The Best JS Development Tools for Developers in 2024

The top JavaScript frameworks allow them to use the most up-to-date technologies and easily build a variety of mobile and web-based applications and software. Before introducing a few of those most well-known JavaScript frameworks, let’s first get a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts. 

What is JavaScript Framework?

JavaScript framework is a collection of pre-written JavaScript code that web developers use to save time and make coding easier. Web developers can create robust applications with no JavaScript frameworks, but use advantages like templates that can handle the basic programming patterns. 

If you begin developing an application with JS frameworks, you will not repeatedly write the same feature code. Instead, you could export these features to framework libraries and then continue.

It's well known that JavaScript is among the most popular front and back-end web app development languages. Using the top JavaScript tools to develop web pages gives developers a head start with various pre-built modules and features for smooth JavaScript applications.

JS has undertaken the groundwork for creating interactive websites or web-based apps. It serves as the basis while the popular JavaScript frameworks provide all the tools for enhancing functionalities and aesthetics.

Benefits of JavaScript Framework

• JavaScript frameworks streamline and speed up the development of web-based applications.
• They are used to handle tasks such as data management, user interface design, and client-side communications.
• JavaScript frameworks simplify web development, making it more accessible to developers of all experience levels.
• These frameworks are considered the skeletal or structural basis of larger components, serving as the foundation upon which applications are built.
• They function as flexible templates with predefined functions that accelerate the development process.
• Using the built-in functions of a framework eliminates the need to write all the code from scratch, saving significant time and effort.

Why Do Developers Prefer the JavaScript Framework?

The community of developers is enthralled using the latest JavaScript frameworks. Are you wondering why?

They are designed with model/view isolation. Unlike other programming languages used in web programming, the JavaScript framework gives users ease of use and familiarity with Object-Oriented Programming. It provides web pages with abundant dynamic capabilities, making them more nimble and engaging.

Creating web applications and websites can take time from the beginning to the end. JavaScript developers, for instance, use online frameworks—specifically, JavaScript frameworks—that offer the benefit of sharing common characteristics across most websites and web apps. 

The pre-written JavaScript codes that produce basic programming functions are interpreted through JavaScript frameworks, simplifying the management of the entire development process.

18 Best JS Development Tools for Developers

Let’s learn about some of the most effective and well-known JavaScript frameworks.

1. Angular 

With Google's support and a thriving social media community, custom AngularJS development has gained a lot of popularity over the years. It is particularly noticeable in corporate-level configurations, particularly when used with TypeScript.

Its versatility is evident through its two-way binding, which allows instantaneous sync between view and model, making it a good choice for mobile and web applications. The Angular CLI can help reduce boilerplate code, even though it can be more complex than Vue and React. 

Despite its limitations, AngularJS developers prefer it for developing high-performance, progressive web applications for various OS.

Why Use AngularJS?

• Comprehensive framework for web development
• Synchronizes data between model and view
• Encourages modular and reusable components
• Supports efficient dependency management
• Robust command-line interface for project scaffolding
• Utilizes RxJS for handling asynchronous operations

2. React

It's no surprise that React remains a top choice for 2024 due to its strong component-based architecture, which makes it easy to build high-interactivity user interfaces. This architecture is especially useful when creating simple-page websites (SPAs) and complex UIs using reusable components, which allows developers to break the user interface into manageable components.

Virtual DOM implementation increases performance by limiting changes directly to actual DOM, resulting in quicker rendering.

Why Use React? 

• Allows writing components in a declarative way
• Encourages building UIs with reusable components
• Optimizes rendering performance with a virtual DOM
• Combines HTML with JavaScript for component rendering
• Facilitates unidirectional data flow
• Supports developing mobile apps with native UI components

3. Vue.JS

Vue.JS is a progressive framework for building one-page apps. It's useful and built to be scalable. It is also easy to connect with other libraries and is focused exclusively on the visual layer. It is widely used and accepted within the developer community to create applications for mobile and desktop devices.

Why Use Vue.JS? 

• Easy to learn and integrate
• Efficiently updates the DOM with reactive data binding
• Encourages building UIs with reusable components
• Optimizes rendering performance with a virtual DOM
• Offers both full-fledged framework and library capabilities
• An extensive ecosystem with libraries and tools for development 

4. EmberJS

EmberJS is rapidly becoming one of the best JavaScript frameworks for creating scalable websites and single-page apps (SPAs).

EmberJS aims at boosting developers' productivity. It allows access to standard capabilities like routing, data management, and templating. It also improves the software developers' efficiency and effectiveness in creating applications, maintenance, and optimization. 

Why Use EmberJS? 

• Uses Handlebars for templating
• Powerful routing system for managing application state
• Encapsulates UI and behavior in reusable components
• Includes a robust CLI for project setup and maintenance
• Integrated data management with Ember Data library

5. TezJS

TezJS is an open-source, fastest JavaScript framework that provides flexibility, scalability, incredible speed, and web performance. According to a recent survey, TezJS has become the most effective and innovative web framework. 

TezJS combines the cutting-edge Vue.js framework, the latest front-end software Vite, and the Headless CMS Strapi (for the back-end) to provide developers with a great user experience with little configuration.

Why Use TezJS?

• Content Lazy Loading
• Loading Images with Service Workers
• Progressive Bootstrapping
• PRPL Pattern
• Automatic and Route-based Code Splitting
• Support for headless CMS

6. AureliaJS

AureliaJS is an innovative, free-of-cost UI (User Interface) framework that assists software development service companies in creating powerful mobile and web apps. This framework increases JavaScript's capabilities, allowing developers to get more JavaScript code.

Why Use AureliaJS?

• Focuses on modern JavaScript standards
• Powerful two-way data binding capabilities
• Built-in dependency injection for components
• Emphasizes modular architecture for scalability
• Minimizes setup and configuration
• Easily extend functionality with plugins and custom components

7. Preact

Preact is a light, fast, high-performance swift library, and an alternative to React. Despite its 3KB size (minified and compressed) it still provides all the functionality you need from React becoming one of the most powerful JavaScript frameworks. 

Preact was designed by Jason Miller, a Senior Developer Programs Engineer at Google, and is thought of as a subset of React that removes some of its features.

Why Use Preact? 

• Small footprint, ideal for performance-critical apps
• Efficiently updates the DOM for speed
• API compatible with React
• Encourages modular and reusable components
• Supports React-like hooks for state and effects
• Allows JSX syntax for component rendering

8. Svelte JS

Svelte JS, released in 2016, is a free front-end JS Framework. You can build elements with Svelte JS using the language you are familiar with such as JavaScript, HTML, or CSS. There's a major distinction between Svelte and other frameworks. It does not use Virtual DOM like React and Vue.

Why Use SvelteJS? 

• Transforms code into highly efficient JavaScript
• No overhead from a virtual DOM
• Automatically updates components upon data modification
• Generates small and optimized bundle sizes
• Built-in support for easy animations
• Encapsulates styles and logic within components

9. MeteorJS 

MeteorJS is among the most effective JavaScript web frameworks. It is based on an isomorphic framework (i.e., it renders pages seamlessly on both the server and client sides). 

This framework was developed with Node.js and is used for cross-platform web development and iOS and Android mobile application development.

Why Use MeteorJS? 

• Offers a full-stack platform for web and mobile apps
• Built-in support for real-time data updates
• Code runs on both client and server
• Extensive package ecosystem for rapid development
• Simplified deployment and hosting options
• Active community and support resources

10. PolymerJS

Google launched PolymerJS at the end of May 2013. The Polymer library was designed to make the web faster and easier for developers by providing outstanding and reusable components. 

PolymerJS also includes web-component-based elements that can be used to build custom and reusable elements. This is why it's among the most popular JavaScript frameworks.

Why Use PolymerJS? 

• Facilitates the creation of reusable web components
• Supports efficient two-way data binding
• Utilizes encapsulated styling with Shadow DOM
• Offers powerful and flexible templating capabilities
• Ensures compatibility with older browsers
• Allows modular development with component libraries

11. AlpineJS

AlpineJS is a powerful yet lightweight framework that enhances your markup with interactive capabilities. Think of it as jQuery for modern web development. To get started, simply add the script tag. 

AlpineJS includes fifteen attributes, six properties, and two methods that make it the simplest JavaScript framework. It was developed by Caleb Porzio, also the creator of Livewire.

Why Use AlpineJS? 

• Simplifies DOM manipulation declaratively
• Lightweight library for frontend interactions
• Uses pure JavaScript, with no build step
• Provides reactive and declarative directives
• Encourages modular UI components
• Works independently, with no external dependencies

12. ThreeJS 

ThreeJS is the most popular choice for developing innovative 3D graphics and visuals directly within the browser. Utilizing WebGL offers extensive tools and features that allow you to build complex 3D animations, scenes, and visualizations.

Furthermore, the animation-friendly library is extremely flexible, allowing for various materials, geometries, and advanced rendering techniques. This flexibility lets developers create anything from intricate data visualizations to thrilling gaming experiences.

Why Use ThreeJS? 

• Powerful for creating 3D visualizations
• Utilizes WebGL for rendering performance
• Allows custom shader creation
• Supports complex animations and interactions
• Active community and extensive documentation

13. Lodash.JS 

The modular design of Lodash.JS lets developers add functions when needed, reducing the size of the bundle and improving performance. With its support for ES6 exports, Lodash permits tree-shaking to eliminate unwanted code in building applications and optimize its efficiency.

Lodash excels at providing solidly tested, reliable methods for deep cloning objects, merging objects, and managing arrays. Its array of features gives powerful solutions for manipulating and changing information structures, making tasks such as chunking, flattening, or zipping arrays simple and effective.

Why Use Lodash? 

• Comprehensive for common programming tasks
• Allows selective method imports
• Optimized for speed and efficiency
• Supports method chaining for readability
• Works across various JavaScript environments
• Functions for working with immutability

14. NuxtJS

NuxtJS framework makes it easier to develop Universal Vue.js Applications. It focuses mainly on UI rendering and abstracting the server/client distribution.

As a framework with a strong opinion, Nuxt.js provides conventions and default configurations that can significantly reduce the time and effort needed to set up a new project. This makes it especially attractive for projects where speedy growth and well-defined structures are crucial.

NuxtJS is also famous for server-side rendering (SSR), which can be extremely beneficial for SEO and initial load times. It can also create static websites from Vue.js applications using Static Site Generation (SSG). 

Why Use NuxtJS?

• Comes with a robust routing system
• Offers a plugin system and a modular structure,
• Allows you to expand its core functionality by utilizing various modules
• Offers a variety of plugins, resources, and modules

15. Gatsby

Gatsby is a new web framework based on React that was developed to create fast and effective websites and apps. One of its most notable features is its emphasis on performance, achieved through static site generation (SSG), which enables the creation of fast and secure websites.

Gatsby can also connect with a wide variety of data sources, including APIs, CMSs, database systems, and file systems. This flexibility lets you use preferred data sources and convert them into a single GraphQL schema.

Why Use Gatsby? 

• An excellent framework for developing PWA
• Offers App-like Experience for websites on Mobile Devices
• Extensive Collection of plugins to extend the functionality of websites
• Leverages modern web technologies such as React and GraphQL to enhance website’s capabilities

16. Astro

Astro is a contemporary front-end framework designed to build speedy, content-driven websites. It lets developers create components using their preferred JavaScript frameworks, such as React, Vue, or Svelte while providing lightning-fast performance using less JavaScript in the browser. Astro utilizes an ingenious "island-architecture" design, where the components (or islands) interact. 

Why Use Astro?

• Lets you write your components with your preferred JS framework
• Allows developers to pass value from parent component to child component
• File-based Routing
• Static Site Generation
• Modern Syntax
• Built-In Optimization

17. ElectronJS

ElectronJS, previously called Atom Shell, is well-known, open-source software and is among the most effective JavaScript frameworks for creating cross-platform desktop apps using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It is a blend of Chromium and Node.js that allows developers to create solutions that run on any operating system, whether it's Windows, MacOS, or Linux.

Why Use ElectronJS? 

• Robust Library Systems
• Solid Documentation
• Good for cross-platform app development 

18. Jest

Another top choice in our list is Jest, one of the most popular JavaScript back-end frameworks for testing web-based applications. In collaboration with Facebook, Jest has grown in popularity among developers in only a few months. The primary advantage of Jest is its ease of use. Its simplicity allows developers to quickly understand and start using it right after installation.

Why Use Jest? 

• Simplicity of Use
• Great tool for building JS library projects with NodeJS, VueJS, Babel, Typescript, and AngularJS.

The Key Takeaway

Knowing the various JavaScript frameworks alone won't help you select. Before you choose a development tool, consider your application's style and capabilities. Like bespoke AngularJS development offers a range of capabilities that can be tailored to create highly customized and efficient applications. However, understanding the complexities involved in utilizing such a framework is equally important. 

It’s also essential to understand which JavaScript framework best meets your needs and consider the key factors when evaluating your options.