The article was updated on July 14, 2023.
In recent years, ReactJS, also known as React, has emerged as one of the most prominent and widely adopted JavaScript libraries. Created by Facebook, ReactJS has become a game-changer for developers and businesses alike.
It has revolutionized the development processes for web pages and applications, allowing a more convenient, efficient, and effective approach. Its unique nature raised ReactJS to the top as it gained popularity among many major brands and tech giants like Facebook, Netflix, Instagram, and Airbnb. Currently, it has been embraced by a vast community of developers and organizations worldwide.
Why choose React? And, most importantly, when should you use it? Let’s take a closer look at the advantages of React and its use cases.
What is ReactJS?
React is a “declarative, efficient, and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces”, as defined by its creators. Simply put, it allows you to create a fast, simple and scalable frontend for web applications.
A relatively young framework, ReactJS has taken the web development world by storm. Created initially as an internal tool by Facebook engineers, the framework soon went open source, which allowed it to further grow and become widely adopted among individual developers.
React web development was a close second most-used framework in 2022, with 42.62% of developers choosing this platform for their software development.
At the same time, it is also the third most wanted technology. This clearly indicates the fact that the library is not only highly rated by the developer community, but also is in great demand among business owners.
Despite its popularity, the Angular vs. React dilemma is completely unfounded. While Angular is a full-fledged MVC framework, React is a lightweight view library, which typically needs to be complemented with other tools (Flux or Redux) to get a complete architecture.
Thus, comparing React and Angular is somewhat similar to comparing apples and oranges. In fact, both tools can be used interchangeably within one project (which, however, is not recommended, mostly to avoid violating coding standards and best practices).
Reasons to choose React JS
Overall, there are around 11,908,579 websites using React worldwide at the moment. So, what made this young technology so popular? Having successfully implemented a number of React projects here at Eastern Peak, we can clearly see the benefits of this tool.
Thus, the major advantages of React for web development include the following:
Development efficiency – Less development time and higher quality
React allows you to write modular and clean code, breaking the project into separate components. This also allows for code reuse, which can really boost developer productivity.
Flexible and easy to maintain
Unlike large monolithic projects, React code is easy to maintain and update due to its modular structure. React products are extremely flexible and can be scaled easily. This can significantly save time and money in the long run.
High performance of your app
Designed with performance in mind, the library’s core features, such as virtual DOM and server-side rendering, allow you to create large-scale apps which are really fast.
SEO friendly – more visibility for your site
Thanks to backend rendering, React projects are better optimized for search engines. Moreover, high speed and performance, which we have listed above, contribute to a better SEO, and also provide an overall better user experience.
Open, rich toolset
Being an open source technology, React is free and open for all. Moreover, it has a rich ecosystem, including such must-have tools as Flux or Redux as well as Node.js on the backend or a large number of task-specific open source libraries, listed on npm.
Better code stability
Web development with React is a more predictable, organized, and controlled building process due to a component-based architecture. It also maintains a one-way data flow concept, from the parent components to the child components, making it easier to track and correct the process.
In-built testing
React JS development services also include in-built testing tools to simulate user interactions, check expected outputs, and verify component behavior. Here, developers can run test cases that simulate different scenarios to see if the outcome matches the expected results.
Strong community
Being built initially at Facebook, the library is still supported and maintained by the company as well as by more than 1,000 independent contributors worldwide. Thanks to the vibrant community and solid corporate support, React is a reliable and up-to-date technology.
Easy transition to React Native
React Native is a mobile development framework, based on React. Thus, it is easy for React JS developers to switch to React Native and create mobile apps with a native look and feel. Moreover, some parts of your React web app can be reused in a React Native mobile app (mostly business logic), which improves the development speed.
React JS use cases and things to consider
Thanks to the above listed benefits, React has gained a huge adoption over the last several years. The list of websites using React is constantly growing. Right now, some major web products such as AirBnB, Coursera, Dropbox, Expedia, Facebook, HipChat, Instagram, Netflix, Reddit, Salesforce, Twitter, Uber, WhatsApp, WordPress, Yahoo, Zendesk and many others rely on React.
According to the official release documentation, React was designed for “building large scale apps with data that changes over time”. Thus, the best use cases for React application include the following:
- single page applications (SPAs);
- large scale projects;
- web apps that require dynamic page updating (such as chat apps, graphic sketching, data visualizations, like stocks info, or even online games); and
- complex UIs.
On the other hand, using React on static websites and blogs could be unjustified. Thus, React finds its best application within certain verticals, including business, technology, travel, and shopping.
Some examples of giants that choose React apps:
Netflix
Netflix uses ReactJS to build its user interface, allowing millions of users to browse and stream various movies and TV shows. React’s component-based architecture enables Netflix to create a dynamic and interactive interface that seamlessly handles all user interactions, from recommendations to personalized content delivery.
Facebook, the creator of ReactJS, utilizes the library extensively in its platform. React powers various features of Facebook, such as the news feed, timeline, and comments section.
Overall, Facebook React developers deal with enormous amounts of user-generated content while ensuring a smooth and responsive user experience. React’s performance optimization has made this process possible.
Instagram also relies on ReactJS for web development. React enables Instagram to create a visually appealing and engaging interface for users to browse, upload, and interact with photos and videos. React’s flexibility and reusability make it easier for Instagram to revise and add new features to its platform.
We at Eastern Peak also have a portfolio of their React projects, including one for Leaplines. This project focused on creating a cloud solution for learning and training platforms. It was designed for providing learning materials, teaching progress, administrating class registration, organizing paperwork, etc.
Conclusion
It is easy to see how and why ReactJS has become one of the biggest players in the web development field. Businesses and individual developers rely on React to excel in their products and enjoy streamlined processes.
Its focus on efficiency and flexibility, exceptional user experiences along with an extensive community of supporters have raised the platform to the forefront of web development. ReactJS is particularly relevant now, as the demand for fast, effective, and scalable web development and applications grows each day.
So don’t wait for too long and contact our team of React experts at Eastern Peak to book a free consultation about using React JS for your next project.
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About the author:
Oleg Roberman, Chief of Delivery at Eastern Peak
With strong technical background and outstanding project leadership skills, Oleg helps Eastern Peak customers introduce competitive advantages and instill productive changes in every process by resolving complex business issues and managing multicultural teams through innovation and creative thinking.
