of its advantages is that it dictates how you live. A new developer coming to the project immediately understands how it works. A lot of built-in mechanisms and the connection with TypeScript make development very easy, but at the same time it imposes some restrictions and can add complexity if you need to do something that’s not exactly “classical”.

Conclusion

Choosing the perfect framework for developing your software from the wide range provided by JavaScript is a daunting task. With the passage of time and constantly changing customer needs, new frameworks will keep popping up on the dev market. And they will absolutely have more interesting features to meet those growing demands. So, developers really ought to keep track of these updates. Still, the most appropriate decision would be to entrust the matter to coding professionals, who are all well aware of the advantages and disadvantages of every framework and can, therefore, orchestrate them in a way that guarantees an effective solution.

 

Bamboo Agile is a team of professionals that develops web applications on the most popular and demanded JavaScript frameworks and libraries such as Angular, React, Vue, Express, and others. When you’re in need of help with your web development, leave your contacts in the form below – we will come back to you to discuss your custom software project!