Most Popular Front End JavaScript Framework In The World

Introduction

 

In this article, we going to explore the most popular, most used, and most trending front-end JavaScript frameworks in the world based on different statistics and web site usage. Purpose of this article is to understand the current demand and ongoing popularity of front end frameworks. This will also give you an idea of what you should be learning if you plan to switch jobs. 

 

Description

 

Today, there are ton of front end frameworks and libraries have appeared and developers are very confused about which one to choose ofr what purpose. There is a major debate between Angular vs React vs Vue. I've explored various documents and online articles and came up with different statistics and a matrix.

 

The popularity of statistics based on state of JS 2018 (Surveyed among 20,000 developers)

 

 

(Reference from https://2018.stateofjs.com/front-end-frameworks/overview/)

 

Take out from above analytics based on 20,000 developers survey, React is the most popular and most liked framework among developers. Another side Vuejs, Preact, Ember, and Polymer frameworks are the most interesting frameworks to learn in the future.

 

However, this is a result of only 20,000 developers all over the Globe. Majority of developers are unaware of this survey they may have a different opinion as well. There are over 30 million developers in the world. Read more here: How many developers are there in the world.

 

GitHub Most Starred Front End Framework till 2018

 

I have prepared statistics in a tabular form for popular frontend javascript framework based on GitHub stars on repositories by developers and also added other Metrics like forks, commits, contributors, watch etc. to have a clear picture about the repository.

 

 

(Github Based Statistics for top javascript Frontend  framework based on the count of Repository Star, Fork, Commits, Contributors, Watch).

 

You can see the following tabular data for Github based stats.

 

Framework	Star	Fork	Commits	Contributors	Watch
Vue	124,609	17,809	2,753	241	5,757
React	119,474	21,637	10,568	1,269	6,595
Angularjs	59,330	28,960	8,942	1,600	4,285
Angular	44,192	11,415	1,545	811	3,293
Backbone	27,370	5,726	3,365	292	1,492
Preact	21,246	1,083	1,355	166	472
Polymer	20,581	1,980	6,336	140	1,074
EmberJs	20,365	4,074	17,848	747	1,047
Pug	17,735	1,879	2,526	214	578
Handlebarjs	14,074	1,795	1,717	142	480
Mustachejs	12,729	2,253	731	91	2,253
Aurelia	10,766	643	717	98	502
Knockout	9,272	1,511	1,726	77	592

 

Based on the above statistics, VueJS is most starred front end framework on GitHub. You may thank PWA since it is one of the fastest evolving framework for progressive web apps. There is also a shorter and easier learning curve if you know HTML, CSS and JS, then it is easy to grab Vue js concepts. Another reason could be that, Vue is developed as a community and developers. Unlike Angular and React, where they are backed by Google and Facebook. Not many open source developers are fond of large corporations.

  

Most Used Javascript Framework in Websites based on wappalyzer

 

(Reference from https://www.wappalyzer.com/categories/javascript-frameworks) 

 

As above chart displays the breakdown of JS front end frameworks and libraries usage. Other than the above chart, I've also prepared the same data in a tabular form with live number of websites. 

 

Framework	Live WebSite
React	670,000
Backbone.js	480,000
Angularjs	260,000
Handlebars	240,000
Mustachejs	170,000
Vue	55,000
Knockout.js	34,000
Ember	16,000
Polymer	9,100
Angular	5,700
Auralia	690

 

From above statistics, React is the most used frameworks on Internet Websites based on Wappalyzer.

 

Short Description for the top frontend javascript framework

 

Vue.js is a progressive, incrementally-adoptable JavaScript framework for building UI on the web. It is designed from the ground up to be incrementally adoptable, and can easily scale between a library and a framework depending on different use cases. It consists of an approachable core library that focuses on the view layer only, and an ecosystem of supporting libraries that helps you tackle complexity in large Single-Page Applications. React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces.

 

React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. Build Declarative, Component-Based encapsulated components that manage their own state, then compose them to make complex UI. React can also render on the server using Node and power mobile apps using React Native.

 

AngularJS is a JavaScript-based open-source front-end web application framework mainly maintained by Google and by a community of individuals and corporations to address many of the challenges encountered in developing single-page applications.

 

Angular is a TypeScript-based open-source front-end web application framework led by the Angular Team at Google and by a community of individuals and corporations. Angular is a complete rewrite from the same team that built AngularJS

 

Backbone supplies structure to JavaScript-heavy applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing application over a RESTful JSON interface.

 

Preact is a fast 3kB alternative to React with the same modern API. Components & Virtual DOM.

 

Polymer is an open-source JavaScript library for building web applications using polymer Web Components. The library is being developed by Google developers and contributors on GitHub. Modern design principles are implemented as a separate project using Google's Material Design design principles.

 

Ember.js is an open-source JavaScript web framework, based on the Model–view–viewmodel pattern. It allows developers to create scalable single-page web applications by incorporating common idioms and best practices into the framework

 

Pug – robust, elegant, feature-rich template engine for Node.js. It is a high-performance template engine heavily influenced by Haml and implemented with JavaScript for Node.js and browsers. It was known as "Jade". However, it was revealed to us that "Jade" is a registered trademark; as a result, a rename was needed.

 

Handlebars provide the power necessary to let you build semantic templates effectively with no frustration. Handlebars are largely compatible with Mustache templates. In most cases, it is possible to swap out Mustache with Handlebars and continue using your current templates.

 

Mustache is described as a "logic-less" system because it lacks any explicit control flow statements like if and else conditionals or for loops; however, both looping and conditional evaluation can be achieved using section tags processing lists and lambdas.

 

Aurelia is a modern, front-end JavaScript framework for building browser, mobile, and desktop applications. It focuses on aligning closely with web platform specifications, using convention over configuration, and having minimal framework intrusion. Basically, we want you to just write your code without the framework getting in your way from based on different front end statistics here are top three Front end Framework summary.

 

React

 

React was created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook. Facebook uses React extensively in their products (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) to solve performance issue on facebook for lower internet connectivity. Due to this success, it is adopted by most Big and small size company.

Features

1. JSX Template
2. Stateful Component
3. One way data binding with prop
4. Reactivity
5. Virtual DOM
6. Routing
7. Life Cycle Methods
8. Server-Side Rendering
9. State Management using FLUX and REDUX

Vue

 

Vue also referred as Vue.js. It was developed by ex-Google employee Evan You in 2014. Over the last two years, Vue's popularity increased, even though it doesn’t have the backing of a large company. Vue’s contributors are supported by Patreon. Vue 3, currently in the prototyping phase is planning to move to TypeScript.

Features

1. Templates
2. Reactivity
3. Components
4. Transitions
5. Virtual DOM
6. Routing
7. Life Cycle Methods
8. Server-Side Rendering
9. State Management using Vuex

Angular/AngularJs

 

Angular, developed by Google, was first released in 2010. Angular is a TypeScript based JavaScript framework. Angular 2+ is known as just Angular, which total rewritten of angular js framework to typescript based framework. Although AngularJS (version 1) still popular and it is used on lots of websites on the internet.

AngularJs Features

• MVC Architecture
• Two Way Data Binding
• Templates
• Directives
• Expressions
• Modules
• Filters
• Scopes

Angular Features

• Improved Dependency Injection (DI)
• Annotation
• Child Injectors
• Instance Scope
• Dynamic Loading
• Templating
• Directives
• Child Router
• Angular Elements
• Ivy: New Rendering Engine
• LifeCycle hooks
• Reactivity using RxJs

Conclusion

 

In this article, we explored and learned about the most popular front end frameworks based on various stats and numbers from various sources. You can visit future of Javascript to explore more about where javascript frameworks and libraries are used.