Unraveling the Future of Frontend Development: Insights from the “State of JavaScript 2019” Report
The “State of JavaScript 2019” report has finally arrived, offering a fascinating glimpse into the world of frontend development. This comprehensive survey of over 21,000 developers worldwide provides valuable insights into the trends, preferences, and pain points of the JavaScript community.
What is the “State of JavaScript” Report?
Initiated by designer and developer Sacha Greif in 2016, the “State of JavaScript” report is an annual survey that beautifully illustrates the opinions of thousands of developers around the world. With guest data visualization expert Amelia Wattenberger on board, this report covers a wide range of topics, including frontend web development frameworks, databases, state management, and more.
Top Frontend Development Frameworks in 2020
So, which frameworks are dominating the frontend development landscape in 2020? Let’s take a closer look:
React: The King of Frontend Development
Built by Facebook, React is a declarative, efficient, and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces. With almost 3 million users and a massive developer community, React continues to reign supreme. The survey reveals a significant surge in interest retention, with 71% of respondents eager to continue using React.
Vue.js: The Rising Star
Evan You’s Vue.js is a progressive framework for building user interfaces, boasting an approachable core library and a robust ecosystem of supporting libraries. With nearly 1.2 million projects on GitHub, Vue.js has experienced massive growth in the last 12 months, with retention rates skyrocketing from 28% to 40%.
Angular: A Slowing Giant
Google’s Angular is a powerful framework for building applications that live on the web, mobile, and desktop. While it still has a useful CLI and a GUI client called Console, Angular’s retention rates have dropped by 2% compared to last year.
Preact: The Fast and Lightweight Alternative
Preact is a JavaScript library that’s branded as a faster 3kB alternative to React JS. With over 18,000 projects using Preact, it has experienced a good level of growth since last year, with retention rates up to 9% from 6% last year.
Ember: The Open-Source Framework
Ember is an open-source JavaScript web framework based on the model-view-view-model pattern. While it has seen an increased interest over the past 12 months, Ember still lags behind other frameworks in terms of popularity.
Svelte: The Radical New Approach
Svelte is a radical new approach to building user interfaces, shifting the work from the browser to a compile step that happens when you build your app. With nearly 45% of developers indicating an interest to learn Svelte, it has become one of the top six JS frontend libraries.
JavaScript Frameworks to Watch in 2020
So, which frameworks are poised to take center stage in 2020? According to the survey, Svelte is the frontend framework to look out for, followed closely by Vue.js. Meanwhile, React developers remain the highest-paid JS developers, followed by Vue and then Angular.
The Glaring Gap: Lack of Female Developers
One glaring gap remains: a lack of female developers lending their perspective. Of the roughly 21,000 respondents, only 1,155 (about 6%) were female. This is reflective of the JavaScript developer ecosystem overall, and it needs to change.
Experience Your Vue Apps Exactly How a User Does
Debugging Vue.js applications can be difficult, especially when there are dozens, if not hundreds of mutations during a user session. LogRocket is like a DVR for web and mobile apps, recording literally everything that happens in your Vue apps. Try LogRocket today to modernize how you debug your Vue apps!