Vue, React and JS: A Comparison

Web development has come a long way from the days of HTML and CSS with the introduction of Javascript (JS). Given that 95%  of the world's websites depend on Javascript for a variety of tasks ranging from client-side scripts to end-to-end frameworks for web-development, the status quo keeps shifting dynamically as new frameworks are released. With our wide-ranging experience using a variety of frameworks at Pennywise Solutions, we take a closer look at three popular frameworks and highlight the differences in their features, operation, and use-cases.

Angular JS

Angular was one of the forerunners of the present-day influx of frameworks aiming to create lucid, reusable front-end templates based on traditional HTML pages. It serves to extend the HTML vocabulary to create dynamic pages instead of erstwhile static sites. Angular emphasises a Model-View-Viewmodel (MVVM) architecture that allows the separation of business logic from the user interface. On the upside, Angular capitalised on the idea of reusable templates and captured a huge portion of the market including Google. The original issues with a complicated syntax introduced in Angular seem to be addressed with Angular5 adopting TypeScript 2.4 which is far simpler to code in. However,  the frequency of updates does give rise to possible incompatibility and migration issues for large projects.

React JS

React was open-sourced by Facebook in 2013, almost four years after Angular was released, which meant it had a lot of ground to cover. Props to Facebook for creating a framework capable of fast data interchange among views. In fact, the main focus of React was scalable web application development with a focus on data-related flexibility. The user base quickly expanded to the likes of AirBnB, Uber, etc. given the ease of writing code in ECMAScript6/7 compared to Angular's TypeScript. Additionally, React had a much stronger focus on quick updates and bug fixes. It adopted various practices to simplify important issues for large-scale projects. Also, React chooses to be unopinionated which can sometimes mean it's a bit "too flexible" with a little too many options for developers to consider. But overall, it seems to be an intuitive, scalable, and flexible manner of developing web applications contributing to its clear popularity in the market.

Vue JS

Vue is a new entrant in the framework arena, building on Angular's MVVM architecture but eschewing its bulkiness. The focus is to support large and reusable templates but with strong focus on adaptability and integration. A lot of single-page web applications have switched to Vue JS given the advantages it offers in performance over the other frameworks. That said, it is still a developing framework in terms of maturity. These provide temporary hurdles to wider adoption in Silicon Valley but remain in use by Alibaba and Baidu. As Addy Osmani, Engineering Manager for Chrome at Google had rightly prophesied, the cost of running javascript keeps increasing by the day.

Even 350 kilobytes of minified JS can result in a time of 15 seconds for a page to become fully interactive. In a time where even milliseconds of delay results in lost users, it seems clear why a lightweight framework like Vue is a rising star. It remains to be seen whether it can dethrone or find its place among React and Angular and others that currently hold the lion's share of the market.

At Pennywise Solutions, we focus on developing streamlined solutions using state of the art web technologies including the latest frameworks for a diverse set of projects. We have a strong emphasis on creating scalable, custom-designed, quality web solutions for small and large businesses across the industry. In order to serve the needs of our clients, we partner with leading platform and product companies across the world.