Top JavaScript Frameworks, Libraries and Tools and When to Use Them

It seems like almost every other week there is a new JavaScript library taking the web community by storm! The web community is increasingly vibrant, diverse and is moving rapidly on multiple fronts. It would be an impossible feat to survey every major JavaScript framework and library. Instead,I will share some of the most famous and influential ones for front-end development. So let’s take a look at the top JavaScript web front-end framework, libraries & tools and when to use them.

Also:

• Please do not be offended if I did not include your favorite JavaScript thing here.
• Always remember to keep your frameworks & libraries updated. The latest version often has the best cross-browser and cross-device support. You can use tools like this scanner to help determine if an older version is compatible with the largest set of devices.

Alright, let’s get to the list!

AngularJS

Angular is the popular enterprise framework that many developers are using to build and maintain complex web applications. Angular’s popularity is immense, and companies using it are as diverse as Domino’s Pizza, Ryanair, iTunes Connect, PayPal Checkout, Google. Angular is an open source framework supported by Google. Angular describes itself as an extension to HTML for building complex web apps. Also if you’re familiar with TypeScript, that’s how Angular 2 was written.

[author_more]

Angular is an MVC-type framework. It offers two-way data binding between models and views. This data binding allows for an automatic update on both sides whenever there is a data change. It enables you to build reusable View Components. It provides a services framework to allow easily backend-frontend server communication. Finally, it is just plain JavaScript.

When to use AngularJS? When you are building a complex web front-end application and need a single modular framework to handle everything.

GitHub: http://ift.tt/raXqnT
Current Version: 1.4.7/1.2.29
Website: angularjs.org

React

React is this year’s favorite JavaScript project! Everyone seems to be talking about ReactJS. Every conference I have been to in the last year had at least a couple of talks on React and other libraries in the same family (Flux, Redux) React is open-source and developed mostly by Facebook with contributions from other major tech companies. React describes itself as a JavaScript library for building user interfaces.

React is mostly the V in MVC. Itfocuses entirely on that piece of MVC and disregards the architecture of the rest of your application. It provides a component layer that makes it easier to make UI elements and combine them together. It abstracts the DOM away so that it optimizes rendering and allows you to render React from node.js. Further, it implements a one-way reactive data flow that makes it easier to understand and use than other frameworks.

Continue reading %Top JavaScript Frameworks, Libraries and Tools and When to Use Them%

by Rami Sayar via SitePoint