It is no wonder that choosing the right front-end framework can be a herculean task with so many options available.

Worry not, this article will make all our lives just a little bit easier, at least when it comes to making a choice. You still have to learn to use the respective frameworks on your own. As per Stack Overflow polls, the top 5 candidates when it comes to Frontend frameworks are as follows:

1.     Angular

2.     Vue

3.     Ember

4.     Svelte

5.     React

Let’s go through the pros and cons of each, then you can decide which one works for you the best.

Angular

Probably the OG of all frontend frameworks, when people had no notion of using a ‘framework’ at all. When it was ‘customary’ to use jQuery and writing vanilla Javascript was the norm. It has come a long way since then. Introduced by Google, this framework has seen its fair share of changes. Initially introduced as AngularJS by Google, the previous version was discontinued and it was rechristened as just Angular. Mind you, AngularJS is NOT backward compatible with Angular.

Some Pros and Cons of using it:

Pros:

1) It is a full-fledged framework, meaning you won’t be needing any third-party libraries to get started. Everything is bundled as a package.

2) By default, it follows strict MVC architecture.

3) It follows the concept of Dependency Injection, so folks with the backend knowledge of Java would already be at home with this.

Cons:

1) Steep learning curve. Angular is not easy or beginner-friendly.

2) Since it is a complete framework, this tends to bloat the application size as you would be downloading a lot of stuff to create your application.

3) By default, it follows Typescript. So, adds an overhead of learning Typescript before you can even begin to use it as a framework.

Vue

The story of VueJS began with Evan You, a then software engineer at Google. He took a lot of inspiration from Angular and other frameworks he had worked on and released the initial build for Vue in 2014. In his own words, he described Vue as an initial attempt to do what Angular does but in a lightweight manner. The name ‘Vue’ itself comes from the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture. Let’s see some Pros and Cons for Vue.

Pros:

1) Extremely tiny size. The download zip file for this framework weighs as light as 18kb which is a marvelous feat in and of itself when compared to Angular which bloats file size.

2) Makes use of Virtual DOM (more on this later) which improves rendering performance.

3) Reactive two-way binding, which is another feature that Vue inherits from Angular. Meaning, when the data model changes, it leads to changes in UI itself. Very handy for reactive updates of the page.

Cons:

1) Still a young framework. The fact that it is backed by an open-source community but not a tech giant makes support for the framework a bit more challenging to find when compared to others.

2) Vue has surprisingly large support in non-native English-speaking countries, like China. Which sort of created a language barrier.

3) Since being relatively new, the plugin support and third-party support are still relatively less when compared to other giants in its field.

EmberJS

EmberJS is relatively less popular compared to its other counterparts. It has been around for a very long time as well. It was first released in 2011. Companies that are known to be using Ember in their tech stacks are Twitch, LinkedIn, and Accenture. It also follows a component-based system like Vue and React (we shall come to it).

Let’s go through the Pros and Cons of this framework.

Pros:

1) Very good documentation is available for Ember. Almost everything is available on the official docs.

2) Setting up a new project is a breeze with ember-cli. All you need to do is run a few commands on the command line and you’re done. There is no need for manual installation.

3) Ember’s data model has good integration with Java, so scores extra brownie points since most backends for large enterprises are written in Java.

Cons:

1) Ember has a smaller community compared to other frameworks hence finding help and support is mildly difficult.

2) The syntax can be a bit taxing for newcomers even though it is component-based like React now.

3) Follows strict conventions, you as a developer have little leg room to move around. For example, it expects you to use its own built-in routing.

Svelte

Probably by far, the least known framework out there. It is, however, the most different when compared to other technologies out there. Angular, React and Vue all other frameworks have an extra overhead, meaning, before your app gets loaded, the browser has to load the framework itself. This is where Svelte is unique. It simply compiles all the javascript, HTML, and CSS into a build unit and this build unit is what gets shipped. By doing this, nothing extra apart from your code is shipped to the end-user. Let’s go through some Pros and Cons of Svelte.

Pros:

1) Extremely easy learning curve. All the Svelte components use simple vanilla JS, HTML, and CSS.

2) Execution speed is blazingly fast as well. Since Svelte is more of a compiler, no extra framework gets loaded into the browser before your application code is executed.

3) Invaluable features like animations, state management, and server-side-rendering are all inbuilt from start. No third-party libraries are needed to implement them.

Cons:

1) Again, the problem with less known frameworks is virtually no backing. No big tech giant is backing the development of Svelte. Hence long-term support can be dicey.

2) Community of users is small, hence getting help if you’re stuck, is another pain. Smaller community, smaller support groups.

3) Finding third-party plugins is again a major pain point. You’re better off finding water in the desert quicker than the plugin you’re looking for using in Svelte.

React

By far the most popular when it comes to frontend technologies. React has been steadily gaining massive popularity both on Github as well as Stack Overflow. It can be thought of more as a “library” and not a full-fledged framework like Angular.

React is lightweight and makes ample use of “component” based programming making code-reusability a cake-walk. It is backed by Facebook, so we can be assured that it will be supported in the long run in case companies want to make use of it in their tech stack. Let’s summarize the Pros and Cons:

Pros:

1) Extremely lightweight and fast, does not bloat your code or application.

2) Makes internal use of something called the “Virtual DOM”. This makes re-rendering pages extremely fast. Virtual DOM is just a virtual representation of the actual DOM tree which you see on the screen. React internally re-renders only those DOM elements that have their state mutated.

3) Component-Based Code: This makes your existing code re-usable since everything in React is a component that is a single unit of tied-together code.

Cons:

1) Makes use of JSX. Allows you to return HTML from your Javascript code which can be a bit confusing to beginners.

2) It is a lightweight library, hence it does not contain all functionalities that are available, say, for a full-fledged framework like Angular. You need to separately install third-party libraries to make use of different features like routing.

3) Is more catered to Single Page Applications. So if you want to do Server Side Rendering for SEO stuff, you need to do a bit more work to set everything up from scratch.

Get in touch with our front-end experts, if you have any specific ideas and requirements in your mind. We will be happy to suggest and provide the most appropriate services as per your customized needs.