Today, React.js and Vue.js are two of the most popular & trending frontend JS frameworks. As far as web app development is concerned, both frameworks offer developers a highly efficient approach that allows them to ship their products faster without compromising on their functionalities. However, both of them have their own best use cases. Both frameworks are fairly similar to each other as they are JS libraries that are specifically used for building view layers of applications. Moreover, both frameworks have great ecosystems that offer developers hundreds of tools and plugins for efficient and productive web app development.
Developers can even build new frameworks that are based on Vue and React by effectively utilizing their readymade tools. In this blog post, we will deeply compare both these frameworks based on multiple factors such as their architecture, popularity, community support, state management, and the availability of developers. We will also point you out some important reasons that make these frameworks a popular choice for frontend framework among web app developers.
React vs Vue: Architecture
We can consider React as a UI library rather than a framework. The lack of a specific project structure in React makes it more like a UI library that allows developers to render elements. Even though React is based on JS, it uses another kind of JS known as JSX or JavaScript XML which is a blend of JavaScript and the good old markup language “XML”. The use of JSX allows developers to build elements that nest JS and HTML simultaneously. However, If you are not a big fan of JSX, you can use React JS API for building elements.
The architecture of Vue.js is partially derived from the MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) architecture. As far as the architecture of Vue.js is concerned, its core libraries give more emphasis on its View layer. The fact that this framework is known as a progressive framework is because of its ability to scale its functionality with its tools (or third-party tools) and frameworks. Unlike React that allows developers to use JSX syntax for building View components, Vue.js uses a templating syntax that allows seamless creation of view components. More developers prefer to go with this syntax even if it supports JSX and JS. The components that are available in this framework are compact and self-contained and can also be reused throughout the application.
React vs Vue: Popularity & Support
The popularity of a library is highly dependent upon the availability of developers who are skilled in that specific technology and the quality of third-party tools & libraries that it offers. If a particular technology is having a huge developer community, there is a higher chance for you to resolve the problems that usually get along the way of your web app development process. Since React has a huge community of developers, you will get access to a vast number of plugins, tools, extensions, and third-party libraries. Being a library built and maintained by the tech giant Facebook, you won’t have to worry about its length of support. Hence, React emerges as a clear winner when we consider the popularity and community support of both these libraries.
React vs Vue: State Management
Most front-end apps use state management as a reliable and seamless way to store critical information such as login information, user settings, and other information. Redux is one such state-management tool that is specifically built for Javascript. Redux is also one of the most popular state management tools among React developers throughout the world. You can also use Redux in Vue.js. However, you should keep in mind that there is no support for official bindings.
Vuex is the official state management library exclusively built for Vue.js apps. Vuex integrates fairly well with Vue and developers will find it easy to debug apps using Vue’s developer tools.
React vs Vue: Developer Availability
Although Vue.js has an easy learning curve, the availability of developers who are skilled in Vue.js is significantly lower when compared to React. So if you are in great need to ship a more complex app, hiring a skilled React developer on board makes all the difference as it only takes him less time to build. Hence, when we consider resource availability, Vue.js loses the battle with React as there is a significant drop in the availability of highly skilled Vue.js developers. However, React is a clear winner when we consider the availability of highly skilled developers. Even though Vue.js is extremely good at building powerful web apps faster when compared to React or other frameworks that are available today, the lack of vue.js developers often motivates product owners to build their solutions using other frameworks and libraries. However, they can easily evade this challenge by hiring Vue.js developers from a software development company.
When we consider the availability of Vue.js developers based on a particular demographic, Asian countries such as India, the Philippines, and Singapore have large numbers of software development companies that have highly skilled Vue.js developers. Hence, if you are planning to build your web app with Vue.js, it will be a wise decision to hire vue.js developers from offshore software development companies in India.
To summarize, Both libraries offer great advantages to modern web app developers. The shallow learning curve, excellent documentation, and elegant programming style make Vue.js an emerging library that has enormous potential to outpace its competitors. Whereas React wins the battle and makes on top of the best JavaScript framework that is currently available in the world. This is because of its huge community support and rich ecosystem.
