5 Best JavaScript Web Development Frameworks

JavaScript is a very popular and powerful programming language that’s used with HTML and CSS to create the front end of a website. There are many frameworks of JavaScript, which are frontend and backend.

In this article, we’ll discuss the 5 best JavaScript web development frameworks.

What’s a JavaScript Framework?

The JavaScript framework is a pre-written collection of several JavaScript libraries that are used to perform desired tasks.

There’s a difference between a JavaScript framework and a library. Frameworks are the blueprints to make a project while a library is a pre-built project.

5 Best JavaScript Web Development Frameworks

Following are some of the best JavaScript web development frameworks:

1. React

React is a JavaScript library.

React was maintained and created by Facebook on May 29, 2013. It’s a front-end web development framework that provides a better UX (User Experience) than any other framework or library. There are many reasons to use React as your front-end framework over any other framework.

Features of React

• Reusable code called components: In React you define a part of a web page as a component and then use it as many times as you want without needing to write the code again and again.

• Built-in Debugging tools: One of the main features of React is its debugging tools that help developers easily debug their apps. There’s also a debugging extension of React for Chrome.

• Easy to learn and use: React is very easy to learn as compared to any other framework or library. 

• Virtual DOM Availability: React uses a Virtual DOM called ReactDOM. That makes the React app fast and provides a better UX.

• JSX: In React, instead of using HTML, we use JSX, which is quite familiar to HTML and works nearly the same as HTML.

2. AngularJS

AngularJS is a free, open-source, and powerful web development framework written in JavaScript. It was developed, maintained, and released by Google on September 14, 2016.

Like React, it’s mostly used for developing single-page applications. Even though Angular is a front-end framework, it's still compared to Django, which is a backend framework.

Features of AngularJS

• Two-way binding: AngularJS uses a two-way binding that enables us to make changes to the basic data using a user interface.

• Huge Support: As we have discussed earlier, Angular is created and maintained by Google; hence the support for Angular is very huge. There are several communities out there to help, including Google Groups.

• Real-time testing: AngularJS provides real-time testing for testing out your components. It makes it very easy for you to test your controllers, filters, and directives.

• POJO model: AngularJS makes good use of the POJO model. It stands for Plain Old Java Object Model. It’s mostly used to improve the readability of the code.

• Routing: As AngularJS is used to build single-page applications, that’s why routing is used. So that you don’t see a refresh whenever a new page loads. For routing, AngularJS uses a module called ngRoute.

3. Node.js

Node.js is a server-side library written in JavaScirpt. It runs JavaScript out of the browser on the server.

Features of Node.js

• Cross-platform compatibility: Node.js is a cross-platform development framework which means that you can use it to make applications for different platforms, including Windows, Linux, and Mac.

• Fast caching for better speed: Node.js uses caching to apply faster. The data that’s mostly used is stored in the storage so that the client doesn’t have to ask to the server every time.

• Efficient and scalable: Node.js is very efficient and scalable. That's why many big companies use it for their backend. Recently Netflix shifted from Java to Node.js, which helped them a lot to save their resources.

4. EmberJS

EmberJS is another free, open-source, front-end web development framework written in JavaScript. It’s also used to create single-page web applications. 

Some of the famous companies using EmberJs are Twitch, LinkedIn, Digital Ocean, etc.

Features of Ember.js

• Ember CLI: EmberJS comes with a pre-built CLI, which provides features like auto-refresh, build, and serving the files easily. You can install EmberCLI by using this command $ npm install -g ember-CLI

• Community support: Community support for EmberJS is huge. You can find answers to any kind of problem regarding EmberJS on StackOverflow and other forums. Even the documentation for EmberJS is quite helpful and beginner-friendly.

• Powerful add-ons and plugins: Any pre-written code or packages that provide more features to developers are called add-ons or plugins. ExpressJS comes with tons of powerful add-ons that can be installed using npm.

• Ember Octane Edition: EmberJS is already a very efficient web development framework. But it was missing some modern-day features when the Ember Octane was released. According to Ember Team, “you get everything you need to build your app using Octane.”

5. ExpressJS

ExpressJS is a free and open-source application for Node.js that’s mostly used to make APIs and Rest APIs. ExpressJS or Express is released under the MIT license.

It’s used for MERN, MEVN, and MEAN Stacks.

Features of ExpressJS

• Fast: ExpressJS is a very fast framework as compared to any other server-side framework. It uses the Google V8 engine for better speed and performance.

• Debugging is easy: In ExpressJS, debugging is very easy due to using debugging modules internally. 

• Tons of Templates: ExpressJS provides tons of templates for static use. A template engine is used for using static templates in your app.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed the 5 best JavaScript web development frameworks. All of these frameworks or libraries are used by thousands of famous websites. 

We have discussed both front-end and back-end development frameworks. Now, it depends upon you which one is better for you.

What do you think other frameworks should be on this list? Let us know in the comments.