When it comes to modern web development, the JavaScript ecosystem is full of frameworks, each boasting its unique strengths. Among the heavyweights like Angular, React, and Vue, Svelte and SvelteKit have emerged as formidable contenders, drawing in developers who value simplicity, performance, and a seamless developer experience.
Here’s a breakdown of why people love each of these frameworks, and why Svelte stands out as the best option in 2024 for both new and seasoned developers.
1. Angular: The Enterprise Giant
Why People Love Angular:
Angular is ideal for enterprise-level applications due to its opinionated, full-featured framework that comes with everything built-in: from routing to state management.
- TypeScript by default: Angular leverages TypeScript for highly structured code.
- Powerful tools: Features like RxJS make it excellent for handling complex, asynchronous data flows.
- Well-suited for large apps: Its component-based architecture and scalability make it perfect for large, enterprise-grade apps.
Why People Shouldn’t Use Angular:
Angular’s strength can be its weakness. For smaller or simpler projects, it’s often overkill, with excessive boilerplate and a steeper learning curve.
- Complexity: Its all-in-one nature makes it hard to learn for beginners.
- Hefty framework: Large bundle sizes can lead to performance issues.
- Too rigid: Angular's opinionated architecture can be restrictive in certain projects.
Who Should Stick With Angular:
If you’re building a complex, large-scale application with multiple teams or need enterprise-level architecture, Angular is a solid choice. But if you need speed and flexibility, there are more streamlined options available.
2. React: The Overhyped Favorite
Why People Love React:
React has long been a go-to for building interactive UIs, thanks to its component-based approach and flexibility. Developers enjoy the freedom it offers when crafting architectures and leveraging its vast ecosystem.
- Virtual DOM: Enables efficient updates to the UI.
- Vast ecosystem: A plethora of libraries and third-party tools integrate easily with React.
- Component reuse: Encourages building reusable, functional components.
Why People Shouldn’t Use React:
React is not a full-fledged framework, which means you’ll need to integrate external libraries for routing, state management, and more. While flexible, it can also become unmanageable without a clear architecture. Not to mention, React’s virtual DOM can cause performance bottlenecks if not handled carefully.
- Incomplete framework: You’ll constantly need third-party tools.
- Over-complicated for beginners: React’s learning curve is steep, especially with JSX.
- Performance pitfalls: Improper use of React can lead to slow rendering.
The Reality About React in 2024:
The only real reason to stick with React in 2024 is if you’re dealing with an existing, unmanageable legacy project or if you’re unskilled or unwilling to learn modern tools. React owes its popularity largely to Facebook’s massive PR machine, funding, and brand recognition, which made it famous early on. As a result, its job market grew regardless of its inherent weaknesses. But in a world that values speed and efficient tooling, React’s time is coming to an end unless it evolves drastically.
Who Should Stick With React:
If you’re maintaining a large, legacy React project, switching can be tough. But for new projects? In 2024, you should seriously reconsider using React, as modern alternatives like Svelte are leaps ahead.
3. Vue: The Underdog Competitor
Why People Love Vue:
Vue is often seen as a middle ground between the flexibility of React and the comprehensive structure of Angular. It’s approachable for beginners and can scale to handle larger, more complex applications.
- Gentle learning curve: Vue’s syntax is easy to grasp for new developers.
- Progressive adoption: You can gradually introduce Vue into your projects without a massive overhaul.
- Reactive data binding: Simplifies dynamic data handling and forms.
Why People Shouldn’t Use Vue:
Despite its strong community, Vue struggles with enterprise adoption compared to React or Angular. Vue also comes with slight abstractions from Vanilla JavaScript, which can introduce a learning curve—especially for developers coming from other frameworks. Its frequent use of : in templating can feel cumbersome at first, though users typically adapt over time. Furthermore, Vue lacks the kind of financial backing that frameworks like Svelte have, raising concerns about long-term sustainability.
- Smaller ecosystem: Vue still lags behind React in terms of third-party integrations and tooling.
- Less enterprise focus: Vue hasn't been adopted on the same scale by enterprises as Angular or React.
The Vue Reality in 2024:
Vue is really the only close competitor to Svelte in terms of simplicity and performance. However, Vue falls behind for several reasons. While Evan You, Vue’s creator, has managed to maintain the framework through Patreon contributions, speaking engagements, and consulting services, he wasn’t directly paid to maintain it. This is in contrast to Svelte, which is backed by Vercel, ensuring continuous growth and innovation.
Recently, Evan You announced his involvement with a new company. In a post on X, he shared that he has co-founded Void Zero Dev, a company building a unified toolchain for JavaScript, raising $4.6M in seed funding. With his attention now divided between Vue and his new venture, the future of Vue may face some uncertainty.
While others contribute to Vue’s maintenance, this isn’t the same level of focus or support we see with Svelte, which is pushing ahead rapidly. With the release of Svelte 5, the gap between the two frameworks continues to grow, making Svelte the superior choice for the future.
Who Should Stick With Vue:
If you’re already invested in Vue, there’s no immediate reason to switch, but if you’re starting a new project, Svelte is quickly pulling ahead, especially when considering its ease of use, backed future development, and the strong trajectory it’s on.
4. Svelte: The Game Changer (and the Clear Winner)
Why People Love Svelte:
Svelte has flipped the script on how frameworks work. Instead of relying on a virtual DOM, Svelte compiles your app to native, efficient JavaScript at build time. This means your app is faster, smaller, and requires no runtime framework code—just pure JS.
- No virtual DOM overhead: Svelte compiles away the need for virtual DOM diffing.
- Minimal boilerplate: Svelte’s syntax is close to HTML, CSS, and VanillaJS, which makes it simple and intuitive.
- Smaller bundle sizes: Without the bloat of a runtime library, Svelte apps are incredibly lightweight.
Why Svelte is the Best Framework for New Developers:
For first-time JavaScript developers, Svelte is by far the best choice. It stays close to core HTML, CSS, and VanillaJS, making it extremely approachable for those learning web development. Anything that works in VanillaJS will work in Svelte, and you won’t have to learn the complex ecosystem that frameworks like React demand.
SvelteKit extends this simplicity into the full-stack realm, offering seamless server-side rendering, static site generation, and more. With the release of Svelte 5, Svelte is getting even closer to JavaScript’s native API by simplifying syntax—no more on:click; just use onclick like you would in regular JS.
Svelte Has Built-In Solutions for Modern Web Development:
Unlike React or Vue, where you often have to hunt for external libraries, Svelte comes packed with built-in features:
- SEO: SvelteKit provides amazing SEO features out-of-the-box, both dynamic and static, which is crucial for modern applications.
- Animations: It’s incredibly easy to add beautiful animations directly into your components.
- State management: Svelte’s reactive state management is baked right into the framework, so you don’t need external libraries like Redux.
In addition, animation and styling libraries that were once exclusive to React are now available seamlessly in Svelte, such as ShadCN-Svelte, Aceternity UI Svelte, and Svelte Magic UI, to name a few. Practically anything that can be made in React can easily be made in Svelte, and over time, many more libraries will follow. As the community grows, the gap between React and Svelte is narrowing, with Svelte overtaking it in many areas.
Why People Shouldn’t Use Svelte (Short-Term Job Market Perspective):
If your short-term goal is to get a job at a large corporation, you may find that most companies still rely on React for their web development needs. The job market is currently tilted towards React, largely due to its legacy and Facebook’s early backing. For this reason, if you’re strictly looking to get hired quickly by a company with established tech stacks, React could be a safer choice—for now.
However, for those with long-term goals as web developers, sticking with Svelte is a better investment. As the market evolves, frameworks like Svelte will likely become more prominent due to its performance advantages, simplicity, and modern approach. The shift away from React-based systems is already happening, and Svelte is leading the charge.
Freelancers and Svelte:
If you’re a freelancer, the situation is even more favorable. Unless your client specifically requests a particular framework, you can simply use Svelte to build their project. They won’t know the difference, but they will notice the improved speed and performance of their web app. Chances are, they’ll thank you later for choosing a framework that delivers a better user experience, with smaller bundle sizes and faster load times.
In short, for freelancers and forward-thinking developers, Svelte offers an edge both in the quality of your builds and in future-proofing your skills.
The Final Verdict: Svelte Is the Framework of the Future
At the end of the day, Svelte offers a superior development experience, especially for new developers and modern projects. It combines the best of performance, simplicity, and native-like development, without the complexities of tools like React and Angular. Its built-in features for SEO, state management, and animations make it a one-stop solution for building fast, scalable, and beautiful web apps.
While Vue is the closest competitor, the lack of consistent focus from its creator and the fact that Svelte is backed by Vercel give Svelte the edge. React? Its fame is now mostly tied to its legacy presence in the market. The modern web developer should be looking to frameworks that are fast, efficient, and built for the future.
In 2024, there’s simply no better choice than Svelte!
Photo by Bharat Patil on Unsplash
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