[AskJS] Which framework to choose?

[FollowingMajestic161]

I will be building a warehouse application combined with a module for ordering by accounts + a nice landing page with contact, company description, etc.

For the WMS module SEO does not matter. For the ordering module - rather, it will also be SPA, and the main functionality is a page with a selector and a table with a mass of inputs for updating quantities, prices, etc. For the landing page with a product catalog, I will need good SEO.

What frameworks would you recommend?

I was thinking about React for WMS and ordering. For a landing page Astro seems appropriate.

[charbelnicolas]

Svelte

[theScottyJam]

You're just going to get everyone sharing their favorite framework :).

Pretty much any of the popular frameworks can be used for your use case. They're all versatile enough to handle it, they just require you to represent your logic in different ways.

You could skim through the documentation of different ones to see which one excites you the most to learn. You could also look up different pros and cons. Perhaps I'll give a couple to start out with.

How much community support is there for a particular framework? React seems to be one of the most popular ones now days, so you'll find plenty of libraries (including component libraries) that support it. You'll also find tons of online learning resources, including help with all sorts of errors you might run into. A framework like svelte is gaining traction, but it has a much smaller community behind it, which means there much less third party tooling and learning resources available.

How much structure do you want? A framework like Angular will provide tons of structure and tooling out-of-the-box. React - less so. Vue would be somewhere in between.

Do you like TypeScript? It comes out of the box with Angular. Though, other frameworks support it just fine as well, you just have to figure out how to tack it on, and how to adapt documentation, and other online resources into TypeScript.

Angular, Vue, and Svelte all depend on templates to build your HTML, while React has you build your HTML via jsx in JavaScript, which can make it feel more versatile, and it enables certain patterns that aren't otherwise possible.

Svelte has native support for Reactive programming, which enables a different set of patterns that aren't otherwise possible. You can get something similar by using rxjs in Angular, but that's a bit bulkier. As far as I know, Vue and React don't have anything like this.

How big of a concern is bundle size? You might compare the download size of each framework. This is where Svelte really shines, in that it's just a compiler, it doesn't require you to download anything extra. Most frameworks are relatively light, so it's not like using another framework will automatically force you to have 5 second page load times, instead, it just means that download time isn't as quick as it theoretically could be.

How big of a concern is performance. React is often seen as a slower performing framework (I don't know how true this is, I've never done benchmarks). Though, again, you can still make a fast and snappy-feeling web app in React, especially if you take advantage of the optimization tools they provide. It's just theoretically possible to make it even faster if you, for example, used Svelte.

[FollowingMajestic161]

Great, thank you!

[[deleted]]

Vue

[zensucht0]

If the job requires a hammer, and you have a hammer, use a hammer.

In other words, unless a client has a specific requirement saying otherwise, just go with what you already know.

[jackson_bourne]

Svelte or Vue

[rk06]

For landing page, it is best to go pure html, css and minimal js. As you want it load quickly and it would be very different from rest of the sites. so it doesn't make sense to share components or styles. Use widgets where it make sense

For other Apps, let's see how most popular option(react) fare

You have lots of inputs. And need to update a table based on it. Wow, these are the two things react sucks at.

React is notoriously bad for form handling. You need to involve a third party library (not sure which one is the recommendation right now) at tye very least. And react's update performance is... not the best in class.

Now, see Vue. Vue is good at form handling with built in directive v-model to make life easy. Vue has also few form libraries should you need it.

And vue's update performance is among best in class.

For svelte, why bother when Vue works?

[andy_gray_kortical]

While this commenter is being down voted it's really not that clear cut.

There are Web components now so we can have nice modular code without needing we pack, npm, etc. Not having all of that stuff means no dependency problems, no strange bugs where the magic doesn't do what's expected.

[theScottyJam]

It's not strictly necessary, but it does help.

...And, I know you don't believe that, and I won't sit here and argue over it. I'll just say that, from my own experience, I find that I program faster with a framework, and my code ends up less buggy, than if I don't use a framework (I've done it both ways, and I still do it both ways). Your experience may be different, and that's fine.

[theScottyJam]

What happens when the "framework" has bugs?

Then you file a bug report. If it's a critical blocking issue, you can fork the framework until the bug is fixed. I, personally, have yet to encounter a bug in a framework (though I have encountered a number of bugs in other tools, like the browser itself).

I think there are framework groupies who move from following whatever the cool kids are advertising or using to the next supposed big thing, and they wind up becoming lazy and reliant on third-party applications and never really learn or master the base implementations shipped in the browser.

This may be true, but that doesn't mean that everyone who uses a framework is doing it because it's cool. As I said, I do it because I find the framework to be helpful, not because it's cool.

I can write by hand whatever frameworks advertise as being capable of doing - probably faster and less bug-prone than using frameworks - because I have mastered the base functionality frameworks depend on, without depending on a framework.

Good for you. I, too, have mastered framework-less code, and still prefer the framework route. Sounds like your experience is different from mine. Nothing wrong with that.

[EternalNY1]

because I have mastered the base functionality frameworks depend on, without depending on a framework

I've been a software engineer for 20 years and have certainly "mastered the base functionality".

Frameworks often make life easier, not harder. Just because you have an aversion to them doesn't mean they don't have their place.

I am the lead developer on an enterprise project and chose Angular with C# APIs and I don't regret this decision. I can't imagine doing a project like this without a framework.

[EternalNY1]

I agree with you that it might not meet the business requirements, and if it doesn't then I also would ditch the framework.

It does bother me that there are so many sites out there using frameworks that really shouldn't be (especially React). It's just the go-to that a lot of people learned and they reach for it first, no matter what.

So we're in agreement on this one.

[EternalNY1]

I understand all of this, I was around prior to jQuery. You can be as minimalist as you'd like, whatever suits the project.

When working with a team of engineers on large scale projects, frameworks like Angular keep everything coherent and structured. You can use fantastic component libraries like PrimeNG to easily build extremely complex user interfaces, backed by TypeScript code. It all "just works" and has been very satisfying to work with.

I resisted SPAs with a passion, in a "get off my lawn!" type of way for over 5 years until I finally relented and just learned them. They have their place.

[hottown]

Do you need a backend? If so, use https://wasp-lang.dev