JavaScript is the most popular Web scripting programming language in the world. There are more than 1 billion websites on the Internet and almost every website uses JavaScript in some shape or form. This article lists top JavaScript web frameworks and their popularity.
Today, there are 4 most popular JavaScript frameworks in the world. While it is impossible to get exact number of applications use these frameworks, there are some of the numbers from ahrefs, a tool that keeps track of keyword popularity. Not in any particular order.
The global volume of Angular keyword is 526k per month and the US volume is 68k per month. Some people also search Angular.js and Angularjs. The volume for Angular.js and Angularjs is 97k and 118k respectively. That brings total for Angular to 741k searches per month.
The global volume for React is 651k but that also inclde "React Nike" which is also popular. If you take that away, React keyword has roughly 551k searches per month. React.js and Reactjs numbers are 46k and 154k respectively. That brings React total to 751k per month, roughly.
Nodejs, Node.js, and Node are 444k, 296k, and 162k respectively. That brings total for Node to 902k per month.
Vue.js global volume is 147k per month.
Here is another number that may give you an idea how top JavaScript frameworks are faired in the community. The following table lists total pull requests, stars, watches, and forks for Node, Angular, React, and Vue.js open source projects on Github.
From the above table, you can clearly tell Vue.js is the most liked by the community followed by React and React has most forked compared to others.
Based on above numbrer, you can see the top 3 frameworks are Node, React, and Angular. Vue.js is the 4th one. Rest of the frameworks don't have much volume compare to these four.
Here is a list of the Top 4 most popular JavaScript frameworks for Web development, not in any particular order.
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1.
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Angular
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Angular is the most popular JavaScript framework. It is a TypeScript based open-source framework. It was initially released on Sept 14, 2016 by Google. Current version is 7.2. MIT License.
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2.
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React
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React is an open-source JS library for building Web user interfaces. React's key use is to build large SPAs. Initially developed and released by Facebook, it is now maintained by open-source community. React was developed by Jordan Walke and was released on May 29, 2013. The current version of React is 16.8.0. MIT License.
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3.
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Nodejs
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Nodejs is an open-source, JavaScript runtime that executes JS outside of a browser. Node executes JavaScript on server side. Node.js was developed by Ryan Dahl and was released on May 27, 2009. MIT License.
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4.
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Vue.js
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Vue.js is an open-source JavaScript framework for building Web user interfaces and SPA. Vue.js was developed by Evan You and released in Feb 2014. The current version of Vue.js is 2.6.8. MIT License.
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Framework vs Library
We often refer to Angular as a framework and React as a library. A framework is a product that provides complete functionality to build an entire application including front-end, middle-layer, and backend. Angular is a framework. A library provides partial functionality of a Web application such as front-end. React is a library and provides front-end functionality only.
Angular
Angular is an open-source, JavaScript based Web framework for Web and mobile that is based on MVC (Model-View-Controller) design pattern. Angular is a complete framework and provides everything you need to build a complete enterprise scalable Web application.
Angular is a JavaScript framework and requires you to understand JavaScript and MVC. The key characteristics of Angular includes platform agnostic, developed for speed and performance, and incredible tooling.
Today, Angular has become one of the most popular Web development frameworks for building large scale web applications. Angular is more popular among larger enterprises. Currently, there are 17,027 Angular jobs available on Indeed.com. The average salary for an Angular Web Developer and an Angular Senior Software Engineer is $78k and $114k respectively.
React
React, originally developed and maintained by Facebook in 2013, is an open-source, declarative, component-based, and learn once, write anywhere JavaScript library for building large data-driven web interfaces. Besides open source and lightweight, React features speed, simplicity, and scalability. Unlike Angular, React provides functionality to build user interfaces.
Today, React has become one of the most -in-demand Web development framework. Currently, there are 43,436 React jobs available on Indeed.com. The average salary for a React Developer and a Full Stack Developer is $85k and $110k per year respectively.
The current stable version of React is 16.2.0. Learn more and get started with React
here.
Angular vs React
Angular vs React is one of the biggest debates among Web developers. While Angular is a complete framework and can be used to build a complete Web application, React is used to build user interfaces only.
To build a complete application, you must use additional libraries and code to build backend functionality. The following table summarizes the difference between these two JS products.
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Angular
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React
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Backed by
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Google
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Facebook
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Developed In
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2016
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2013
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Architecture
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Model-View-Controller
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View
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Functionality
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Complete Framework
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Front-end only
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UI
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TypeScript + HTML
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JSX + JS
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DOM
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Regular DOM
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Virtual DOM
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Data Binding
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Bi-directional
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Uni-directional
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Speed
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Slow
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Fast
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License
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MIT
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MIT
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Language
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TypeScript
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JavaScript
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Typing
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Statically typed
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Dynamically typed
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Mobile apps
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Ionic
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React Native
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Testing Framework
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Jasmine
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React code
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Download Size
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135kb
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64kb
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Performance
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11.5ms
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12.1ms
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Node.js
Nodejs or Node.js or Node is an open-source, server-side JavaScript framework built on Google Chrome's JavaScript V8 Engine. It is mainly designed to build fast, scalable, and reliable network based server side applications.
Currently, there are 8,905 Node.js jobs available on Indeed.com. The average salary for a Node developer is around $105k.
Node was created by Ryan Dahl in 2009. The current stable version of Node.js is 10.15.1.
Learn more and get started here building Web applications using NodeJS.
Vue
Vue or vue.js is a progressive framework for building user interfaces. The core library is focused on the view layer only and is easy to pick up and integrate with other libraries or existing projects. On the other hand, Vue is also perfectly capable of powering sophisticated Single-Page Applications when used in combination with modern tooling and supporting libraries.
Vue, focused on the view part of a web page, is another popular front-end framework. Currently, there are 1,316 Vue.js jobs available on Indeed.com. The average salary for a Vue developer is around $100k or more.
Vue was created by Evan You in 2014. The current stable version of vue.js is 2.5.9.
Backbone
Backbone.js is one of the earlier JS frameworks with a RESTful JSON interface and is based on the model–view–presenter (MVP) application design pattern.
Backbone was created by Jeremy Ashkenas in 2010 and after 7 years, it remains one of the most popular JavaScript front end frameworks.
Currently, there are 5,135 Backbone jobs available on Indeed.com. The average salary for a Backbone Front End Developer and a Backbone Full Stack Developer is $102k and $110k respectively.
The current stable version of Backbone.js is 1.3.3 that was released on April 05, 2016.
Ember
Ember is another popular JavaScript based front end framework. Ember.js is an open-source JavaScript framework, based on the MVVM (Model View ViewModel) design pattern that allows developers to create scalable single-page web applications.
Currently, there are 1,489 Ember jobs available on Indeed.com. The salary for Ember developers range between $65k and $114k.
Developed by Yehuda Katz, the current stable version of Ember is 2.16.2.
Polymer
Polymer is an open-source JavaScript library for building Web applications and Web components. Polymer is written in JavaScript and HTML. Polymer was developed by Google and later contributed to the open source community. Polymer supports both One-way and Two-way data binding. It also supports computed properties, conditional and repeat templates, and gesture events.
Aurelia
Aurelia is a modern, front-end JavaScript framework for building browser, mobile, and desktop applications. Aurelia is easy to learn and empowers you to build components using vanilla JavaScript or TypeScript. At the core of Aurelia is a high-performance, reactive system, capable of batching DOM updates in a way that leaves other frameworks, and their virtual DOMs, in the dust. Aurelia enables powerful reactive binding to any object.
Mithril
Mithril is a modern client-side JavaScript framework for building Single Page Applications (SPA). Mithril takes pride in being the smallest size of download, i.e., < 8kb gzip. That is compare to Vue + Vue-Router + Vuex + fetch (40kb), React + React-Router + Redux + fetch (64kb), and Angular (135kb). Mithril provides high performance of 6.4ms compare to Vue (9.8ms), React (12.1ms), and Angular (11.5ms).
MeteorJS
Meteor is an open-source, ultra-simple, full stack JavaScript based framework for building modern web applications. Meteor includes a key set of technologies for building connected-client reactive applications, a build tool, and a curated set of packages from the Node.js and general JavaScript community. Meteor uses data on the wire, meaning the server sends data, not HTML, and the client renders it.
Conclusion
There are hundreds of open source JavaScript frameworks and libraries available on github. In this article, I tried to compare some of the most popular JS frameworks. Node, Angular, React, and Vue.js seem to be the most popular JS frameworks.
I hope this article was useful to you. If you find any inaccuracies in this article, please let me know by posting it in the comments so I can update this article. I really appreciate your feedback and comments.
References
- Github
- ahref
- https://programmingwithmosh.com/react/react-vs-angular/
- Wikipedia
- Product websites
- All logo and images copyright product owners and developers.