What’s a Framework?  What are the most popular web development frameworks?

A framework is a set of tools and libraries that makes the life of a web developer simple, by assisting the developers with common development tasks such as presentation of the page, enhancing security against cyber-attacks, output formatting, user authentication, default browser settings and routing URLs. In a rapidly evolving industry, frameworks can simplify the rollout of complex systems, however, due to the superabundance of frameworks, it often confuses the developers when deciding which framework to use.

This article covers what client-side (frontend) frameworks are and most popular frameworks.

A frontend framework is a rich collection of HTML, CSS and JavaScript (JS) that provides conventions for designing various elements that lays a solid foundation on top of which highly responsive web pages can be built. A framework will standardize,

·      Typography and other elements with HTML conventions,
·      Positioning and styling of elements with CSS conventions,
·      Styling of elements such as carousels, pop-ups and full application support with JS conventions.

There are many open-source JS libraries such as Angular, Vue.js, jQuery and React.js that is useful when developing conventions. With the use of frameworks, developers will be able to solve typography inconsistencies, positioning difficulties and browser incompatibilities.

Let’s dive into a few of the most popular frontend frameworks.

1. Angular

Angular was developed by Google, and currently, tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and PayPal utilize this framework for their development activities. Initially, Angular was based on JS, but the later releases shifted to a superset of JS called Typescript. This is a vibrant framework specializing in rich single-page applications and client-side applications. Though powerful, the size of Angular is large compared to others. Also, Angular is not the most SEO-friendly framework available although it can be optimized.

2. React

Although React is not a framework but a library, many think it is a framework. With its component-based architecture, fast dom-manipulation through virtual dom, and JSX syntax, React is easier and learn and adopt to. Unlike Angular, React is SEO friendly which may be the reason why many social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have used it for the development. However, React covers only the UI layers of the applications, thus a developer may need other technologies.

3. Vue.js

Vue.js is one of the fastest growing JS frameworks in the industry mostly thanks to being a progressive framework. You can build a portion of an application with Vue.js and integrate with the rest of the project. Besides, its component architecture makes the frontend development fast and easy.  However, several limitations are there with the community and the plugin availability which you may have to consider when developing a large system.

4. .NET

Dot Net is a large software framework that contains more than 30 languages. The .Net framework contains both frontend and backend languages that can be used for developing various applications. .Net is used mostly in developing enterprise-grade applications for the banks and other institutions, because it is considered more secure compared to Java.