10 Top JavaScript Frameworks For 2024

A framework is any supporting structure underlying an object, which can be anything from a vehicle to an entire building. It’s the basic skeleton that a structure is built upon. This structural term is now used in numerous other industries and contexts, including but not limited to software development. So, when     exploring the top JavaScript frameworks, understanding what frameworks are is a good starting point.

What Are JavaScript Frameworks?

JavaScript Frameworks are a combination of JavaScript libraries, which are collections of pre-written JavaScript code snippets that perform different functions. So when you need to create something in JavaScript, you can use the libraries (call them, to be exact) for many things instead of writing code from scratch for each task and function. Think of them as building blocks for a web application you might want to create with JavaScript.

JavaScript frameworks take it a step higher. They are collections of some of the most commonly used structural elements for these applications, allowing you to combine them and create the app you need instead of starting from scratch.

If we use a construction analogy, JavaScript allows you to create basic construction materials, like bricks, from its essential ingredients. Libraries are premade bricks that you can use for construction. Frameworks are like premade walls (created with these bricks), window frames, door arches, roofs, and everything else that you need to make a building.

JavaScript Frameworks – More Than Just Building Blocks

At their core, all JavaScript frameworks are building blocks for a web application, ranging from simple to complex. But that’s not all they are. All JavaScript frameworks have their own approach to using the underlying language (JavaScript) and its libraries, making them great for some types of applications and not as useful for others. So, the definition can be expanded to include coding styles and conventions. Each JavaScript framework leverages JavaScript libraries and the overall environment in a certain way. This is why, for many sophisticated applications, developers might create their own JavaScript framework from scratch, which is especially useful for those web applications but may not be as useful if you try to create something else with it.

What Does a JavaScript Framework Do?

A JavaScript framework lets you create web applications using JavaScript. These frameworks are mostly used for client-side web applications/websites, though some frameworks can also be used to create the server-side of these applications (It’s important to realize that everything that can be created using a framework can also be created using plain (also called vanilla) JavaScript. But that would be akin to creating noodles from wheat and then cooking a meal with them. Instead, what JavaScript frameworks do is take care of the standard stuff in most web applications, making it incredibly easy to use and incorporate and letting developers focus on the functionalities and features relevant to primary development goals. So, if a development team wants to make an e-commerce web application, a JavaScript framework would have pre-built structures for how an item is listed in the application, where its specifications go, how the images are uploaded and displayed, and other standard functionalities. This leaves the developer to focus on their unique needs, like branding the app in their colors, creating bundling features for different products, unique discount mechanisms, or search algorithms for the product.

Why Do Developers Love JavaScript Frameworks?

There are several reasons why developers love JavaScript frameworks, including but not limited to:

• These frameworks significantly reduce the development load and time, shrinking months of work to weeks, even days (compared to doing the same thing in vanilla JavaScript).
• They are loaded with various functionalities and abstractions that allow developers to leverage the JavaScript environment (and core strengths) in a number of creative ways.
• They introduce a set of constraints and limits that prevent developers from getting lost in JavaScript’s depth of possibilities and focus on the task at hand.
• They shorten the learning curve needed to build sophisticated JavaScript applications. Developers with a basic understanding of the language and the relevant framework might deliver a functional product in a reasonable timeframe. Doing that in vanilla JavaScript would only be possible for a limited number of highly experienced developers.
• They allow the developers to focus on user experience instead of wasting their energies on sorting out the functionalities of the front end.

These and many other reasons are why top JavaScript frameworks are among the most extensively used web frameworks among developers around the globe (as per the Stackoverflow survey).

10 Top JavaScript Frameworks for Front-End Development

The choice of the right JavaScript framework is driven by its features, strengths, developer experience, and a number of other factors. Some frameworks might be better at some things and weak at others, but despite these subjective perspectives, it’s possible to identify the top JavaScript frameworks based on popularity and other metrics.

1. React.js

React.js is arguably the most famous JavaScript framework in the world, and it is used by millions of developers around the globe. It was created by developers at Facebook (now Meta), and the primary goal was to make the process of building interactive User Interfaces (UIs) easier. Some of its distinguished features and benefits are:

• It has a minimal design but a comprehensive ecosystem  of open-source features. It’s less formal and rigid about how you bring and use different JavaScript libraries, which encourages you to bring other libraries. It is also easily integrated with other frameworks, making it more flexible.
• It also possesses a component-based architecture, leading to higher code reusability. This is different from most other frameworks because it leans heavily towards functional components (while still supporting class components). With the introduction of hooks, these functional components can also manage their state and lifecycle  in a more granular and comprehensive way than typical class components. This leads to cleaner, succinct, and more readable code.
• It uses a Virtual Document Object Model (DOM), which significantly enhances the efficiency of the web applications built on it and reduces load time.
• It uses JSX syntax instead of JavaScript’s default syntax, leveraging the benefit of simplicity and intuitiveness of HTML simultaneously with the powerful logic of JavaScript.
• It’s very SEO-friendly and is supported and enhanced by a massive developer community and eco-system.

It shares other strengths with other frameworks, like a unidirectional dataflow, where changes in child components do not impact parent components, but parent component modifications impact the child’s.

React is ideal for making dynamic and interactive client-side web applications (but with moderate computational requirements). It’s preferred for a wide range of websites/web applications, including Single-Page Applications (SPAs), mobile applications, and e-commerce platforms. It was used to create some of the most famous web applications in the world, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Netflix, and Codecademy.

2. Vue.js

Vue.js is another one of the top JavaScript frameworks created by people associated with the Big Five tech giants in the world, in this case, Google. Evan You created this framework as a side project, and now it’s a community-driven project with over 1.5 million users. One major driver behind its popularity is its simplicity. Developers proficient in other frameworks (especially React and Angular) can start using Vue.js with a minimal learning curve, and anyone with a solid foundation of underlying web technologies (JavaScript, HTML, and CSS). Its key features and benefits include:

• It uses a components-based architecture similar to frameworks, but it is even easier to understand and manage thanks to its characteristic Single-File Components  (SFCs).
• Single-File-Components (SFCs) are a defining feature of Vue, as they allow developers to merge different aspects of a component that hail from different technologies (JavaScript, HTML, and CSS) in a single file. This allows for different component “concerns” like its logic and style to be clearly separated, yet still together in a single file, leading to easier project management.
• Vue uses directives to assign special HTML attributes to different components and allows for the creation of custom directives as well.
• The framework inherently supports two-way binding, which connects a UI/front-end component to the back-end in such a way that a change in one changes the other. Its easier in this framework than others that support it. It also supports one-way binding.

Vue has several benefits that it shares with other frameworks, like Virtual DOM and CSS Transitions, but the difference is how they are implemented in this framework, making them simpler and more user friendly. It’s used in multiple Adobe apps, such as Trivago and Alibaba.

3. Angular.js

Angular.js is one of the earliest JavaScript frameworks and was created in 2010. Some key features of      other frameworks, like two-way binding, came from Angular. It’s maintained by Google, and in stark comparison to React, it’s highly opinionated, which essentially means that it has relatively rigid guidelines about how JavaScript projects created using this framework are structured and organized. It has a relatively long learning curve but offers more consistency. Its features include:

• While it naturally supports JavaScript, the recommended language is TypeScript, which leads to better code maintainability.
• js originally had a different architecture but has now adopted a component-based architecture like the other commonly used frameworks.
• Angular might feel more intuitive to developers with a background in Object-Oriented Programming (OOP).
• Angular is more verbose than most frameworks, but it also allows a more granular level of control over defining and binding components.
• The framework has a set of integrated libraries as well as a dependency injection system which makes library management significantly easier than more permissive frameworks like React. This is also referred to as “batteries-included” mindset behind Angular or its built, because it reduces external reliance.

Angular also boasts a solid community of users. It was used to create web applications like Gmail and the Deutsche Bank website, and it is also the recommended framework for creating Microsoft Office add-ins.

4. Ember.js

Yehuda Katz and Tom Dale created Ember.js in 2011. It’s an open-source project with a highly permissive MIT license. Although it’s marketed as a framework for “ambitious” developers, that doesn’t mean it encourages experimentation; rather, the opposite.

• js adheres to the principle of “Convention Over Configuration,” which essentially means that developers don’t have to make a lot of decisions before they start their project and waste time in configuration.
• js has a built-in development environment (Ember CLI) that allows for development and testing without leaving the project or web app developed on Ember.
• The framework has a robust routing system that allows for easy and efficient URL management, nested routing (allowing for the development of a hierarchical structure and automatically passing context), route lifecycle hooks, and a few other useful characteristics.
• The framework has a built-in testing environment.
• It has a characteristic data layer (called Ember Data) that seamlessly connects the front-end and back-end models, making data flow easier throughout the app infrastructure.

These characteristics make Ember a solid choice for large and complex projects that may require frequent updates and real-time testing and deployment. The framework is used by many industry giants like LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Square.

5. Aurelia.js

Rob Eisenberg, who was part of the Angular 2 team, created his own JavaScript framework. It’s open source and, as per the website, a “collection of modern JavaScript modules.” The framework is inspired by Angular, but it’s relatively less rigid. The key characteristics of the framework include:

• A highly modular build. While almost all top JavaScript frameworks have a component-based build and encourage reusability and compartmentalization at the development level, Aurelia.js does it at the framework level. All the framework modules are categorized/separated based on features, and the developer can use only the relevant modules/parts of the framework.
• It also adheres to the “Convention Over Configuration” principle, reducing the prepwork time for developers. The routings are also convention-based and are context aware in nature.
• It follows observable-based binding by default (changes are influenced from model to view), but dual binding can also be leveraged .
• One Angular trait it has adopted is a strong Dependability Injection system.
• It’s relatively non-obtrusive and allows for extensive development in vanilla JavaScript.

Aurelia.js may not have the bells and whistles of many of the other, more sophisticated frameworks but that’s useful in a lot of cases and for a wide variety of developers. The simplicity of its syntax and overall build can be ideal for developers seeking “purity” in their code.

6. Preact

Preact markets itself as a “lightweight” alternative to React – 3 kB to be exact, which may lead to leaner builds and much faster web applications (at least in performance aspects). But that comes at a cost. Preact is not as comprehensive as React and may not offer the same range of features. Understanding its key features may help you decide whether or not it is for you and what makes it one of the top JavaScript frameworks in 2024.

• While it offers the same Virtual DOM abstraction React does, it’s available at a fraction of the size, leading  to enormous performance differences for apps where numerous real-time changes have to be pushed through from Virtual to real DOM.
• Since it’s so small, it can be incorporated at component and  granular levels in a web app, whereas   other frameworks might be too bulky.
• It integrates well with other frameworks, which helps undermine its “thin feature” build. You can access relevant functionalities from other frameworks while leveraging its Virtual DOM strength.

From a comprehensive development perspective, a heavy lean on just one abstraction layer may not make Preact comparable to other frameworks on this list per se but in a practical sense, it’s a significant benefit. That’s one of the reason it’s being used by giant corporations like Etsy, Lyft, and Babble.

7. Meteor.js

Even though most of the contenders on this list of top JavaScript Frameworks are heavily geared towards and are used for front-end, Meteor.js is a full-stack framework and among the earliest ones of its kind. It was released in 2012. The features include:

• It’s a front-end agnostic framework, which means you can use it or any other framework for the front end and the back end.
• The back-end  was created to simplify the web app development process and one of the features that showcase that commitment is Blaze, a built-in reactive rendering library, which allows developers to create and use reactive HTML templates quite easily.
• It facilitates reactive programming, which means changes in the back-end are automatically reflected in the front-end, without managing two states separately.
• It supports Typescript and integrates with many other frameworks and web development tools seamlessly.
• Like many other frameworks on this list, Meteor’s changes in the code base are reflected in the UI without the need to refresh it, making the experience more seamless for users.

Meteor has a wider range of features and benefits, owing to its full-stack nature, but its front-end strengths are compelling enough to make it part of this list of top front-end frameworks.

8. Backbone.js

Backbone.js was released in 2010 and is considered the forerunner of JavaScript frameworks. It’s sometimes defined as simply a lightweight library that guides developers on how JavaScript code should be structured and separates an application into three core components – Model, View, and Controller. This was adopted by many future frameworks, albeit differently. Its key features and strengths include:

• A lightweight architecture allows for faster performance and more deployment opportunities.
• The applications built using this project are quite easy to integrate with Restful APIs.
• It was one of the first, if not the first, to implement the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture.

Despite being a forerunner, Backbone.js has given way to a more modern and actively developing framework. It’s still being maintained but not developed comprehensively enough to compete with modern frameworks.

9. Polymer.js

This framework was created by the Google Team in 2013 and was officially released in 2015. It’s the only framework on this list that was created around “Web Components.” There are other frameworks that have adopted this, but Polymer is definitely the OG. The basic idea is to create reusable custom elements that can be used natively in the browser. They are essentially language-agnostic in nature. Hence, the two key features and strengths of Polymer.js:

• Custom elements that can be used almost anywhere. They can be used in different applications, projects, regardless of what framework they are built with. This takes code reusability to an entirely new dimension.
• Focus on shadow DOM, which focuses on the style encapsulation of various components in a web application so that changes in one do not leak onto another (or the rest of the DOM).

Polymer.js, if developed and promoted correctly, can be a powerful framework for creating web apps with components that are reusable to a great extent.

10. Svelte

Closing the list of our top JavaScript Frameworks is Svelte, one of the most beloved frameworks as per the Stackoverflow survey. It was created in 2016 by Rich Harris. The key difference it has compared to other frameworks on this list is that it doesn’t use a Virtual DOM. It has a compiler-based framework, allowing it to compile code as it’s being written rather than creating in virtual and then deploying the changes, wrestling in much faster builds. Its features include:

• It has virtually no run-time overhead, which can be a great benefit in several different web app types.
• A reactive programming model.
• Single-file components and state management are built in.
• It allows for the writing of incredibly compact code.

Svelte is emerging as one of the most promising front-end JavaScript frameworks and is likely to be much higher in future lists.

Which Framework Is The Best For Front-end Development?

There is no universal answer to this question. If we go with sheer numbers, it is likely to be React, and it may remain this way, thanks to its massive eco-system. But realistically speaking, the best framework for front-end development is the one that’s a perfect fit for your project’s development and maintenance needs. Many of these frameworks are easy enough to pick for developers if they understand the underlying technologies well. But you can play it safe. Hire React JS developers if that’s the framework ideal for your project, or look for the appropriate Vue JS development services if you have decided to go with this framework.

How Does Programmers.io Help You Choose The Best Javascript Framework?

The team at Programmers.io has extensive experience in building a wide range of UIs and front-end projects using these and many other frameworks. We have a comprehensive understanding of these frameworks and can pair the perfect one with your web application needs. This decision is made based on several factors, including the future maintainability of the project. Even if you have already selected your framework and are looking for, say, a React js development company, we are definitely the right fit, but we can help you in the early planning stages as well and assist you in selecting the best JavaScript framework for your project(s).

Conclusion

While it’s possible that next year’s list may show a completely different set of frameworks, it’s highly unlikely. Many of the frameworks on this list have been the top choice for front-end development for years and are expected to remain so for years to come. However, popularity shouldn’t be the only selection criterion. You should look into the individual strengths of these frameworks and choose the right one for your company’s front-end needs.