Vue.js vs React.js: What to choose in 2021?

In this update, we want to cover the differences between two of the most popular Javascript frameworks. This article is created for those who are confused about the technology stack for their web application development.

For the seventh year in a row, JavaScript is the most commonly used programming language. It has definitely outgrown being just a complementary language to make your web pages feel more responsive and adaptive. With a big variety of frameworks and libraries, you can build almost anything using JavaScript. However, it still may be difficult to decide whether to choose one or another framework for your business needs. Let’s compare Vue.js and React.js to decide which is better in which cases for 2021.

n the beginning of the existence of JavaScript it faced many difficulties with browser compatibility. That led to the creation of JavaScript frameworks, like JQuerry which was created in 2006. It solved the problem of browser compatibility and helped developers to write the code more efficiently. But later, while jQuery was the most popular JavaScript library for web interfaces, it lacked facilities for handling data consistently across shared views. That led to the growth of the frameworks that could solve this problem.

React.js and Vue.js background

In May 2013 at a JavaScript conference in the US, a new game-changer library called React was introduced. It was created by the software developer of the Facebook – Jordan Walke. It has a lot of innovative features such as Virtual DOM, Flux pattern and one-way data flow.

Vue.js was represented by Evan You in 2014. Users found it appealing because it took its features from the two of the most popular JavaScript frameworks at the moment – React and Angular.

The popularity of Vue and React in 2021

According to the summary of the most popular frameworks among the developers by Stack Overflow, React and Vue are both most used among the developers.

Both frameworks are constantly growing. However, Vue.js still did not get as much appreciated as it could be. Based on Google Trends statistics, internet users still do look more to React.

Perfomance of Vue and React

The changes in the application are reflected in its user interface and a thing called DOM, which can be Real or Virtual. DOM strongly affects the overall performance of the JavaScript framework.

Both React.js and Vue.js are using Virtual DOM for their performance. However, Vue provides a faster performance in comparison to React. It also ensures a bug-free performance.

Community support of Vue and React

Vue.js community is growing rapidly with over 152K GitHub’s stars which is a lot more than React has. Despite that, the React community is older, more supportive and is officially supported by Facebook’s staff, while Vue is developed by an ex-google engineer but not backed up by any top brand.

Vue vs React: Which is better for your project in 2021?

Before making a choice between one or another technology for your business, we recommend researching similar companies and tech stack of their projects. As for the React.js, the most popular web applications are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Whatsapp. Vue does not include such big names and the biggest companies which are suing Vue.js are GitLab and 9Gag.

Now that we took a look and the most popular users of these technologies, let’s take at more specific characteristics of Vue and React.

Speed and cost of development

Based on our experience, the cost and the speed of React and Vue development are similar in the market as there are many libraries out there for both frameworks. The speed of the development process in both cases mostly depends on the quality of the development team. The cost depends on many factors, such as developer experience and seniority level, location, etc, so it can vary.

Flexibility of frameworks

While React.js centers around UI, so initially, you get the help in building UI components, Vue.js feels more dynamic but permits simply utilizing its most basic tooling to create an application. Despite the Vue.js framework additionally offering the vast majority of all the functionalities that you may require it may be difficult to create large and complex web applications compared to React development.

When to choose React or Vue?

Both Vue and React can be used for any needs and requirements such as the creation of web applications, single-page applications, and user interface components. These tools are both powerful solutions for web development and you cannot go wrong while choosing between them. The major factor which will affect the development process is the general expertise of your development team in chosen technology.

Check out our portfolio to learn what you can built with React and Vue frameworks.

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