Vue vs React in 2022:What to Choose and When

React

React is a JavaScript UI development library run by Facebook and the open-source community. Being fast, scalable, and simple, React.js is a common choice of most Fortune 500 companies, especially for building single-page applications. With React you can develop not only easy-to-use interfaces but also high-quality complex apps. 

Pros of React

# Simple Learning and Usage

The primary reason for achieving such popularity in a short time is the fact that React is considerably easier to use in comparison with interface frameworks such as Vue or Angular. If we talk about experienced developers with good knowledge of JS, mastering React won’t take much effort for them.

For business owners, it means a large talent pool and quick implementation of new capabilities into existing IT maintenance structures. 

# Reusable Components

Multiple reusable components build a React.js web application that has its own logic and controls and each of them is in charge of outputting a reusable part of HTML code. The code can be reused wherever you need which makes it easier to maintain and develop your application.

#Performance

React.js uses a virtual DOM which eliminates the problem of slow app performance. The Virtual Dom is totally based on memory and represents the web browser’s DOM. So, when a programmer writes virtual components, they’re not directly written to the DOM which leads to smooth and fast performance.

Cons of React

# Poor Documentation

React is being developed so quickly that documentation frequently fails to keep up. On the one hand, rapidly developing technology is a big advantage but on the other hand, the absence of proper documentation might lead to inconvenience and delays in the development process. Often, developers write their own manuals that follow new releases.

Vue

After years of working with Angular, a former Google employee, Evan You, made a decision to create a lightweight framework that would contain all the best features of Angular, React, and Ember. The Vue.js versatile functionality is focused on interface-related tasks and is perfect for complex front-end operations.

Pros of Vue

# Simplicity

The idea behind Vue is to achieve the best possible result with minimal effort. Vue consists of single-file documents that include different kinds of code  JS, CSS, HTML, etc. Programmers need just a few lines of code to get unmatched functionality.

Moreover, knowing the fundamentals of JavaScript, HTML, and CSS is enough to set off with Vue.

# Progressiveness

Vue can be easily integrated into other frameworks such as React or Angular to customize the project. The integration process is very simple and it’s also one of the main reasons why Vue is so popular. 

By gradually introducing additional markup to the HTML code, the framework adapts to the needs of the developers so they don’t have to rewrite an existing application or start a server.

# Model-View-Viewmodel Architecture

MVVM architecture used by Vue significantly enhances the UI experience by simplifying user interface event-driven programming.

Vue focuses mainly on the ViewModel layer of MVVM architecture. It means that the user interface is separated from the app logic and when the UI gets old, for example, you won’t need to redesign the whole application but just plug in a needed template.

Cons of Vue

# Lack of Scalability

Mostly because of not being backed up by any tech giant yet, Vue is mainly used for building single-page applications and user interfaces rather than big complex apps.

Similarities

Vue and React are very similar in scope. Both of them:

• use virtual DOM;
• provide reactive and composable view components;
• easy version migration;
• a wide variety of libraries and tools;
• good performance and speed;
• big communities and support.

Differences

Still, there is some difference between React and Vue.

• Vue is a framework while React is a library;
• In React everything is just JS while Vue embraces classic web technologies and develops on the top of them;
• React uses only JSX while Vue also uses HTML templates;
• Vue offers a variety of community-built solutions, with its team building a lot of commonly used tools. React offers only components and DOM manipulation, everything else is provided by its community.

React vs Vue.js Let’s Take a Look in Detail

Popularity

The popularity of the framework or library is proportional to the number of the available for hire programmers and the quality of third-party libraries. What is more, the fact that the technology is widely used means that someone has already solved the problems you might face in the process of developing your app. Vue vs React: which is more popular?

Being developed and maintained by Facebook, React has an enormous community with a large number of courses, tutorials, packages, tools, and extensions.

According to Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2021, React.js takes first place among the most common web frameworks, surpassing iQuery.

It’s also the most wanted technology, desired by one in four developers while Vue takes second place in the chart.

Vue has more stars on Github compared to React: 188k to 174k correspondingly.

 10,630,448 live sites are using React and 1,936,822 use Vue.

Consequently, the demand for React programmers is much higher compared to Vue. According to Indeed, there are more than 67k open positions in the US for React devs and over 10k for Vue programmers.

So, what about the salary? In the US, the average salary of React programmers is around $82k annually, and $88k for Vue developers per year, according to Glassdoor. In Eastern Europe, it’s much more profitable to hire experts in both technologies. For instance, a Vue or React dev in Ukraine will cost you approximately $35k. 

Summing up, React is more popular than Vue and there is a bigger demand for experienced React developers which also makes it easier to hire devs for your project. 

Documentation

Documentation of React covers the basics of the development process, plus some advanced concepts. However, it misses a detailed overview of the React ecosystem and frequently fails to catch up with updates. Documentation is translated into a wide range of languages so developers without a good manner of English can also master it.

Having one of the most well-written documentation among competitors, Vue is an obvious winner in this section. Vue documentation teaches everything one needs to know to build applications and its API references stand out among others.

Vue vs React Performance

Both Vue and React have excellent performance with very small bundle sizes that significantly boost the initial load. The benchmark below, compares memory allocation, startup times, and operations duration.

However, benchmarks are not the only thing that can tell about performance. The size of your app and optimization also plays an important role.

Both tools use a virtual DOM which doesn’t depend on the browser and automatically renders HTML pages. That’s the reason why the speed and performance of Vue vs React applications don’t differ a lot. The only difference appears when it comes to component creation and updates. Using React, programmers need to re-optimize components wherever they make a change while Vue automatically tracks them. 

Tooling

React has a third-party CLI tool named create-react-app that provides CLI interfaces 

to develop apps with basic structures. The tool greatly simplifies app development, adding scripts, and installing dependencies.

One of the main advantages of Vue CLI is the ability to handle project setup and scaffolding without a need to worry about folder structure. Instant prototyping, anytime plugins adding, and config reference are among other benefits that help to produce a greater output using simple, editable commands.

State Management

Generally, both tools follow similar approaches in managing the components’ state as both of them revolve around a Virtual DOM despite their own concepts.

Redux is a complex and well-documented library that is most commonly used in projects where the app state changes frequently. It works with any UI layer, has a large ecosystem of addons, uses “time-travel debugging”, and has powerful capabilities like undo/redo and state persistence. 

Pinia is a new official state management library for Vue. It has the same enhanced API as Vuex 5, weighs around 1kb, hooks into Vue dev tools, and provides you with autocompletion even in JS. Vuex 3 and 4 are still maintained through new functionalities are unlikely to be added there.

Flexibility

As React doesn’t provide you with state management, you need to use a third-party package like Redux, Flux, or MobX.

Vue provides you with an official state management tool, previously it used to be Vuex, and now Pinia. They are officially supported and kept up-to-date with the core library.

Mobile

React engineers utilize React Native to build mobile applications. React Native allows building cross-platform iOS and Android apps using JS. It reuses almost 99% of JS code, as a result, cross-platform applications built with React Native perform and look exactly like native iOS or Android apps. React is also commonly used for PWA web development.

NativeScript is used by Vue developers to build cross-platform apps using JS, CSS, and XML. Contrary to React Native, syntax and implementation of NativeScript are much easier for web devs. Other options include Capacitor from the Ionic team and Vue Native (Vue Native has been deprecated and is no longer maintained).

Though it would be fair to mention that React Native brings a much better mobile development experience and results and beats the Vue option in popularity.

Scalability

React is a perfect, lightweight tool to build scalable UIs. As its applications are made up of pure JS, engineers can easily scale up their projects. Devs can just import the library and add JS features with React components. The library is also good for big SPAs.

Vue is especially good for building interactive multi-page apps. Devs can import the core library and just add Vue to an already existing multi-page application. Additional packages must be installed for routing and form validation. Installation of project dependencies as plugins significantly increases flexibility.

Though Vue is quite good for building huge SPAs, React definitely has more functionality for it.

Talent Availability

According to Node Package Manager, React.js remains the most popular JS framework, being downloaded 4,5 times more frequently than Vue.js in the period of time from April 2021 to April 2022.

Security

Applications built with React are considered to be more prone to SQL injections, XSS vulnerabilities, and Server-side rendering attacks. The developers can implement various security practices such as exploiting script-injection flaws, protection from insecure links, etc.

Though the main vulnerability of React apps comes from XSS and React APIs that connect you to other services. Therefore you must ensure that the connection is encrypted with TLS, validate the commands of API requests, use the JSX auto-escaping features, and employ some other security techniques to immediately identify hacking attempts.

Vue doesn’t have automatic protection from XSS vulnerability attacks and similar threats. Though with the help of other libraries or sanitizing the HTML code before implementation, developers can guarantee to keep the application safe.

The most important thing to mind about security is that it rather depends on the development practices you use rather than the technology you picked up, as all the aforementioned “threats” can be avoided by choosing the right defense. 

Development Cost

The cost of software development is induced by many factors such as the experience of devs, the size of your team, the functionality of the software, and so on. Of course, developing software in the US will be a few times more expensive than developing it in Ukraine, for instance. 

In general, a Vue app will be a little more expensive to develop than a React app, mainly due to the lack of availability of experienced Vue developers.

Web Apps Made with Vue.js and React

In Which Case Should You Choose React or Vue?

Both tools are great for any needs and requirements, provide a clean code, are fast, scalable, and have extensive and growing communities. However, React can offer a much bigger talent pool of engineers so it will be easier for you to build your team swiftly.

Final Thoughts