JavaScript is now the #1 programming language in the world and also the king of web development. If you want to become a web developer who can quickly create websites as you see on the internet then a good knowledge of JavaScript and various, popular JavaScript web development framework is very important for you.
JavaScript started its journey as a client-side scripting language which could be used along with HTML for writing web pages and provide dynamic functionality at the client-side like the validation of input and animations.
In this article, we are going to share some of the most useful JavaScript libraries you can use for web development. As a developer, you should know when you can leverage them to build your project. The list includes frameworks like Angular, Ember.JS, Node.JS, and libraries like jQuery and ReactJS
jQuery
jQuery is probably the most popular JavaScript library out there which provides so many features for modern-day development.
You can use jQuery API for event handling, animation and manipulating of the HTML document, also known as DOM. Besides this, jQuery is being used with Angular and React App building tools too. In short, one of the must-know JavaScript library for web development.
Backbone.js
Backbone.js is a JavaScript library with a RESTful JSON interface and is based on the Model, View, and Presenter design paradigm. It provides structure to heavy web applications.
It also provides models with key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing API over a RESTful JSON interface.
If a UI action allows a model attribute to change, it will result in an automatic change of event. The changes on the models are propagated to UI to help them to re-render themselves.
React JS
React is Facebook’s component-based web development framework for making UIs and offering declarative views, which makes the code more predictable and easier to debug.
It doesn’t support controllers or models. React can also render on the server using Node and power mobile apps using React Native. In short, it allows you to build powerful, fast, user-friendly and reactive web apps.
Node.js
Node.js or Node JS is another powerful JavaScript framework which allows you to develop a server-side component using JavaScript.
The biggest advantage of Node JS is that now you can develop a web application end-to-end using just JavaScript. It’s free and runs on various platforms (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, etc.)
Node.js package ecosystem, npm, is also the largest ecosystem of open source libraries in the world.
Vue.js
Vue.js is another open-source progressive JavaScript framework for building user interfaces, similar to React.
The USP of Vue.js is its adaptability, integration into projects that use other JavaScript libraries is very easy with Vue because it is designed to be incrementally adoptable. It also supports declarative rendering using template syntax to provide data to the DOM.
Ember.js
Ember.js is another popular, open-source JavaScript web framework which is based on the Model and View pattern.
It allows developers to create scalable single-page web applications by incorporating common idioms and best practices into the framework itself.
It has integrated features like templates also known as handlebars that helps in writing less code and have the ability to update themselves with a change in data. Ember.js can be installed via NPM.
Angular
Angular previously known as Angular JS is a single web development framework developed by Google for both desktop and mobile web applications.
Angular aims at creating progressive web apps by offering dependency injection that helps in data service assembly for applications while an HTML template that is used for composing templates. Angular also has a powerful ecosystem that includes four data libraries and support in IDEs.
Polymer JS
The PolymerJs is another open-source JavaScript library that helps you create custom reusable HTML elements, which can be used to build performant, maintainable web applications.
If you compare Angular with Polymer as both are developed by Google, then Angular is a complete framework for building web apps, whereas Polymer is just a library for creating Web Components.
Meteor JS
Meteor or MeteorJS is a full-stack JavaScript platform for developing modern web and mobile applications.
Meteor includes a key set of technologies for building connected-client reactive applications, a build tool, and a curated set of packages from the Node.js and general JavaScript community.
Ext.JS
Ext.JS is a commercial Javascript product rather than free and open source stuff we have been discussing so far.
Ext JS or Sencha Ext JS is used for making data-intensive, enterprise-oriented and cross-platform web applications. It provides several sophisticated UI components like calendars and data grid.
