Today in the front end world, people are moving to modern JavaScript frameworks rather than hanging with legacy frameworks like jQuery, Google Closure. Among them,

• React
• Angular
• Vue.js

are the declarative and component based rich frameworks. These three are perfect and stand by their super features as well. But What you will choose ? That’s the question here. And the answer is, it all depends. Yes, it depends upon your use cases, projects and requirements. Still in struggle to pick one, then this article for you. Let’s take a deep dive into it.

Vue vs React vs Angular

What Should I Choose Between React, Angular and Vue.js

We can create and update dynamic web pages using JavaScript. Though JavaScript is good, it is really difficult sometimes to build a complex website. You have to work with DOM and manipulate Data. Oh!! It’s not the best way right. Even frameworks like jQuery couldn’t solve such problems. So these frameworks segregate the process into four modules,

1. Core Library
2. Virtual DOM
3. Data
4. Components

Virtual DOM acts as a shallow DOM of the web pages. I would say that the Virtual DOM will respond while we change the Data. It will maintain the old data and compare the same with new one while we refresh it. So it will update the actual DOM, whenever there is a difference in old and new data. We are calling this Reactive feature. You don’t have to worry about the traditional DOM update process, rather you can concentrate more on your business data. Design the UI as a component and pass the data dynamically into it. Core Library will have all common library files for the utilities. These are all the fundamental features of these modern frameworks. This really makes our work simple and helps to build responsive rich applications.

Vue vs React vs Angular – Survey

Survey of most popular web frameworks – Year 2021

LINK – https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2021#section-most-popular-technologies-web-frameworks

React

React is the most popular and has more than 183k GitHub stars. React is not a new language; rather I would say it is just a JavaScript framework. Anyone who knows JavaScript, is able to adapt themselves over a short period. It was created by Facebook and made open source later. So it has a large DEV Community as well. It is really simple to approach people. You could clarify your questions and concepts easily.

When to prefer React Over Angular and VUE

• • React is simple to learn. Over a short period you can adapt to it. Whereas Angular is a type-script based language and will take time to learn about the inbuilt framework functionalities.
  • React follows one way data flow which helps to identify the state change easily. Whereas angular follows Bi-directional data flow. This makes it harder to control the data flow.
  • Angular uses traditional DOM. So it needs to rewrite the whole HTML tree when we change the data ( To compromise this they are using a change detection mechanism). React Virtual DOM is much faster than angular traditional DOM. It will not rewrite the entire HTML tree when we change the data.
  • Most people prefer React. Oh this is a really nice one right!
  • React has a larger DEV Community than Vue.js. You can clarify the doubts easily here.
  • If you love JSX templates over HTML templates you would prefer React. But most people won’t prefer JSX syntax.
  • You can use React with React native as well for mobile application development. This will help to write some common functionalities.
  • If you are going to depend on a lot of third party dependencies, then you can prefer React.

VUE

Vue.js is an open source JavaScript Framework. It was created by Evan You and maintained by active core team members along with him. Vue.js is used mainly to create rich single page applications and user interfaces. Believe me, Vue.js has 194k stars more than React in GitHub. It is one of the growing languages. And it is very simple to learn. Whoever knows JavaScript, then can easily adapt themselves to learn VUE in a very short time.

When to prefer VUE over React and Angular

• Vue.js is very simple and easier than React as well. The single file components contain HTML, CSS and Script in the same file which makes developer friendly component design.
• Size of the Vue.js runtime library is very small. Even lightweight than React.
• If you love HTML templates and CSS over JSX, then VUE is your language.
• In React when the component state changes, it will trigger the re-render for the entire component sub-tree, taking that component as root. But in VUE, a component’s dependencies are automatically tracked during its render, so the system knows precisely which components actually need to re-render when state changes.
• React also follows one way data flow like React. When you update the parent component, it will re-render all it’s children.
• Code readability is better compared to React and Angular.

Angular

Angular is a type script based open source front end framework. It was created and maintained by google. Angular is a choice for most large companies since it has been used to develop enterprise-grade applications. It is having 79.k stars by today. Angular uses traditional DOM. So it needs to rewrite the whole HTML tree when we change the data ( To compromise this they are using change detection mechanism).

When to prefer Angular Over React and VUE

• Angular has an in-built Material toolset which offers a lot of components. It makes it easier to design the rich design in a fast manner.
• Angular also has a large DEV community which makes solving the problem easier.
• It is well suited for enterprise level application development since it is a framework (Whereas React and VUE are libraries).
• Angular has a lot of inbuilt tools and modules which offers us not to depend on external libraries.
• Angular follows bi-directional data flow. It has both pros and cons. And this makes the development a little bit easier.
• Angular uses a change detection mechanism to detect the state change. So even if it updates the entire tree of real DOM, it effectively matches the performance of Virtual DOM operation.

Vue vs React vs Angular – Summary

I would say, all three frameworks are good. The matter is which one suites our requirement,

1. If you want to learn quickly, you are going to create a simple website UI, you don’t want any community support and want to use HTML and CSS to design then I will prefer VUE.
2. React can be preferred when you want to learn quickly, you are going to create a simple or medium UI with community support and third party dependencies .
3. If you going to create enterprise level application, then Angular is your choice.