A Complete Guide On Vue Vs React

Nowadays, every business wants to stay ahead in the market, and their goal is to create high-quality web apps within a short time frame. Web applications may be built using various JavaScript frameworks; two of the most popular are Vue and React. And today, in this post, we will provide a clear difference between Vue vs react.

At MTPL, Vue and React are among the front-end development technologies evolving quickly because of their numerous advantages. Each of these technologies has its advantages and disadvantages. Yet, they both assist in producing the same kinds of goods and applications.

This article Vue vs React, aims to contrast Vue.js with React.js in various respects, including background information and specific capabilities.

Despite their similarities, Vue.js is a framework and react a library; both have large and active user groups and widespread support and appeal in the online development world. Why, then, do we try to make apples-to-oranges comparisons?

What Is Vue?

The Vue is a framework built on JavaScript that is versatile and lightweight. It provides users with strong web tools businesses can use to create front-end web applications. Since it enables modifications to an application’s code without affecting any core features, Vue is also known as a flexible and evolutionary JavaScript framework.

This is because it makes it possible to construct progressive user interfaces.

The extreme flexibility of Vue enables unique modules and visual components to be added to the web application’s functionality, which the application can then use.

A brief History of Vue

A lone developer named Evan created and published Vue.js to enhance existing JavaScript resources in 2014. Ex-Googler with a desire to streamline the process of creating high-quality Web apps by including the most remarkable aspects of popular frameworks like Angular, Ember, and React components. Vue.js Core Team is currently responsible for creating and updating the framework.

What Is React?

It is an open-source JavaScript library to develop web apps with sophisticated user interfaces. With React, developers have more freedom to develop reusable, custom components, encouraging more efficient development processes to create react apps. Also, the fact that it is possible to produce a web page in a shorter time makes it search engine friendly.

It’s a great library that encourages the building of commercial applications that are both lightweight and complicated.

Main Features of Vue

So, now that we have grasped the concept of what is Vue and React, their history, and who uses them. Now, we are moving forward with its main features of it.

If you want to create web apps using Vue, remember that it comes with many eye-catching features that businesses can use to get a business application up and running.

Let’s take each of them individually and discuss them in detail.

Components

They are reusable Vue objects with unique HTML elements and, most importantly, may be utilized in many places. Props, often known as properties and events, are the primary means through which Vue objects and HTML elements communicate.

When developing reliable and scalable Vue applications, the code block of a Vue component is just as important as any other aspect.

Two-Way Data Binding

Vue has a two-way binding feature as part of its MVVM architecture, as seen in the picture. This functionality is available. This capability enables you to update or apply values to HTML elements, alter the style, and apply classes using a binding directive called v-bind included with Vue.

This contrasts with frameworks like React, which only provide communication in a single direction. The blow image can give you a better idea.

Virtual DOM

Many JavaScript frameworks, notably Vue, are responsible for implementing the Virtual DOM notion. Instead of adapting to the DOM, JS (JavaScript) data structures identical to the DOM are built from scratch and displayed to the user.

Then, any changes that need to be made to the JavaScript data structures are implemented. After that, the modified data structures are compared to the original data structure.

Computed Properties

It is no longer necessary to write additional code thanks to computed properties. This makes it possible to monitor changes made to UI components and immediately implement any necessary logic changes.

When we want to modify a variable dependent on another changed property, we should use a computed property instead of directly modifying the variable itself. Some data characteristics have a significant impact on the qualities that are calculated.

Watchers

They are applied to data anticipated to undergo frequent changes, such as the information in Form Input Components. In this scenario, a developer does not need more activities to be performed.

The watcher handles data changes while ensuring the code remains straightforward and efficient.

The reactive feature of the component may be used in three primary ways: through watchers, methods, and calculated properties. Depending on dynamic data, watchers are useful when performing an expensive or asynchronous operation.

CSS Transitions and Animations

This feature provides several ways to transition if HTML components are modified inside the DOM or removed entirely. It comes with a transition component that is already built-in, and it is designed to surround the component that is responsible for the return of the transition effect.

To provide a superior user experience, developers may use animation libraries provided by third-party companies in a web development project.

Main Features of React

So, in this section of Vue vs react, we will see the main features of react. In addition to its other attractive features, react has several practical benefits for developing react apps.

You’ll find descriptions of a few main features below:

One-Way Data Binding

Web developers can adjust components using the call-back function rather than directly modifying them, as seen in the picture, because one-way data binding indicates that React uses a unidirectional data flow. This enables programmers to modify components more efficiently.

A graphical representation showing data flow in a one-way binding scenario with accompanying illustrations.

Flux is a component for creating JavaScript applications that allow you to regulate data flow from a single point. The react app will be more adaptive and helpful due to the increased power granted to the creators by this. The dispatcher, the stores, and the views are the three primary components that makeup Flux (components).

Declarative UI

The Declarative User Interface feature makes it possible for React code to be more easily understood and makes it simpler to address bugs. React JS is the best framework for creating user or interactive user interfaces. It is beneficial not only for developing web applications but also for mobile applications.

Virtual DOM

The application development process may be made more agile and streamlined with the assistance of this feature of React. A web page may be recreated in the virtual memory of React simply thanks to this approach. As a result, a virtual DOM is used to imitate the real DOM.

Every time an update or modification is made to the program, the virtual DOM recreates the whole user interface from scratch by re-creating the altered components throughout the process. Due to this, the amount of time and money necessary to build anything is reduced.

Components

This indicates that the user interface (UI) of a React-based application comprises many components, each of which has its functionality programmed in JS.

Consequently, developers may transfer data around the react app without changing the DOM. The application’s aesthetics and operations are greatly affected by React JS components.

JSX

JavaScript XML is a markup language that developers may use to describe the layout of the user interface of an application. It develops a syntax that is comparable to HTML and is used in the process of creating React components.

One of the finest features of React JS is called JSX, which makes developing the building blocks quite straightforward for experienced developers to build the web application.

React vs Vue: Pros and Cons

Now that you know the key features of both Vue and React – Let’s look at their Pros and Cons.
Pros & Cons of Vue

Pros & Cons of Vue

Pros & Cons of React

React vs Vue: Performance Comparison

A third-party library’s maintenance is taken care of sequentially by Vue, which also takes care of all of its crucial dependencies automatically. This is accomplished by dividing the libraries into two categories: those that must be included in the primary application bundle and those that can be left out of the bundle but still be used in routes separate from the core bundle.

One of the most notable characteristics of Vue is its support for lazy loading. It contributes to the reduction of the loading time.

The situation of The Vue application grows more unclear every time a new feature is introduced or an extension of a component is made, making it more difficult for the app to load quickly.

Yet, this progressive JavaScript framework provides a virtual Document Object Model (DOM), the default tool that enhances an application’s performance.

While Reacts component-based design makes it possible to construct single-page applications that are more reliable, its reusability eliminates the clutter in the code. Its decreased DOM manipulation speeds up page loading. This improves the app’s efficiency and gives the user a positive experience.

The DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) approach, for instance, enables developers to reduce the number of errors they produce and boosts the overall productivity of teams to build complex apps.

The performance of a React app is much quicker, and it provides a lightweight performance in terms of the user experience. Also, the performance of its components is lightweight and finely functioning.

Moreso, the library works on updating the required modifications to the homepage without refreshing the full page. Hence, it prevents the needless download of pages and refreshes the database’s data.

Reacts performance is top-notch, yet it’s close in quality to ReactJS and Vue.

React vs Vue: Application Architecture

Now, let’s see What Kind of Application Architecture support Vue accepts!

Vue places a strong emphasis on adhering to the ViewModel methodology and adopting the pattern of MVVM, particularly when it comes to the process of designing large-scale applications. A two-way binding strategy establishes a connection between the View portion and the Model part.

In this structure, the letters M, V, and VM stand for the following:

Model

Performs functions analogous to those of the Model object in JavaScript. As soon as the data object is sent into the Model section, the data instance is converted into reactive components so that the necessary storage layers may be created discretely.

View

The Vue’s View component manages the framework’s DOM objects, as the name suggests. It takes advantage of the DOM-based templating so that root elements may be successfully created and correlate with the necessary DOM components.

ViewModel,

The ViewModel class, is in charge of the coordination between the Model and View parts of the code. The interactions between developers and the code mostly occur via this object, which is the major portion.

Vue’s Filters and Directives provide an abstraction over the framework’s DOM structures and design. Vue is not a full-blown framework, which sets it apart from most technologies; as a result, the application development management can be handled flexibly and straightforwardly thanks to its following a View layer design.

So, we have come a long way in Vue vs react comparisons. In the second part section – Let’s look at the React.JS framework first. What are the different architectures supported by it?

React is different from other libraries and frameworks because it does not have an architectural pattern. The view layer of an application, which consists of components, is the focus of Reacts attention.

Components in React are implemented as functions responsible for rendering the underlying user interface whenever there is a change in the data. The fundamental design of React.js is composed of a continuous interaction between the actions taken by users and the state of the application components.

This interaction takes place at all times. When you wish to design applications with restricted functionality and scope, you will find that the current state of the React components is perfect.
But, React must rely on third-party to apply certain architectural patterns to construct apps that run in the real world.

React vs Vue: Ease of Testing

We have covered the performance and application architecture aspects in vue vs react comparisons. This section shows that react apps are easy to test or complex apps built using vue!
Let’s begin with ease of testing with Vue

Ease of Testing with Vue

Vue is still rising, offering standard, uncomplicated, and effective testing capabilities. It does not include unnecessary bells and whistles and does not compromise its code’s ability to be thoroughly tested. Vue unit tests are often run using Jest, Mocha, or Chai, which are all quite similar to other frameworks.

Vue testing Library and Vue Test Utils are two libraries by which Easy refactoring and code debugging are made possible by their access to the program and user-specific APIs.

This framework’s support for continuous integration/continuous delivery and its support for hot reloading enable shorter feedback cycles.

Ease of Testing with React

It is much simpler to track the development process using the tools available in React native js, such as the key test runners.

Test runners like Jest, Mocha, and others facilitate the repetition of a standardized procedure for running test suites, which in turn aids testers in detecting issues in production browser environments, eliminating redundant code, and the localization of costly function manipulation.

It expedites app deployment, shortens the time to market, and promotes an overall more productive atmosphere.

Vue and React: Similarities and Common Features

Let’s begin this section by discussing the similarities between Vue and React.

As you already know – Vue and React employ JavaScript in various forms.

Vue supports both ECMAScript 5 and 6, whereas react prioritizes ECMAScript 6. That matters little since you can still use ES5 with React (without the ES6 capabilities), and there are tools to help you, like Babel.

It should be pretty easy to locate React and Vue professionals because of JavaScript, which is useful throughout development. Both may be picked up easily by programmers already fluent in this language.

While discussing programming languages, it’s important to note that React and Vue are compatible with TypeScript and Flow.

React and Vue are equally wonderful in providing a nice user interface. Vue and React may be used to specify the user interface for the device we want to communicate with, provided that it can understand JavaScript.

They both use Virtual DOM, a collection of technologies and methods that may boost front-end speed by reducing the need to handle large DOM documents. It provides a small, lightweight JavaScript object that acts as a DOM tree for your use.

With Vue and React, you can access many development tools, resources, and standards to streamline your coding process.

Lightweight, with a component-based design and exposed lifecycle functions, these are all features shared by React and Vue. Differences in performance are so little as to be irrelevant when comparing them. Both methods may be used with non-SPA web applications already in use.

React vs Vue: Differences

The most popular web apps created with React and Vue

The world is already using either Vue or React. Here is the list of popular apps built on Vue or React.

Market Trends & Popularity in Vue vs react

According to the findings of the 2021 State of Developer survey published at Statista, React.js is used by 40.14 percent of developers globally.

React is ranked fourth on the list of “Most Loved frameworks of Stackflow 2021”, with over 69.28 percent of the vote. It featured on StackOverflow’s list of “Topmost requested frameworks” with 25.12 percent of the vote.

Together with a community that is always improving, the framework has earned more than 187 thousand stars on GitHub.

The latest survey, State of JS 2021, revealed below findings:

React slightly outperforms Vue in terms of retention and interest among JS frameworks.

Developers express their positive attitudes toward using both of these technologies.

The total package download amount is the last criterion when deciding whether a framework, Vue.js or React, is superior.

You can see the data on the download counts of npm packages overtime back in 2022 that were supplied by npm trends down below:

Vue vs React: Which One Is Better?

The modern developer community relies heavily on both of these frameworks. Here, we’ll contrast Vue and React about the framework’s standard issues.

Security

Vue and react contain vulnerabilities, but Vue-based apps are less difficult to secure. Although there are no built-in protections for XSS vulnerabilities in Vue, developers may clean HTML code before implementing it or utilize external libraries to bolster security.

When you are certain that the generated HTML is secure, you may skip the intermediate step of validating the code and immediately building web pages. At this point, you can also protect the apps.

React security relies on the developers adhering to security guidelines to prevent SQL injection and several other dangers. Even though getting started using React is easy, it takes a lot of expertise to ensure your projects are safe.

Speed & Performance

Lazy loading is an essential feature of Vue. As a result, load times are shortened.

When additional features and components are added to a Vue application, its state becomes more muddled, making loading more challenging. This framework may significantly speed up the application thanks to the inclusion of a virtual DOM.

A React application is more efficient, has a more streamlined user interface, and uses modular, interoperable parts. The component-based architecture of React facilitates the creation of robust single-page apps. At the same time, reusability minimizes code complexity, and less DOM interaction quickens page load times.

Furthermore, the library is geared toward updating the site’s core components without requiring a complete page refresh. Hence, it saves unnecessary page loads and instead refreshes the content.

Learning curve

Vue is the simplest JavaScript framework to pick up and use. You may spend as little as an hour or as much as a week learning about it.

To get started, you need to know how ES6 and JavaScript operate on a fundamental level. Vue is easy to learn since its documentation is less in-depth than competing frameworks.

It doesn’t take long for someone familiar with JavaScript to get the hang of React. Since there is less of a learning curve, any level of developer, from amateur to expert, may participate, making it easier to assemble a team. The latest versions are just those after 16.0. It follows that novice programmers may struggle to implement the more complex features.

Ecosystem

Vue doesn’t need any other libraries to function, unlike React. Indeed, this is one of the most glaring differences between the two systems. React uses other systems, such as Flux/Redux, to handle routing and state management.

By centralizing control over state modification, such frameworks facilitate debugging. The ecosystem is in disarray because Facebook gave users control of react-redux and react-router.
Vue’s library of supported apps and services is limited. Nevertheless, Vue now has capabilities, such as props validation, that need a module in React. Key Vue frameworks like Vuex and Vue-router are supported and maintained by the Vue team.

Debugging and Testing

The straightforward development process is simplified by the many test runners included with Reactjs. Test runners, such as Jest, Mocha, and many more, allow testers to execute test suitestakes a little whiled fashion, which aids in finding issues in production-ready browser configurations, unused code, and places where functions are being manipulated excessively. Time to market decreases, application deployment speeds up, and morale improves.

As Vue is only getting started, its testing options are basic yet functional. It does not provide too fancy features or interfere with code testing.

The Vue team recommends using Vue Testing Library and Vue Test Utils. Because the framework supports continuous integration/continuous deployment and hot reloading, quicker feedback methods may be set up.

Community Support

The largest social media platform, Facebook, consistently supports using React. One major perk is that Facebook has a dedicated team constantly developing and improving React.

In contrast to other similar services, Vue is not supported by a large organization. That doesn’t mean it isn’t well-liked or backed by the locals. The reason is: the Vue community is much smaller than the React one.

More than 331,000 questions related to React have been asked on StackOverflow. In addition, it has received over 174,200 stars on Github as of this writing. There are over 187,800 Vue stars on Github and over 83,000 queries on StackOverflow about Vue.

The Adaptability

Vue and React’s rich component libraries simplify designing component-based user interfaces by allowing developers to reuse code and boost their products more easily.

Vue and React applications may be easily enhanced by including other libraries. Most React source libraries generally add new features or refinements to preexisting components. Vue’s built-in plugin system is used by a number of the third-party libraries it supports.

Convenient Development Resources

Create-react-app, a command line interface (CLI) tool made available by a third party since 2016, helps developers with activities like app construction, scripting, etc. In the past, developers using React had the option of either recreating previously existing files or starting from scratch. Although it did not take long, it was a lot of work.

In contrast, Vue provides a tool called Vue CLI for quick project development. Vue CLI has several benefits, such as the flexibility to install plugins at any stage of the project and the ease with which changes can be made.

Mobile Development

The best parts of native development and React, the state-of-the-art JavaScript UI framework, are combined in React Native. Your current apps on Android and iOS may be adapted easily to work with React Native, or you can start over and create a new app.

Because of the similarities between React and React Native’s components, 99 percent of your JS code may be reused on both mobile platforms. Because of this need, a cross-platform app that is visually consistent with and performs similarly to native iOS and Android apps has been developed.

Create native widgets with full customization options. It’s easy to develop iOS/Android companion apps that look and feel natural because of the React Native framework, which treats the presentation layer as a perfect state output.

Vue may be second to React in popularity, but it offers flexible alternatives for mobile development. There’s NativeScript, for starters, which makes it possible to build Vue apps and have them automatically produced as native iOS and Android apps.

Wrap Up

React, Vue, or any other JavaScript-based method is impressive in its way. Unfortunately, it’s hard to choose a particular technology over other. Determine your intended application before comparing the available functionality of various platforms.

There is a large and active open-source community behind React, which has been successful in business. The increased scalability of the library facilitates the development of sophisticated business software. React’s flexibility stems from its status as a library, which enables features like the manual re-rendering of components.

The library’s implementation of state and interaction demonstrates its heavy reliance on functional programming approaches.

The popularity of Vue, a framework for developing user interfaces, keeps rising. A more traditional syntax makes porting over from other frameworks to Vue less hassle. The accompanying documentation is unparalleled in its field. The core team has included additional in-built features and partnered libraries to improve Vue as a framework. This makes the development process easier to carry out.

So, if you are looking for a top web app development company for your next company – MTPL can offer help. You can contact our experts for a free consultation.