React.js For Startups | The Best Javascript Design Framework

React.js for startups is the most popular Javascript framework that web developers use extensively for many reasons. It is modular and flexible, with a robust repository of components to help you customize the look and feel of the web app per your preference. It guarantees superb performance and scalability on all occasions. But there are other more innovative web technologies to mention.

More so, as far as typical React.js advantages are concerned. On that note, according to Startup House, the front-end design and development ecosystem has seen rapid change over the past ten years, bringing many improvements to its methodology and overall developer experience. However, a sheer number of tools are now available, and their ever-changing best practices.

Some of which have since led to “front-end fatigue.” Since 2020, according to fortunesoftit, we all (innovative webmasters) have seen a tremendous technical shift in the front-end design technology world. Perse, this is a unique year that brought forth the birth of immense growth in the website platforms design and application systems development industry at large.

And now, it has become the new standard years later — with web-based business customers having more demands than ever. Such as the need for a User Interface (UI) Design that is more interactive, and responsive-focused website design and application development processes to provide a User Experience (UX) that is fully optimized. So, what is the way forward for startups?

Getting To Know The Topmost Popular Javascript Design Frameworks Today

Well, following the surge as mentioned above in innovation, a majority of business startups are looking for digital online web services that empathize well with their target audiences. As well as eCommerce-based application platform solutions that will best help woo their potential customers. By all means, to achieve the best results, any webmaster needs a perfect development stack.

There are some common tools used for creating websites. They mainly include but are not limited to the following: Create React App, React Router, and Redux. To handle server-side rendering, you can consider using Next.js as well instead — a more advanced framework built upon React — where you can start the journey effectively if you learn Javascript online from free sources.

Perse, any great website designer and mobile application developer start their strategic planning by selecting the best tech stack that will perfectly drive their design/development project work plan ahead. The initial recommendation is to find a perfect match in a stack design framework that will address all the unique business requirements for the project.

Bearing in mind, that every website and mobile application has separate performance input/output needs. This means, that it’s mandatory to opt for a web technology stack that will ensure a smooth design/development process, and then later, provide a seamless user experience in the end as a result. Notably, there are a few major players left on the field.

1. Angular.js — Superheroic JavaScript MVW Framework

Between 2012 and 2015, Angular.js (a Google JS framework) was the framework king. But as it wasn’t scaling well enough for the modern-era SPA application requirements, the core team decided to rewrite the entire project from scratch. They also changed the name from Angular js (1x versions) to Angular 2 for the newest releases, finally settling on just “Angular.”

Long story short, the transition didn’t work out for the framework. Many left it for the likes of React and Vue. Does this mean Angular is a poor choice? Not at all! But, owing to a relative shortage of developers and the learning curve required, it does mean that it’s now more commonly used by bigger companies that have the time and money to invest in it.

2. Vue.js — The Progressive JavaScript Framework 

Initially released in 2014, Vue.js was very well-received among front-end developers. It is also the only framework in the top 3 not created by a corporation, and many programmers describe it as a combination of the best parts of React js and Angular. Rightly so. Now, you might think this would have given Vue the biggest market share. It’s not the case, actually.

In fact, many companies won’t use it precisely because it does not have a corporate endorsement. As a result, there are fewer articles, books, and tools made for this ecosystem, making work more complicated. Most organizations like Gitlab already use it. Although in some parts of Africa, Europe, and the US it still lags behind React and Angular.

3. Gatsby.js — The Fastest Frontend For The Headless Web

As per their homepage: “Gatsby.js (Gatsby) is a free and open-source framework based on React that helps developers build blazing-fast websites and apps.” Its primary focus is to enable high performance by generating static HTML pages. Let’s say we combine this with built-in PWA support, getting only the critical assets on a first load and prefetching assets.

In particular, for subsequent pages, we’ll get almost instant loading times. It also has an entire ecosystem of plugins and ready-to-use themes. Gatsby is somewhat opinionated on how you should provide data for your application or website. It’s able to handle different data sources like headless CMS, SaaS services, API, or even markdown files.

But, despite being able to handle different data sources, you’ll still need to use GraphQL to put this data into your React app. For a more in-depth feature list, please refer to the Gatsby.js documentation which has more useful information. For more insights, you can also check out a great Gatsby.js use case by a great React Developer — Mateusz Wójcik.

Some notable Gatsby users are Airbnb Engineering, Impossible Foods, Braun Canada, Figma, SendGrid, Nike, and the like…

4. Next.js — The React Framework By Vercel

In contrast to Gatsby (learn more), performance (though it’s still great) isn’t the main focus of the Next.js framework. Its goal is to provide an opinionated toolset with which developers can create Server Side Rendered applications or websites with close to no configuration. On that note, check their documentation to read about all the functionalities.

Be that as it may, Next.js gives you routing, CSS-in-JS styling, folder structure, code splitting, and data fetching of the box. The best thing is that you can easily customize or even wholly replace each of these elements without a hassle. If you are interested, you can find a multitude of examples of how to integrate Next.js with other tools in full detail.

It’s worth naming its key users like the mobile version of Twitch TV, Netflix Jobs Website, Hulu, IGN, TikTok, InVision, and more…

5. React.js — A JavaScript Library For Building User Interfaces

In 2013, Facebook released the first version of React.js which didn’t enjoy immediate popularity owing to certain innovations developers had to adjust to. And as tools and best practices then started to change almost monthly, the result was this “fatigue”. Yet it did manage to generate some smart solutions to existing problems.

Whilst, providing React with a vast ecosystem of tools suited for almost any use case. Over the last 2-3 years, third-party libraries and React js itself have matured, replacing Angular.js as the most popular solution. As you can see, those are the topmost three major players that have been left in the field of development tools with React js standing tallest.

With that in mind, before you Hire A React Developer for your next website development project, you should first understand the design framework they offer. On that note, in the next section, we will mention some of the most frequently mentioned advantages that make React so popular.

Why Use React.js For Startups In Their Design Development Projects

First, you can use React js for single-page applications in your next project since it’s the most widely used SPA framework. Its entire front end is downloaded from the static server as JavaScript files to be interpreted by a browser to create an HTML structure. The whole application is a single HTML page, with JavaScript handling everything else. Learn more about that in the video below.

Secondly, React is also a very suitable JavaScript framework for Native Application Platform developers. Bearing in mind, that creating a native mobile application has always been a challenge. Developers must write two separate code bases for iOS and Android. Initially, people solved the issue by writing a JS application and displaying it in a web view.

But, performance issues and a lack of access to native functionality were problematic. The solution lay in React Native where developers can now write React components in JavaScript — compile them into the native code. It lets you create truly native apps and doesn’t compromise your users’ experiences — with a core set of platform-agnostic native components.

Is it also good for Static Websites Design as well? Well, until recently, this type of website was handled mainly by a server-rendered HTML which WordPress dominated. Eventually, however, developments in the world of JavaScript led to the creation of tools like Gatsby.js so as to supplement their unique needs. Especially, in their web design and development.

Whilst, enabling developers to write templates as components and populate them with content from either markdown files or headless CMS solutions. Meaning, that if you’re a Professional JavaScript Developer or are familiar with the development, these two toolkits will have you covered.

The Main React.js Framework Benefits For Startup Design Projects

In simple terms, React is a collection of Javascript frameworks library. But it’s much more than that. It is a vast ecosystem of libraries, additional tools, tutorials, and articles. React offers many great solutions for solving everyday problems whereby companies can focus on areas that are specific to their use cases.

And with React, developers can increase their productivity through strong community support online. With React there are some truly effective developer tools available for almost all major browsers for inspecting applications, component by component. In addition to giving the option to change a component’s state as you go along. Sounds great, right?

Additionally, you can also do performance checks and analyses. Equally important, React’s performance is well known, and now the framework, thanks to virtual DOM, also ensures a far superior experience. And now, having said that, below are the other key benefits of using React.js in your design projects.

1. It is based on a fully SEO-optimized framework 

Since it is already well known that search engines and leading websites prioritize content, you do not just need to create quality and unique content. Still, it would help if you used a site architecture that allows search engine crawlers easy access and visibility. When you do this, the said web app or website becomes SEO-friendly for all search engines.

ReactJs offers us a platform that ensures lowering the search engine discoverability issues and always helps in making content-rich apps to be found by search engines. Since ReactJs can quickly reduce the loading time of web pages, the websites consequently get priority among the equals for search rankings.

2. It has an endless, manageable learning curve for newbies 

ReactJs’s popularity is also the result of its ease of learning. Web developers find it extremely helpful simply because it comes with an array of pre-built components and patterns that developers can use as ready-to-integrate building blocks. This is why React developers do not need to develop everything from scratch.

On top of that, when starting with React, developers need a basic understanding of HTML and CSS. It is a language that can be utilized for any domain and development requirement.

3. It offers superior features for UI project development 

The user interface’s engagement potential is a key aspect that determines any app’s success. Of course, a poorly done user interface (UI) design that is, especially, built with no aesthetic appeal completely ruins an app project. With React, you can get a lot of declarative components that can be utilized to create robust UIs.

There is a multitude of examples to prove this. For instance, the React DnD component helps develop drag-and-drop actions, and there are also style components that enable developers to use CSS. The framework also allows flexible and modular help to adjust to business requirements more flexibly than ever.

4. You will create custom components with ease 

React uses the JSX syntax or a kind of HTML-flavoured JavaScript code. Since this HTML-like code is simple and easy to use, Companies hire dedicated react js developers who quickly write their custom components for the project. Using HTML-like code, React helps in rendering multiple features extremely more accessible.

The JSX coding protocol is one of React’s most powerful attributes, ensuring ease of writing custom components for web projects, creating scalable apps with increasingly value-driven approaches, and turning the HTML design mockups into ReactElement trees for UI development.

5. Motivates the developers with a productive spirit 

Many frameworks are detested for their too-frequent updates. Since even a small change in any component can impact the usable components, React came up with the reusable component feature. Once you have developed an iOS or Android app, the same can be easily deployed on other platforms. React makes this process simple and easy.

At first, developers add many components such as checkboxes, buttons, text fields, layouts, and many others. The React.js framework also ensures easier code maintenance and scalability because each React component comes up with its internal logic. This segregated component-specific logic provides optimum productivity.

6. It provides a way for lightning-fast rendering

Any app characteristically complex and rich with ambitious features and fluid graphics needs to have a robust architecture to improve app performance. The DOM model of JavaScript comes with the structure of a tree, and any modification at the top level is re-structured. So, a minor modification at a higher-level layer can impact the user interface of an application.

To address this issue, React comes with a virtual DOM feature. The virtual representation of the DOM or the Virtual DOM does all QA testing virtually, which results in lesser risks for the project ahead while maintaining that the stakes are taken seriously and calculated before finalizing this.

7. A great tool for website design and mobile app development

One commonly cited benefit of React is its close affinity with React Native, the React-based framework widely used for building native and cross-platform mobile apps. React Native has now used the world’s leading apps, from Facebook, Instagram, and Salesforce to many others.

With React Native, you have a similar React-based versatile technology for native and cross-platform mobile app development projects. While React allows you to build high-quality modular and scalable web apps for mobile browsers, React Native goes another step ahead and enables the development of one robust cross-platform app that can run on all OS platforms.

8. It offers support from a robust community of developers

Another commendable React.js benefit is its robust community of experienced and skilled developers. React was first used by Facebook and get supported since then with a robust JS library contributed widely by independent developers all across the globe.

For every React troubleshooting or any undetected issue, you can reach out to the support community of developers. For many years, React contributors have continued to help develop flexible, stable, free bugs and fully reliable apps.

9. It is very suitable for creating apps driven by components

Realistically, React is a UI library in which you can write code mostly in JavaScript. It focuses on excelling at what it does best and letting the open-source community concentrate on solving other issues. This way, any developer familiar with JavaScript can produce code quickly.

What’s more, in React.js there is an architecture for programmers to create an application made mostly from components. Each component can handle its logic, rendering, and styling. React makes the creation of reusable components a breeze. This makes apps easier to develop and maintain.

10. An easy way to transition web apps to mobile platforms 

Remarkably, you can use React for enhanced performance when working with the Virtual DOM. Without it, the user interface can slow significantly when updating the application data or doing several user interactions. The Virtual DOM solves this by creating an in-memory representation of the actual DOM structure, which detects the parts that need changing.

And it quickly performs updates only on those nodes. This enables a far more rapid application development. Owing to the popularity of React js and its mature ecosystem, developers now have tools to create many projects with a single javascript library. Transitioning from developing a single-page application to a native app isn’t without some difficulty, though.

Each domain has knowledge requirements related only to the used tools. But a single javascript library and language for all domains still make switching much easier.

The Notable Usage Weaknesses In React.js For Startups

Firstly, React.js is a javascript library focused on being a UI library. Thus, you must choose additional tools to handle routing, state management, styling, forms, etc. This can be problematic, especially for junior developers who need to learn new libraries for every project. While useful for their development, it can hinder their ability to deliver value early on.

Secondly, JSX syntax is not as legible as “normal” HTML templates. Since most can adapt and also get good code editors’ support, this is not a crucial issue. However, for those not familiar with JavaScript who wish to apply styling to a template created in JSX, things can get complicated.

Last but not least, the React js ecosystem is not opinionated. Meaning, that you can expect different code styling, folder, or structure for almost every project. This’s why it’s worth creating a company-wide boilerplate and style guide.

Summing It Up; 

When startups and small businesses try to shape their web front to ensure unparalleled user experience, React easily tops the list of choices for the above reasons. Eventually, React js will remain dominant for frontend development as the recent popularity of MERN and MEAN full technology stacks is believed to stand on the infallible demand for React frontend.

Not forgetting, front-end or client-side development deals with all the user interface and user interaction attributes. Since they determine the look and feel of any web app, they drive the agenda for the overall web development. Definitely, this is also why we frequently encounter new and innovative front-end web development technology trends now and then.

Are you already thinking about what can be the latest front-end trends presently and for the upcoming year? Kindly, feel free to share some of your thoughtful opinions, additional suggestions, resource recommendations, or even contribution questions (For Quick FAQ Answers) in our comments section. You can also Consult Us if you’ll need more help or support.