Why You Should Use ReactJS for Web Development

- By Nasir Zaidi

According to a 2022 Stack Overflow Survey in which over 82000 developers participated, 40% respondents chose ReactJS as their choice preferred framework, making it the most popular web development framework.

It’s popularity has soared over the past few years and it is safe to say that React is here to stay! Before I dive further into the advantages of React, let's explore the introduction of React and some its components.

What is ReactJS?

React is a JavaScript library created by Facebook. It was released in 2015 and is used to build user interfaces. It's a simple way to create dynamic web pages by combining HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

React works by defining components and then connecting them together using props. It uses components to create modular views that can be easily reused across different pages.

ReactJS Components

A Component is one of the core building blocks of React. All React applications consist of a UI broken down into individual pieces called components, some of which are as follow:

ReactDOM

The ReactDOM library provides a set of classes for working with DOM elements in React applications. This library provides DOM-specific methods that can be used at the top level of your app and as an escape hatch to get outside the React model if you need to.

ReactDOMServer

The ReactDOMServer library enables you to render components to static markup and is mainly used for Server Side Rendering. The ReactDOMServer library provides a set of server-side rendering classes for React applications.

ReactDOMText

The ReactDOMText library provides a set of text manipulation components for React applications. React DOMText supports nesting, touch handling, and styling.

ReactDOMButton

The ReactDOMButton library provides a set of button components for React applications. Buttons communicate actions that users can take. They are typically placed throughout the User Interface like Modal windows, Forms, Cards and Toolbars.

What Companies are Using ReactJS in 2022?

There are over 4 million websites built using React and a number of renowned companies are using it in 2022. Some of these companies include Facebook, Uber, Udemy, Instagram, Netflix, Skype and Airbnb.

Additionally, startups are preferring React due to its speed of development, ease of maintenance and simplicity. It is particularly popular in Fin-tech, Machine Learning, Health and Cyber-Security sectors.

What makes React the best choice for Web Development?

React was initially developed to help build Facebook's internal applications, but it has since become popular among front-end developers who want to build fast, maintainable, and scalable web applications.

Some of its advantages are as follows:

React is a flexible framework

Compared to other frontend frameworks, the React code is easier to maintain and is flexible due to its modular structure. This flexibility, in turn, saves huge amount of time and cost to businesses.

Reusable Components

In React, a reusable component is a piece of UI that can be used in various parts of an application to build more than one UI instance. ReactJS gives developers the flexibility to reuse the components built for another application but have the same functionality. This reduces the development effort and ensures an optimal performance.

Simple Syntax Makes Coding Easy

As opposed to Angular and Vue, React has a simple syntax and is quite easy to learn which helps companies build their projects in lesser time.

For businesses looking to digitize their products efficiently, React supports this through a simplified framework that reduces development time.

Optimal Performance

React JS was created to yield optimal performance and excellent user experience. DOM stands for Document Object Model, which represents an application’s entire User Interface. React uses Virtual DOM which is quite similar to the actual DOM.

This means that every object that exists in the original DOM, is also replicated in the React Virtual DOM. Both are exactly the same, except that Virtual DOM can not directly change the document’s layout. Hence, manipulating the Virtual DOM is quite faster as compared to real DOM.

React’s virtual DOM program and server-side rendering make complex apps run very fast with low load times.

Vast Community Support

React is well-supported by Facebook and Instagram. Full-time Meta employees make up the top 4 commit’s on React’s GitHub. Additionally, React’s GitHub repository is regularly maintained and has over 197,000 starts, making it one of the most popular repositories.

A vast developer community has been the reason behind its consistent growth over the years.

React complements other technologies quite well

Web Apps built with React are quite well complemented with technologies such as WordPress, Sentry, Cart and Shopify. Over 70,000 React Websites have Shopify Integration, while around 150,000 sites support Cart Integration, making React a popular framework for building e-commerce websites.

SEO Support

As we mentioned previously, some of the best-known websites such as Facebook, Netflix, Instagram and Airbnb are built with React, which is indicative of its SEO support. For any business to cement its online presence, search engine optimization is the recipe for success.

Factors like high page rendering speed, reduced page load time, high page speed, and improved user experience make a website rank higher on search engines like Google. React allows developers to build dynamic user interfaces that are SEO-friendly across all browsers and search engines.

Is the future of React bright?

Currently, over 4.8 million websites are built using React and this number is growing sharply. You may check out this trends platform which details the sites built with React, their traffic, location and more. Some of React libraries such as Next.JS are very popular due to being SEO-friendly and supporting server side rendering.

Next.JS weekly downloads exceed 2 million, while React, on average, has 14 million weekly downloads. Moreover, over 8700 industry leaders have adopted React in their tech stacks while more than 40% developers prefer React for web development, as shown in the image taken from a 2022 Stack Overflow Survey results below:

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