As a flexible, lightweight framework that is primarily focused on user experience, Vue.js has become very popular among developers despite only being on the market for a relatively short time. The simplicity and emphasis on resolving common issues posed by competing frameworks allows developers to build stable, reliable and straightforward applications.
What is Vue.js?
Vue.js is a JavaScript framework that was created by Evan You, a former Google employee, in 2013 with the first official release in February 2014. It is a lightweight framework used for building reactive web user interfaces, and it simplifies front-end development.
Vue.js extends standard HTML and CSS and provides powerful tools for creating interactive web applications that run in the browser without the need for page refreshing. Vue.js is based on the model-view-viewmodel (MVVM) framework, with a main library that focuses on the viewmodel layer, providing reactive synchronization between the model and view layers via two-way data binding.
This framework allows developers to create highly interactive web pages and Single Page Applications (SPAs) that can perform complex operations without ever reloading the page within the browser.
What is Vue.js used for?
Vue.js is most commonly used for single page applications (SPAs), and it is growing in popularity for creating minimum viable products (MVPs) and progressive web applications (PWAs).
SPAs | An application or web page that loads as a single document. SPAs interact with the user in a dynamic fashion, loading content only as and when it is needed. |
MVPs | A version of an application or web page with as little content and features as possible required to run. This is often used by early customers who can then provide feedback which is used to drive future development. |
PWAs | An application built with web technologies that are aimed to function and feel like native apps. They take advantage of large web ecosystems to develop a web application without the difficulty of building a native application. |
While Vue.js is a framework itself, the rapid development of the ecosystem has led developers creating complementary libraries that can be used alongside Vue.js. The additional components have been created to further simplify the development process as they can be used directly where needed in an application. These libraries and components can be used for a variety of different requirements, such as: UI frameworks, static framework generators, mobile frameworks and server-side rendering frameworks.
UI Frameworks | Pre-written and designed Vue.js components that determine the view of the user interface. Examples include: Bootstrap Vue, Quasar Framework and Vuetify. |
Static framework generators | Data and templates used to generate static HTML applications and websites. They consistently load the same way , using the same code. Examples include: Vue Press and Gridsome. |
Mobile frameworks | While Vue.js can be used to create mobile apps, these frameworks allow the development of native mobile apps. Examples are: Vue Native, VUX and Mint UI. |
Server-side rendering frameworks | Allows the site to load on the server, rather than in a browser. This means the site or application loads significantly faster and provides a better user experience. |
How does Vue.js work?
Vue.js is a reactive framework that uses a Virtual DOM to efficiently re-render components when the state changes. During the compilation phase, the Vue.js compiler parses the template and generates optimized render functions. These functions are used to create the AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) of the component, which is then used to generate a Virtual DOM.
Building upon standard HTML, CSS and JavaScript, Vue.js uses declarative rendering, an extension of HTML, with a syntax template that allows for the declarative description of outputs from the HTML. These are then all combined into single file components (SFCs) which are in turn used to define the view.
Vue.js uses a virtual DOM to make changes to applications and web pages. Declarative rendering is used to make changes to the virtual DOM which are then, immediately, updated to the real DOM through the reactive two-way data binding utilized by Vue.js.
To update the actual DOM, Vue.js uses a patch process that compares the previous and new Virtual DOM and makes the necessary changes to the actual DOM. This process is made efficient through the use of the snabbdom library, which provides an algorithm for comparing Virtual DOM trees and updating the actual DOM.
Vue.js was designed to be a progressive framework, meaning gradual development over time is fully supported. This flexibility for continual growth can be very useful for organizations looking to grow the impact of their web page or application.
Vue.js is compatible with multiple frontend libraries during the initial development and for ongoing updates. As developers are able to save time through the use of existing components and pre-written code, they are able to spend more of their time on developing the user experience.
Advantages of using Vue.js
Explore some of the key advantages of using Vue.js, including its lightweight structure, simplicity, and easy-to-learn syntax:
Lightweight and flexible | Developers are given the flexibility to determine which libraries they use when building with Vue.js. This increases the range of prewritten components that can be utilized during development, saving time for developers while ensuring the application meets requirements. |
Component based | This limits unnecessary code and increases the overall speed of an application or a website as components are only loaded as needed. |
Simplicity | Vue.js is often considered easy to learn, meaning experienced developers and beginners can work together cohesively. Additionally, this means that applications and web pages can achieve increased performance and speed due to the lack of convoluted code. |
Virtual DOM | Use of a virtual DOM makes introducing updates to live software more cost efficient and does not require any downtime for the application. This is beneficial for all parties as it saves cost for businesses, time for developers and allows continual improvements to the user experience. |
Ecosystem | Vue.js’ ecosystem contains a server-side renderer and state management library. Alongside this, developers are able to utilize external libraries and components to customize their application to fit their requirements exactly. |
“Vue.js is highly rated on Github. With almost 200,000 stars, Vue.js is more highly reviewed than many of its closest competitors.”
Who uses Vue.js?
Vue.js is rapidly becoming one of the most popular front-end frameworks. Despite being a relatively new framework, Vue.js is used by nearly 2 million live websites, additionally, over 1.5 million other companies have used Vue.js on sites and applications that are no longer live.
As one of the highest rated front-end frameworks on Github, Vue.js is continuing in its growth and increasing in popularity. Some of the most notable companies that use Vue.js are: Apple, Nintendo, Trustpilot, Gitlab and Zoom.
Limitations of Vue.js
Limited support:
As Vue.js was created by an independent developer, it does not have the support network of similar frameworks or libraries.
Limited plugins:
The limited amount of developed plugins leads some developers to use Vue.js in tangent with other frameworks and libraries.
Language barrier:
As Vue.js was created by Chinese-American developers, the framework coding is written in Chinese. This can cause issues for non-Chinese speakers, although translation plugins are available.
Over-flexibility:
Flexibility can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, as too many ways to complete the same process can often lead to confusion about which method is best for the situation.
