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Top JavaScript Libraries for Speeding Up Web Development

In this article, we can try to help coders with this tricky issue by highlighting the most popular open-source frameworks and commercial JavaScript libraries.

Published

3 years ago

November 4, 2020

TwinzTech

Top JavaScript Libraries for Speeding Up Web Development

Developing a modern web application that covers the needs of a specific business can be time-consuming, and doing it from scratch makes the whole endeavor even more challenging. JavaScript remains one of the most widely used programming languages geared to serve both the server and client sides.

Its rich ecosystem offers a vast number of open-source frameworks and libraries facilitating coding acceleration and helping to avoid unnecessary bugs.

Free JavaScript tools often have to be complemented with paid UI libraries for tackling specific development tasks with the utmost efficiency. Generally, the use of ready-made UI components in the development flow provides the following advantages:

Reducing time and monetary development costs
Making the final product more affordable for end-users (replacing expensive tools like MS Project)
Ensuring software consistency (unified design and API)

But seeing the abundance of available JavaScript tools, web developers frequently find it challenging to choose the right ones for their projects. This article can help coders with this tricky issue by highlighting the most popular open-source frameworks and commercial JavaScript libraries.

Open-Source JavaScript Frameworks

According to the State of Frontend 2020 survey, web developers still prefer choosing React, Vue.js, and Angular from the realm of JavaScript frameworks as their development helpers. Therefore, we’ve decided to include these well-known technologies in our review and complement this trio with the most popular CSS framework – Bootstrap.

Table of Contents

1. React

React js framework

Created and supported by the Facebook development team, React is the most requested front-end framework dedicated to building versatile and SEO-friendly web UIs. This component-based framework supports unidirectional data flow, providing enhanced control over the whole project. It makes use of the Virtual DOM to boost the UI rendering.

It is helpful for apps requiring regular updates, such as Instagram. Migrating between React versions is very simple, as the process is automated in many ways with “code mods” provided by Facebook.

2. Angular

Angular js framework

Angular JS is the most powerful and mature but, at the same time, complex JS framework. Backed by Google resources, Angular serves for building large-scale and feature-rich enterprise SPAs using HTML and TypeScript. It has a component-based architecture that increases the quality of written code and introduces two-way data binding to display info to end-users.

Utilizing a developer-friendly Angular CLI and intuitive template syntax helps to make the whole development process faster and more productive. Angular ensures the enhanced performance of apps due to a new rendering engine named Ivy being added this year in v9.0.

3. Vue.js

Vue js framework

Vue.js is the fastest-growing JavaScript framework utilized by developers to create more maintainable and testable code bases for UIs and SPAs. This lightweight (just 20KB) tool benefits from adopting the strengths of competitive technologies, namely two-way data binding (Angular) and virtual DOM (React).

When programming with Vue.js, it is possible to use JS and TypeScript equally well and take advantage of reusable components. Framework’s pre-coding structure allows developers to promptly deploy the app without any negative impact on its performance. Web developers won’t have to spend much time properly learning Vue.js, thanks to its approachable nature.

4. Bootstrap

Bootstrap js framework

Bootstrap is probably the first thing that comes to mind when styling and designing responsive mobile and web apps. In simple terms, Boostrap is a mix of CSS, HTML, and JS code. This CSS framework comes with a vast array of design templates for common UI elements (buttons, forms, dropdowns, etc.) and other pre-built components that can be implemented in web projects and fully customized to match any design requirements.

Also, Boostrap provides functional themes, examples, and JS plugins to help web developers in making their apps more visually compelling. There are also special Bootstrap libraries enabling developers to incorporate UI elements in applications based on Angular, React, or Vue without additional coding efforts.

Commercial JavaScript Libraries

Suppose you need ready-made tools for quickly adding complex functionalities such as Gantt charts, Schedulers, or diagrams with editing and customization capabilities to your project. In that case, it is better to consider using commercial JavaScript libraries.

Web developers who invest in commercial JS components receive a rich feature set out of the box, regular updates as well as bug fixes and emergency bug fixes, and timely outsourced technical support. Now let us review several paid JavaScript libraries and how they can help in web projects.

5. DHTMLX

DHTMLX framework

DHTMLX provides a JavaScript UI framework comprising plenty of powerful and fully customizable UI components such as Gantt chart, Scheduler, Kanban, Diagrams, Spreadsheet, and many others. In terms of functionality, DHTMLX Gantt and Scheduler can be a great alternative to MS Project, Primavera, and Excel in project management apps.

All DHTMLX UI widgets are notable for modern Material design, advanced performance with a large amount of data, and extensive and straightforward API that can be quickly mastered and put to use. DHTMLX is compatible with React, Angular, and Vue.js and supports TypeScript.

6. Kendo UI

Kendo UI framework

Kendo UI is an HTML5 user interface framework intended for creating enterprise-level applications running well in various production environments. It contains a large package (70+) of out-of-the-box UI widgets with multi-framework support that looks native on any device.

The popular MVVM feature of this UI framework ensures robust two-way data binding capabilities. Using a variety of built-in customizable themes, it is possible to adjust the look and feel of Kendo-based apps to your liking.

7. Syncfusion Essential JS 2

Syncfusion Essential JS 2

Syncfusion Essential JS 2 is a JavaScript toolkit of diverse controls (grids, charts, calendars, etc.), helping to minimize the number of third-party components required to complete an enterprise application.

Entirely written in TypeScript, all these components are modular and can be independently incorporated into any project regardless of your JS framework choice.

Thanks to a responsive design and support for touch devices, apps developed with the Syncfusion package are rendered nicely across different platforms, thereby reaching more end-users.

8. Sencha Ext JS

Sencha Ext JS

Ext JS is Sencha’s JavaScript framework that provides a rich set of configurable ready-to-use components for building enterprise-grade web applications. The Sencha community also supplies many additional user extensions.

When coding with Ext JS, it is possible to use different scripting techniques, MVC/MVVM architectural patterns, and OOP concepts. The framework is complemented with various special tools enhancing your capabilities without extra manipulations in the main areas of the programming process – design, development, and testing.

Summarizing the above, we can say that all reviewed JavaScript frameworks and libraries have something helpful to offer to any web development project, and it’s up to development teams to choose the right option depending on their needs.

The commercial JS components are compatible with most of the open-source frameworks allowing web developers to put them together in powerful toolkits for completing resource-demanding enterprise apps.

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React.js is your Frontend Framework (React JS & JSX)

To that end, a quick dive into why React.js is already or soon to be your frontend framework of choice. React js framework is so much more than the prom queen of frameworks.

Published

3 years ago

May 5, 2020

TwinzTech

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

When developers start to argue about what framework to use, the waters get muddied incredibly quickly. Like the rest of humanity, developers can be biased a lot, so arguing which is “best” is often counterproductive.

First, when discussing frameworks, rather than fighting, which is superior, it is better and more civil to look at why a particular framework is best suited to your needs. To that end, a quick dive into why React.js is already or soon to be your frontend framework of choice.

React js

2. Popularity Aside

One of the critical arguments developers run to when looking to prove that their chosen frontend framework is best popular is always touted as the definitive reason why. React JS most certainly ticks that box supported by Facebook, but the framework is so much more than the prom queen of frameworks.

Rather than the popularity sweepstakes, react development has a unique advantage, which will extend its useful life considerably, that being its inherent simplicity and flexibility. For the most part, frameworks would need to be reworked by developers, mainly is coded components needed to change to meet new demands.

This, in turn, meant more hours coding and debugging than what developers felt was completely necessary.

3. React’s Solution

React.js seemingly rose to conquer the issue mentioned above of having to rework code continually due largely to the syntax used by the framework being JSX. The syntax allows for HTML-like quotes and tags to be used.

The simple idea had a significant consequence in the ease of how developers could quickly generate machine-readable code without having to re-invent the wheel.

JSX is excellent and a significant contributor to why React.js is a powerhouse of a framework, but it is far from the only reason. The idea of components has won over many adoring fans.

As the framework consists of the unique ability to separate complex UI features into individual parts, it emphasizes intuitive design. Rather than being bogged down with the web page as a whole, separating it into simpler UI/UX components allows for better website design.

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4. React’s Future

Both Facebook and the React.js team have committed themselves to improve the framework’s efficiency for the foreseeable future. This helps guarantee the framework’s use as well as improvement moving forward. In the early days of the framework’s existence, it was prone to generating run-time errors, which placed React JS weird and broken.

Due to the React.js team’s continued support, developers worldwide are reporting improved error handling, reducing the threat of rendering corrupted data.

5. Conclusion

The above considerations are by no means the only ones that make React JS stand above other choices. Choosing the correct frontend framework does involve careful consideration and is a must in the digital age we find ourselves in.

React.js does much in furthering company aims and goals from a development side, putting aside the number of advantages to businesses for another article. This means business leaders can do far worse than choosing React.js and not much better.