How to Choose the Best Front-End Framework for Development

Any website or web app has two main parts: the backend and the front end. Backend deals with the server side of the website, such as storing and arranging data and files. Front-end, also called the client side, is part of the website that users interact with. In other words, front-end development refers to developing the website’s graphical user interface, which includes fonts, colors, buttons, lists, navigation menus, visualizations, animations, etc. However, creating many interactive elements from scratch can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. Hence, many enterprises and developers today use front-end frameworks to speed up web application development.

This article will discuss different factors you must consider to choose the right front-end framework. We’ll also explore the features of Sencha Ext JS, one of the leading front-end frameworks.

What Is a Front-End Framework?

A front-end framework is a software development tool that simplifies building web applications. While front-end frameworks vary in use and functionality, most are JavaScript-based frameworks.

These frameworks essentially come with pre-written code libraries and modules for many common tasks involved in front-end development. Many front-end frameworks also come with pre-built templates and plugins to accelerate the web development process. This way, front-end developers don’t have to write code for repetitive tasks again and again from scratch, allowing them to build interactive user interfaces quickly. Moreover, front-end frameworks also help reduce bugs and errors in your code, making your app faster.

Using a web application framework is particularly helpful for complex projects, such as building enterprise-grade web applications, as they involve many different components.

What Are the Benefits of Using Front-End Frameworks?

Using front-end frameworks can have several benefits:

Faster Development Process

Since front-end frameworks provide pre-written code libraries and pre-built templates and modules, developers don’t have to write code for different web elements from scratch. However, they can customize the components to match their app’s overall theme and design. As a result, developers can build interactive and progressive web apps faster using a front-end framework.

Moreover, front-end frameworks make web development more efficient. For example, React uses Virtual Document Object Model (DOM,) which helps web developers write more predictable code.

Enhanced Developer Productivity

Front-end frameworks also help improve web developer productivity as developers don’t have to write code for repetitive tasks again and again. They can instead focus on other crucial tasks to build web apps quickly.

Consistent UI

When you use a component-based framework, your UI components have a base style that can be extended. Hence, these frameworks provide a consistent user interface design, which improves the user experience.

Fully-Tested Code

Good front-end development frameworks provide fully-tested code libraries and components with cross-browser compatibility, so you don’t have to test and debug the code for various browsers and platforms. This further speeds up the development process.

Easy Maintenance

A robust front-end framework utilizes standardized coding practices, making maintaining and updating the codebase easier.

Help Is Readily Available

If you choose a popular front-end development framework, you can easily find solutions to common issues on the internet. Moreover, free professional themes and templates may also be available. These frameworks also have proper documentation consisting of all the details regarding the functionality and features of the framework.

Also Read: Benefits Of Using Frameworks For Web Applications Development.

What Factors Should You Consider When Choosing a Front-End Framework?

Learning Resources

While many front-end frameworks come with detailed documentation, you’ll likely need additional learning resources, such as tutorials, articles, ebooks, etc., to get started. These resources will reduce the learning curve significantly and help build functional single-page applications faster. Hence, it’s essential to check the availability of learning resources before you select a framework.

Core Features

When choosing a front-end framework, assessing whether it offers all the core features required to build a robust and secure web app with a rich user interface is crucial. Check if the framework supports forms processing, custom templates, HTTP connectivity, routing, state management and request validation.

Popularity

Popular front-end frameworks have huge communities where developers can quickly find solutions to any issues related to the framework. Moreover, when you choose a popular framework as an enterprise, it’s easier to find experienced and specialized developers under a competitive salary. Ext JS, React, Angular and Vue are some of the top front-end frameworks.

Two-Way Data Binding

Check if the framework you’re choosing supports two-way data binding, as it enables seamless communication between the model and view, thereby minimizing the need for manual updates.

Server-Side Rendering (SSR)

Server-side rendering (SSR) refers to converting the code on the server into a fully-rendered HTML page to be displayed on the client side. It helps build dynamic web apps with interactive user interfaces. Moreover, SSR also helps improve the website loading speed, which is a key factor for SEO. Hence, you should select a framework that supports server-side rendering.

Responsive Components

People today use different types of mobile devices with varying screen sizes to access a website or web app. Hence, choosing a framework that supports responsive components that can adapt to different screen sizes is essential.

Ease Of Integration With Other Libraries

Choosing a feature-rich framework will give you most of the necessary tools required to build a functional, responsive, and interactive interface. However, you might still need additional libraries for DOM manipulation, rich text editing, data processing, etc. Thus, it’s crucial to choose a framework that is quick and easy to integrate with other libraries. Otherwise, you’ll be spending hours on integrating a single library.

Security

Security breaches can have serious financial and legal implications. Hence, choosing a highly secure framework is imperative. Research has shown that open-source security breaches have increased in the past few years. That’s why many executives avoid enforcing open-source governance in their organization.

Which Is the Best Front-End Development Framework?

Ext JS is a leading front-end Javascript framework trusted by more than 100,00 enterprise customers worldwide, including Americal Airlines, Apple, Canon, and Cisco. It’s a one-stop solution for building high-performance and highly secure enterprise-level mobile and web applications.

Some of the key features of Ext JS include:

High-Performance UI Components

Ext JS offers over 140 high-performance UI components, including buttons, menus, icons, text fields, calenders, carousels, sliders, and checkboxes. All these components are fully-tested and work together seamlessly in any web app, eliminating the need to write and debug code. However, developers can customize the components to match their web app’s overall theme and design.

Cross-browser and Cross-Platform Compatibility

While many other frameworks have limited capabilities for desktop, Ext JS offers a single codebase for cross-platform development and delivers exceptional user experience across smartphones, desktops, and tablets. Moreover, all its components are designed and tested to be used across browsers. This further reduces the development time.

Blazing-Fast Grid

Ext JS offers a super fast and high-performance JavaScript data grid that can efficiently process millions of records. The grid supports a wide range of features, such as grouping, scrolling, sorting, drag-and-drop, row expander, and more. Moreover, Ext JS supports a variety of charts and graphs as well as data-driven document package (D3) visualizations, such as treemaps and heatmaps.

A well-known Argentinian hospital used Ext JS for Oncology and Home System, and here is what their lead JavaScript developer, Maximiliano Yusso, said about Ext JS:

“The object-oriented nature of the Ext JS framework and the well-laid-out class structure makes the app versatile and easily scalable. There are no issues with performance since the Ext JS grid and other components work seamlessly with big data.”

Try Ext JS grid today and test its impressive features yourself.

MVC Architecture

Ext JS utilizes MVC (Model-Viewer-Controller) architecture, allowing developers to easily build large client-side apps with several features. It essentially minimizes the amount of code developers have to write.

Layout and Exporter

Ext JS has an efficient layout system that ensures the proper positioning and sizing of all your UI components on various devices. It also has an Exporter that allows you to export all your data from the grid to various file formats.

Detailed Documentation and Additional Resources

Sencha Ext JS has detailed documentation consisting of all the information you need regarding its features and functionality. It also has several coding examples to help you get started quickly. Moreover, Sencha has an excellent Resource Center where you find a wide range of whitepapers, ebooks, supporting videos, and webinars.

Easy Maintenance

Ext JS makes app maintenance for even new developers working on the app easy with its common use model and coding style across components. On the other hand, varying coding styles with other frameworks make it challenging for new developers to use and maintain the app.

Why Do Enterprises Rely on Ext JS for Front-End Development?

Ext JS is a robust JavaScript framework packed with all the features required for building high-performance enterprise-level apps. Here are the key reasons why so many enterprises use Ext JS:

Faster Development

One of the main reasons why many enterprises rely on Ext JS is that it speeds up the web development process with its pre-built and fully-tested UI components, high-performance grid and cross-browser and cross-platform support.

Highly Secure

Security is another key reason why many enterprises prefer Ext JS to open-source frameworks. Ext JS is one of the most secure frameworks available in the market.

Kaseware, an investigative platform to combat security threats, used Ext JS to design a beautiful platform and achieve maximum security in their app development. According to Dorian Deligeorges, CEO & Founder of Kaseware:

“With Ext JS, we were able to better enforce security within our code base. If you are building an Angular app, you are constantly searching for a widget for this and a widget for that. You don’t know if they are maintained or if there is any embedded malware or nefarious code in them. Using Ext JS, we rarely had to go outside the framework, and our platform has some really complex security and functionality requirements.“

Cost Savings

Ext JS may seem expensive at first glance, but it proves to be more cost-effective than open-source frameworks in the long run. With open-source frameworks, you can face performance issues, security breaches, etc. However, many enterprises have saved costs on web development with Ext JS.

Research by Dimensional Research shows Ext JS users have saved 50% on front-end development, 75% on annual app maintenance, and 75% on cross-platform and cross-browser development. You can find the full analysis of customer ROI here.

Conclusion

front-end frameworks accelerate the web development process by providing pre-written code libraries and pre-built modules and templates. However, before choosing a front-end framework, you must assess its features, popularity, ease of integration with other libraries, documentation and available learning resources.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Which Framework Is Better for Front-End Development?

Ext JS is one of the best front-end frameworks used by numerous enterprises due to its impressive features and ease of use.

How Do I Choose a Front-End Framework?

When choosing a front-end framework, you must assess its features, ease of integration with other libraries, popularity, support for responsiveness, documentation and available learning resources.

Why Sencha Ext JS Is the Best Front-End Framework?

Ext JS offers all the features needed to build highly secure, functional and beautiful enterprise-grade apps. These include 140+ pre-built UI components, a layout manager, a high-performance data grid, D3 visualizations, and more.

Try Sencha Ext JS best front-end Framework Free.