While JavaScript is robust, interactive, and almost all-encompassing, the ecosystem or framework within which it is operated matters to the developer. When a framework is restrictive, the developer’s experience can be anywhere between frustrating and nightmarish. The leading contenders for frameworks are React and Angular, and a recent survey by Stack Overflow, as usual, has placed React as a superior framework over Angular. While professionals favor angular, React is at an all-time high demand by many other developers (professionals) who choose a rich, seamless, and easy-to-use framework. Vue.js, in the survey, had 15.2% preferability, coming sixth. While this is a not-so-top position, the framework has its users. This piece will examine the Vue.js framework, its key features, pros and cons, and things to look out for if you decided to hire vue js developer

The Story Behind Vue.js: What is Vue.js?

In 2013, Evan You, who worked at Google at that time, was building dozens of prototypes within a browser. He applied practices from other pre-existing frameworks he worked with and eventually built his own (a modification of the different structures of other frameworks) in 2014. Vue.js is a JavaScript-used framework that is applied when building mobile and desktop applications with the Electron framework. After its release in 2014, Vue quickly became a favorite frontend tool among developers and was adopted by tech giants like Behance, Adobe, Xiaomi, and Gitlab. ‘For me, Angular offered something cool, which is data binding and a data driven way of dealing with a DOM, so you don’t have to touch the DOM yourself.’ Evans says in an interview. His purpose was to build a framework within Angular; yet remain lightweight.

The Strengths of Vue.js

Featherweight

Vue’s download zip file weighs just 18kb—a testament to Evan’s love for an encompassing yet lightweight framework. Vue’s featherweight size, the fact that it positively impacts SEO and UX, and the ease to download makes it a thorough-love for many developers and companies.

Two-way Data Binding

Vue inherited two-way data binding features from angular, and this feature is essential in DOM manipulations. The two-way data binding allows communication between UI-view and model data updates. With the two-way data binding, not only will you be able to make necessary updates, you will be able to track the effects of these updates in the view (UI) or frontend form.

Virtual DOM Rendering and Enhanced Performance

With Vue, the cumbersomeness of updating the whole DOM—Document Object Model is instantly takes away. Vue uses the virtual DOM—which is like a copy of the original DOM (only, it does not carry all the original weight); hence, rendering and performance becomes easier, faster, and seamless. At the same time, we have leading frameworks in the performance angle, like Vanilla.js or older frameworks, Vue’s performance and possibility of enhanced performance features. With Vue.js, when testing the two-way DOM component and update, performance seems to be higher than Angular and React.

Easy to Use and Understand

One of the reasons why Vue.js is popular is because it is relatively easy to understand. While it may not be a suitable framework for beginners, programmers do not need an in-depth understanding of Typescript, JSX, or libraries. With a basic understanding of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, you can work within the Vue framework.

Readability

In Vue.js, components (a piece of the application or web page you are building using Vue) can be written in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript within a single file component. The architectural framework of a single-file component has quite some benefits, including:

– Excellent for Unit Testing: When making a web or app structure, unit testing is a way to ascertain or analyze the efficiency of the smallest or integral parts of the whole structure.

– Reusability of components.

– Readability of codes.

Other Pros Include

– Excellent documentation (great for both newbies and pro developers)

– Excellent community support

– Great tooling system

Cons of Vue.js

After releasing the Vue.js framework, many Chinese companies like Alibaba and Xiaomi adopted the framework for extensive use. If you search for information on Vue.js, you will most comments, suggestions, and supports are in the Chinese language; hence, we have a language barrier for developers non-Chinese speaking users.

May not Be Suitable for Large Scale Projects.

For any framework to be adopted for large-scale use, it must enjoy financial support to be able to handle issues quickly. While Adobe and IBM have adopted Vue.js, the framework is still used for relatively small projects.

Reactivity Complexity

The Vue.js framework is built on a two-way data binding implementation. When you interact with a Vue.js component, the component watcher re-renders the data. The re-rendering occurs for each component you interact with. While this feature is great, the not-so-great part is that the reactivity—or re-rendering is not smart enough and can make mistakes, leading to flattening of data.

Limited Resources

Vue.js is young, and even though Evans relies on donations, royalties on books and speaking events, and subscriptions to keep the project going, the scalability of Vue.js is still in doubt. Today, Evans is a full-time developer for Vue.js and has hired another full-time developer; however, to prove enterprise organizations can use the Vue.js for even medium-scaled projects, Vue needs a lot of money.

Vue.js is a young framework, and it may be impossible to note the direction the program will take in the coming years. With a background in design, Evans has managed to create a framework that is versatile and easy-to-use. The ease of use has attracted many users willing to pay a $2000 monthly fee to keep the program running. Vue’s smart approach to framework design will serve it well as it grows into more markets.