Top Javascript Front-End Development Frameworks to Learn in 2018

JavaScript is one of the most popular web programming languages and is used along with HTML and CSS. It is used to design interactive website as it helps you to program the behavior of the websites. Some of the most popular usages of JavaScript is that it is used to submit data to the server via Ajax without the need to reload the page, apply animation effects to the page elements, validate user inputs, transmit user behavior on the website, create interactive content like Games, audio, video, etc. It is sometimes also used to design beautiful interfaces, add functionalities to web apps, modify web pages in real time and much more such tasks. While in the earlier days, it was used on the client side in the web browsers, and now it is used on the server side, web servers and databases as well.

Nowadays it is used to develop apps for the mobile devices as well.

To make the web application development easier, faster and cheaper, JavaScript web frameworks are used. May it be the single page apps, web app development using the JavaScript web frameworks becomes a bit easier. The developers do not need to worry about code structure or maintenance thereby saving their time. Instead, they can focus on the complex interface elements, and enhance the functionalities of the website.

JavaScript in 2017 was named among the list of the best programming languages to learn by IBM. It is due to these reasons that there have been some JavaScript front-end frameworks. Hence it becomes necessary that you choose a good JavaScript framework for your website. This helps you in many ways as it makes the process of developing web apps easier and faster. Along with the same, a good framework also ensures that you will be able to fix any problem encountered immediately.

Some common aspects of a good JavaScript Front-end Development Framework:

Every web development framework can be determined to be good or bad by these important factors.

These factors play a major role in determining the popularity of the development framework.

Features

The features available lets you use the different functionalities provided in the JavaScript. This ensures that you can use the different functionalities and thereby make better we project faster.

Updates

The web is changing day by day. Along with the same JavaScript is also developed on a day to day basis. Hence it becomes necessary that you learn to use such JavaScript framework that is updated on a regular basis. This, in turn, will help you to remain updated with the latest web development technologies.

Proper Documentation and Learning resources

In the start, it becomes quite necessary to have a proper documentation that will help you to learn about the framework. The availability of proper learning resources is also quite essential. This may be available in the form of books, articles, video tutorials, etc.

Userbase

Having a good user base for a programming language or framework is quite necessary. This ensures that you will be able to get your problems fixed in case you come across any such problem. The users with a better subject knowledge than you will be able to fix the problem encountered.

Top JavaScript Front-end development frameworks

Based on these parameters here is a list of some of the best JavaScript front-end development frameworks that are intended to make big in the year 2018. Go through these to decide for yourself in which framework you need to pay attention to, to enhance your coding skills and land better job opportunities.

AngularJS

AngularJS is an open-source Javascript based web development framework. It is used for developing mobile and desktop web apps. It is based on the MVC and MVVM application framework and can also be used to develop apps for mobile devices and PCs as well. This makes it quite useful in the rich internet applications. It also facilitates the development and testing of such applications.

The UI is synchronized with the JavaScript objects with the help of 2-way data binding. This, in turn, helps in declaring dynamic views in the web applications. It can be extended to be used with other libraries. This can be used to suit your needs and add different functionalities to the website. It features locale aware filters, directives, reusable components that help you to create several useful components.

Apart from these, there are several tools available to power the backend like form validation, server communication, and deep linking. Using this, you can also add several controls like data binding, controller, and plain JavaScripts. It is used by many well-known organizations and is part of the MEAN stack, i.e. MongoDB, Express.JS, AngularJS, and NodeJS. Some of the well-known websites like Wolfram Alpha, Intel, Sprint, NBC, and various other websites use it.

The latest version of AngularJS is 1.6.6.

The AngularJS is properly documented. It is quite popular and has 57416 stars on Github with 1602 contributors. On Stack Overflow, it has 244,346 questions tagged under AngularJS.

Angular

Angular is the web development framework and is based on TypeScript. Even the development of complex web applications is easier and faster with it. You can use it to develop web apps, as well as mobile and desktop apps. It is updated on a regular basis to provide the latest features. As of today the version 4.4.6 was the latest stable release and the preview release version 5.0.0-rc.0 was available. Within a short span of 1 year, it has gained wide popularity amongst the users. Angular is quite different from AngularJS. Some of the most amazing features of Angular are HttpClient to make HTTP requests, router lift cycle events for guards and resolvers. Apart from that, there are several features like that facilitates web development. With the release of Angular 5, some amazing features will be made available to the users like support for progressive web apps, improvements in material design, and the introduction of a build optimizer. As per Google, two updates will be released yearly. It is also a part of the MEAN stack.

Proper documentation is available for Angular. One can also find tutorials and books for the same. On GitHub, it has 29402 stars and 514 contributors. The Stack Overflow has 79401 questions tagged in Angular with 40.5k followers.

Ember.js

Ember.js is an open source JavaScript front-end web development framework. It is based on Model-view-ViewModel (MVVM) framework. Apart from helping in developing web apps, it can also be used to develop desktop and mobile applications. Some of the most popular websites developed using Ember.js are LinkedIn, Microsoft, Netflix, Groupon, Vine, Yahoo, and Twitch to name a few. Some of the most important features that make Ember.js stand out from the rest are Ember CLI, Routing, Templating engine, data layer, and ember inspector.

Ember.js is also updated on a regular basis. As till date, version 2.13 was the available stable release.

The proper detailed documentation is available for Ember.js on its website. Tutorials and books are also available that can help you to learn the development using Ember.js.

Ember.js on GitHub has 18,396 stars and 687 contributors. On Stack Overflow, there are 21996 questions tagged under Ember.js.

ReactJS

ReactJS is a popular JavaScript frontend developer framework and is maintained by Facebook, Instagram, and its developer community. Even large web application’s user interfaces can be built with it with the help of simple views for each state of your application. Apart from that, it can also be used to develop the mobile applications. It offers a simpler programming model with better performance.

One of the best things of this framework is that the as the data of component changes, the views of only those components are updated and rendered. This, in turn, provides your web apps with the speed and simplicity and enhances its scalability.

It follows the declarative views methodology that makes the codes simple to understand and easier to debug. One of the best things is that you can quite easily choose the option to add new features without the need to rewrite the existing code.

It is properly documented to help you learn the technology quite easily. Apart from that, there are several tutorials available on the web using which you can learn to use ReactJS.

It makes use of virtual DOM thereby improving the performance of the apps as it is faster than regular DOM.
It also has a big community of developers. On Github, it has earned 80179 stars and had 1120 contributors. On Stack Overflow, there are 62634 questions tagged under ReactJS.

Vue.JS

Vue or Vue.Js is a popular JavaScript frontend developer framework that can be used to build user interfaces. This makes the web development quite easier and faster.

Even with a basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can develop web applications in Vue. Web application development becomes quite easy with the help of Vue as it helps you to power advanced single page applications. However, if you need to add some advanced and complex features to it, you can do it so with the help of supported libraries and packages. The implementation of components, declarative UI, hot-reloading, time-travel debugging, etc. can be quite easily implemented with it.

Some of the most complex features that can be implemented are build tooling, routing, state management, and much more such items. As it uses the HTML based template syntax, you can bind the rendered DOM in Vue’s instance data. Its reactivity system helps you to quite easily update views and states. The process of keeping track of reactive dependencies helps it to know when and which components to re-render.

A number of transition effects can be applied, removed or updated. It can carry out many tasks like integrating third-party CSS and JavaScript animation libraries, manipulate DOM during transition hooks using JavaScript, and much more such features.

It is also well documented, and there are various resources available as well that can help you to learn about this technology.

On GitHub, it has earned 72598 stars and had 152 contributors.

Backbone.JS

BackboneJS is yet another JavaScript frontend development framework. It facilitates the development of the structure of application on client side. It is also based on the Model View Presenter (MVP) framework. As the communication by Backbone.JS is event-based, the code becomes cleaner, nicer, easier to maintain and is less complicated.

Being open source, there are more than 100 extensions available to enhance the functionalities of your web apps.
A number of web application use Backbone.JS some of the most common ones being Airbnb, Digg, Soundcloud, Hulu, and many more such websites.

The models form the structural framework of the web applications combined with rich APIs, declarative event handling views, key valuer binding, and many more such features. You can also connect the existing APIs over RESTful JSON interface.

Backbone.JS is also quite well documented to help you quite easily develop the web apps. Along with that, there are various resources from which you can learn web development. In case you come across any problems, you can get in touch with the experts on different platforms and get your problems fixed instantly. It has 26812 stars on GitHub with 296 contributors.

Summary

These are some of the well known JavaScript front-end development frameworks that are set to rule in 2018. If you are looking forward to learning a new language to make the web app development process faster and easier, any of these can help you to achieve this dream. As per your convenience and requirement, you can choose any of these. Each of these is properly documented and have ample resources to provide you with a smooth learning curve.

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