ReactJS vs. VueJS: Understanding the Differences

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What is ReactJS?

React JS, the open-source JavaScript library, is widely used for building dynamic user interfaces (UI) specifically for single-page applications.

  • React is designed in a way such that it can be easily integrated with already existing code or any other libraries.
  • Its primary motive is simplifying the process of developing and building web applications that are fast, scalable, and simple.
  • React uses modular and cohesive components, which make them heavily reusable and contribute to accelerating the development time.

What is VueJS?

Vue.js may be defined as a progressive framework for JavaScript which is used to build web interfaces and single-page applications.

  • Vue.js is also used both for developing desktop and mobile applications with the Electron framework.
  • The HTML extension and the JavaScript base have quickly made Vue.js a favored front-end tool, evidenced by adoption by such giants as Adobe, Behance, Alibaba, Gitlab, and Xiaomi.
  • The name of the framework – Vue – is the same phonetically in English as view, and it corresponds to the traditional Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture.
  • View is basically a UI of an application or a website, and the core library of Vue.js focuses on the view layer by default.
  • But, MVC does not mean that Vue.js cannot be used with a different architectural approach like the Component Based Architecture (CBA) used in React.

Comparing Both Technologies

1. Rendering and Optimization

Speed is considered one of the most significant deciding factors and a real differentiator in determining the performance of an application. React tends to re-render the entire component tree in case there is a change in the component’s state especially when it is not required.

Vue is lightweight, easy to learn, and also pleasant to write in. Maybe that’s the reason why technology is highly appreciated among Vue.js developers in India and overseas. This means Vue is on par with Angular and React.

2. Routing

The next deciding factor is routing. Both the component-based frameworks like React and Vue create a space where a react developer is asked to pay more attention, particularly to the state management and the data flow. The reason being is that numerous components are used to interact and share data.

For routing, React uses the react-router library and Flux/Redux architecture featuring unidirectional data flow. On the other hand, when it comes to Vue, Vuex is the solution offering an unbeatable experience carrying out an advanced architecture. The first one is an alternative to the famous MVC architecture.

3. Performance

There is no denying the fact both Vue and react technologies offer similar results in regards to performance as both of them work on Virtual DOM. But that does not mean they do not have a fair share of controversies. For example, Vue involves less overhead and faster speed and pays greater attention to the shortcomings. Also among the two frameworks, this one has the ability to manage high frames rate – 10 frames per second when compared to the 1 frame per second of React.js.

4. Learning Curve

When comparing both Vue and React technologies, Vue provides higher customizability and makes things way easier to learn and adapt. On the contrary, React is an open-source JavaScript framework that takes an ample amount of time while creating web applications. Having functionalities like the use of components, Vue.js developers can overlap easily. However, the simplicity and flexibility of Vue is a double-edged sword as it allows poor code, making it difficult to debug and test.

For example, the developers can use react for developing large applications via thorough and complete documentation even though it is not complete and requires third-party libraries. But, in the end, this solution means the code is more concise and JavaScript can perform much better.

5. Scalability

Scalability can be considered one of the biggest deal-breakers among open-source JavaScript frameworks. In this department, React is a little ahead of the Vue.js native app. Before we spot the difference between React and Vue, it is important to know that frontend scalability is the capability to maintain expanding functionality. Apart from this, most experienced developers make sure to choose frameworks that are able to support the growth that a quality application's front end should.

With the help of the components-based approach, React offers excellent results over both Vue and Angular. Whereas Vue comprises a template-specific syntax that turns out to be difficult to reuse as the app size grows.

6. State Management

Both React and Vue have similar approaches when we are talking about state management. However, there are a few differences in regard to immutability and other aspects. States are present everywhere, almost all React developers know about it but what they might don’t know is the fact that data keeps on changing time and again. As a result, the level of complexities might increase to a great extent. In-state management, there are ways to make it through. For instance, for small applications, this might be a brute force, and something like Vanilla JS would be enough. When data changes, the framework (React vs Vue) redraws all the UI components – the data displayed is always relevant. We can call this idea UI as a function.

Places where Vue is better than React

  • Vue.js facilitates in the creation of simpler and much faster web applications.
  • Vue.js has much improved and comprehensive documentation.
  • It allows the development of template-based apps more conveniently.
  • It also has much simpler syntax, integration, and adaptability.

Places where React is better than Vue

  • React has an added advantage over Virtual DOM providing a wider range of API options.
  • It provides more flexibility when developing larger and more complex apps.
  • It is easier to test and debug.
  • Along with that, it also supports the development of mobile apps apart from the web.
  • It offers better technical support with more information and sources available.

Conclusion

The technology that the developers should choose depends upon the choice of the application, the client’s demands, the availability of the skill-set, development team demographics, the performance acceptability, the experience of the programmers, and others. Of course, other factors are also applicable here like faster turnaround time, and the complexity of features that the web application is deemed to hold.

React offers code-reusability, simpler coding patterns to solve complex problems, maintain state variables, and fetches data from backend APIs, all such React hooks are available on GitHub and are accessible by React developers. As Vue.js tries to accomplish all the offerings of ReactJS it still has a long way to go, thus we can conclude that the Vue.js web framework can do well for a small web app with minimal features while ReactJS development services can be applied to larger and complex projects.