Best Frameworks of JavaScript To Consider in 2021

Featured article by Victoria Puzhevich, Lead Specialist at SCAND

JavaScript is the number one programming language for building web solutions. It’s been keeping its leading position in web development for more than 8 years. In 2020, 69.7% of professional programmers chose JavaScript for building their web applications and websites. This simple-to-learn and highly functional programming language allows creating robust and effective applications with powerful front and back ends.

JavaScript offers a wide range of frameworks that help to develop web applications much faster, easier, and at a lower cost. Almost every year new JavaScript frameworks appear that are ready to compete with the entrenched ones. They offer innovative web development tools and approaches, however, not every framework gains popularity among web developers.

In this article, we’ll look into the most prospective JavaScript frameworks in 2021 to choose for building your web development solutions.

1. AngularJS

Released in 2010 AngularJS remains one of the most popular web frameworks. It’s an open-source, comprehensive framework for front-end development that runs on TypeScript..

Many web developers choose AngularJS as it offers the best development elements for building powerful and stable applications, including:

– two-way data binding for automatic data updates between the application components;

– dependency injection for easier code maintainability and testing;

– command-line interface (CLI) for fast application development;

– a number of built-in services that alleviate web development in many ways, like filters for data formatting, establishing communication with remote servers, a compilation of HTML strings or DOM into a template, and many more;

– Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern for a clear separation of business logic from the presentation layer.

Although React.js and Vue.js frameworks represent serious competition for a heavy-weighted and complicated AngularJS, this framework works well for large-scale projects. It suits best for enterprise application development due to its high-performance and great SEO support. Google, IBM, Microsoft, Forbes, and many other companies chose AngularJS for the development of their web applications.

2. ReactJS

ReactJS was listed as the top one among the best JavaScript frameworks in 2020. It’s expected to keep the leading position in 2021 due to its outstanding features, broad community, and great Facebook support.

A large number of companies choose React.js development services to build their business dynamic and single-page (SPA) applications, including Facebook, Airbnb, Asana, Atlassian, Dropbox, and many others.

There are many features that make ReactJS so great for web development.

– it allows developing high-quality UIs, including mobile apps with React Native;

– while using the virtual DOM, it allows making quicker DOM updates than in most JavaScript frameworks and, as a result, rendering web pages super-fast;

– it involves one-way data-binding which results in better data control and more stable code;

– it allows breaking web pages into components, making them easier to manipulate;

– it uses JSX to combine XML with JavaScript for code optimization, type safety, and quicker templates creation;

– it supports SEO to rank websites higher in a search engine and increase web traffic.

In comparison to AngularJS, React.js has a low learning curve. That’s why it’s so popular among beginners in web development. Being simple to use, React.js has a great set of features that allow building top-notch web applications within a short time.

3. Vue.JS

Vue.js is another big trend in JavaScript development in 2021. This web front-end development solution represents a well-balanced trade-off between React.js and AngularJS. Being a small and simple-to-learn framework, Vue.js allows building effective web applications with minimum effort.

Many web developers chooseVue.js as it:

– is highly flexible and works great for building various web application types;

– can be easily integrated into other frameworks, like React.js;

– follows Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM) architecture that makes codes easy to maintain and handle;

– uses virtual DOM for quick page rendering, just like React.js;

– uses two-way data binding for enhanced data control, just like AngularJS;

– supports JavaScript and TypeScript programming languages;

– has elaborated documentation that is constantly updated and impressive platform support.

4. Ember.JS

Ember.js is an open-source front-end framework based on the MVVM development pattern. It helps to build stable and easy to scale single-page web applications. Software developers can use Ember.js for the development of desktop and mobile applications as well.

Though Ember.js js isn’t as popular as React, Angular, or Vue, it’s used by the market leaders to build their web solutions, including Apple Music, LinkedIn, Heroku, and others.

Web developers choose Ember.js for their web application development projects because it:

– follows Convention over Configuration (CoC) principle that allows starting web development with preset configurations;

– works well for large teams as it’s quick and simple to learn, so new developers can join a project and start coding right away;

– uses Ember-CLI that alleviates the development process, allowing building a web app with several commands;

– implements Broccoli.js, an asset pipeline for JavaScript that helps to make a code much leaner and easier to develop;

– has inbuilt unit testing that allows testing code on the go.

Ember.js provides web developers with the best development tools that work great for building simple and complex web applications.

5. Backbone.JS

Backbone.js is one of the most effective front-end JavaScript libraries that allows building stable web applications. With a RESTful JSON interface and MVC pattern at its core, Backbone.js helps to create outstanding designs with fewer code lines.

Web developers use Backbone.js because it:

– breaks a web application into building blocks, facilitating web development;

– automates many development processes, like updating HTML when a model changes;

– separates business logic from representation layer, improving the structure of a web application and making it easier to maintain;

– has a wide range of extensions, more than 100 freely available.

With Backbone.js web developers can build viable web applications with remarkable features and well-organized code that is easy to maintain.

6. Meteor.JS

MeteorJS is a full-stack solution among many JavaScript frameworks. With MeteorJS web developers can build proper front-end and back-end web application layers using JavaScript only. They don’t need to switch between various back-end languages like PHP, C#, or Python. This makes web applications more responsive, easier to maintain and debug, and quicker to develop.

Full-stack development isn’t the only advantage of MeteorJS. Other features that make MeteorJS a good choice for web application development are:

– development of a variety of apps, including iOS, Android, desktop, and web solutions;

– a wide-range of useful built-in development tools like templates, automatic CSS, and JavaScript that remove unnecessary characters from the source code;

– integrated live-browser reloading that refreshes an entire application when files are changed;

– compatible with MongoDB and supports GraphQL that facilitates database management.

7. Polymer

Polymer is an open-source JavaScript library for building web applications based on web components. Developed by Google and released on GitHub, the Polymer library has a set of outstanding features for building web applications with structured design procedures.

Using web components web developers can build simple and complex web applications. The main Polymer features are:

– allows developing standalone custom elements by using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript;

– offers polyfills web component specification for creating customizable and easy to reuse modules, this significantly speeds up web application development;

– web developers can choose to use one-way or two-way data binding in their applications;

– used for hybrid mobile app development, making it much quicker and easier;

– provides CLI for easy and fast application development;

– uses web component standards for building reusable widgets in web applications.

8. Mithril JS

MithrilJS is a front-end JavaScript framework for building single-page applications. The technology is supported by Vimeo and Nike companies though it’s only recently started gaining its popularity.

The framework offers proper and clear development procedures and well-thought documentation. The main MithrilJS characteristics are simplicity and consistency, though it has a wide range of other useful features:

– supports virtual DOM, which makes it much faster than those frameworks with real DOM;

– provides routing and XHR utilities for quick data transfer between a web browser and a server;

– supports the most known web browsers, including Internet Explorer 11, Firefox Edge, Safari, and Chrom with no polyfills required;

– it’s small (only 9.7 KB gzipped) and often updated on GitHub.

9. ExpressJS

Express.js represents a minimalist back-end JavaScript framework compatible with Node.js. It can be used for building web, mobile applications, and REST APIs. Express.js is super fast, lightweight, and scalable. It will be widely used in 2021 along with the Node.js solution to build robust applications with a clear source code.

Express.js key features are:

– used in the MEAN stack for quick development of stable web applications;

– can add lots of additional plugins to extend its functionality;

– has a minimalistic functionality that complements Node.js;

– can separate the routing part, so that the applications with an extensive number of routes can be easily maintained.

10. Next.JS

Next.js is a React.js end-to-end framework used for building single page and multi-page web applications and websites. It’s responsible for server-side rendering and API routes, running back-end code, and accessing data in databases.

The key Next.js features include:

– hot code reloading for applying any changes in a code automatically;

– built-in SEO handling for improved search engine rankings;

– automatic code-splitting into smaller chunks so that they can be loaded on demand, which makes the development process much easier;

– automated routing that automatically generates and updates the routes to web application content.

Summary

JavaScript is a constantly developing programming language that has been dominating front-end and back-end web development for more than 8 years. With the regular JavaScript updates there appear the newest technical solutions and frameworks designed to speed up and facilitate the web development process.

In 2021, there are so many frameworks that it’s hard to pick up the right ones for effective web development. Therefore, those businesses that consider building their own web applications in JavaScript should find a trustworthy JavaScript development company with top web development experts. They will help to choose JavaScript frameworks that best suit the development of their custom web applications which can successfully meet all the company’s business requirements.

About the Author

Victoria Puzhevich is a Lead Specialist at SCAND. Having over 15 years of experience in the IT industry, Victoria is obsessed with all tech-related things. Her passion is to provide insights on the latest IT industry trends and help companies grow their business through technology.