Why you Need React in your Stack

What exactly is React?

Facebook created React.js in 2011 for their own purposes and open-sourced it in 2013. React is a JavaScript multi-purpose user interface library that makes the creation of front-end applications and web pages a breeze. It allows you to create flexible components which are eventually rendered into DOM elements.

A huge plus of creating components in React rather than directly into HTML is they are agnostic to the display, allowing them to render correctly no matter the device accessing your page. Further, these components are functions, which can be passed arguments and reused. They are organized in a unidirectional hierarchy allowing the webpage to perform optimally. React is faster than traditional HTML because it can refresh specific components without having to reload the whole page.

Why should I use it?

• Relatively easy to learn: React puts a singular focus on simplicity. Compared to similar libraries and frameworks, React is lightweight and easy to use. It only deals with the view layer of the page, so that you can focus on making your page look its best.
• Flexibility: With the release of React Native in 2015, they added a powerful set of JavaScript and HTML functions allowing for native web app development. Their slogan, "Learn once, write anywhere" supports the belief that you should only have to learn one set of tools to create content anywhere.
• Application support and updates: Supported by Facebook and a massive active community, React often receives feature updates. Beyond that, Facebook puts its resources to use to squash any bugs that are discovered.
• React is FAST: When developing this library, Facebook realized that is slow and inefficient to reload the whole DOM every time a state change was made. They optimized this by only updating the relevant portion of the page.

Who uses React?

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Reddit
• New York Times
• BBC
• Netflix
• SalesForce
• Dropbox
• Airbnb
• Uber

How is this different than 'X'?

React vs. Angular:

While React was created by Facebook, Angular was made by Google in 2010. Here started the bitter rivalry between the two. Angular is more of a full-featured framework as compared to React's lightweight library.

With this comes Angular's opinion on how you should design your application. Another unique feature is that Angular supports both one-way and two-way data binding. This can sometimes be desirable, but React's opinion is that this introduces unnecessary complexity and proclivity for bugs.

Finally, Angular is written in TypeScript, often considered the new and improved JavaScript.

React vs. Bootstrap:

Whereas React is a JavaScript library, Bootstrap is thought of more as a frontend toolkit. Created by yet another tech giant, Bootstrap is supported by Twitter.

Bootstrap is more template-based rather than the components of React. This provides awesome and beautiful styling components but limits the flexibility.

One way to put it, React can easily be injected into any stack at any time -- going with Bootsrap means you will likely need a restructure to integrate its templates and features. Although Bootstrap does have more complete handling of the front-end.

React vs. Vue:

Most similar to its counterpart, Vue is also a JavaScript-based library/system. Unlike the others, Vue.js was created by a single person, Evan You.

They update the DOM, in the same way, to maintain efficiency and both create and maintain a component structure. On the other hand, Vue is much more of a framework with a few more pre-built tools within its ecosystem.

As you can see below, React does seem to be a fan favorite.

Conclusion

Whether you are a fortune 500 behemoth or a barely off-the-ground startup React is for you. React is easy to learn and easy to incorporate into any stack. Due to the fact that it is only a library, it does not impose any rigid framework that would require restructuring. Above all, once your team learns React you will be able to create flexible and fast content for any device.