With the increasing popularity of Progressive Web Apps, they have become a sought-after web solution for mobile users. They offer a more immersive experience and native app-like functionalities. Due to the benefits that PWAs offer, there is a significant growth in progressive web app development and businesses are investing in PWAs. Web frameworks are playing an important role in developing progressive web apps. There are many front-end web frameworks that can be utilized for creating PWAs. The following is a list of such top web frameworks used to create progressive web apps.
Angular
Developed by Google, AngularJS is one of the topmost web frameworks that use the JavaScript ecosystem for creating robust and reliable web applications. Version 5 of Angular introduced the new Service Worker as a support for creating progressive web apps. Below are the pros and cons of AngularJS:
Pros
Supports MVC framework
Comes with IntelliSense and TypeScript
Due to CLI, there is a smaller learning curve with the newer version
Well-defined methodology for implementation
Large community support
Cons
Has a high degree of complexity compared to other frameworks
Require expertise to master older versions
Due to the use of TypeScript, the learning curve is steeper.
Polymer
This is another framework developed by Google that provides several benefits of creating robust web apps. Being an open-source framework, there is also a large community that contributes to the growth of the framework. Below are the pros and cons of this framework:
Pros
Offers various base components including web components that work in multiple web browsers.
Offers a complete web app stack with responsive layouts, data tier, routing, and more.
API that is easy to understand
Provides comprehensive documentation
No need to deploy additional debugging tools as it works with browser embedded development tools.
Cons
No official IDE
No server-side rendering that increases reloading time
Increased HTTP requests and low SEO-friendliness
React
ReactJS is maintained by Facebook and is counted among the best PWA toolkits. It is a JavaScript library and uses JSX for connecting to HTML structures. It can be used to create effective PWAs. The following is a list of the pros and cons of this framework.
Pros
Extensive ecosystem
Virtual DOM makes rendering speedy
Large community support
Apps developed with React offers high scalability and flexibility
The same code for web apps can be used for Native.
Has a moderate learning curve compared to other frameworks
Cons
It requires knowledge of JSX
Not very simple to write components like in HTML and JavaScript
High flexibility is sometimes an issue
Code to be rewritten in JSX to migrate from AngularJS
No properly-defined implementation methodology
VueJS
It is the fastest-growing web framework with its simplicity of coding and high-speed rendering. VueJS can be used for creating powerful progressive web applications. The following are the pros and cons of PWAs:
Pros
Flexible to set up using TypeScript and JSX
A preferred framework for many big players
Simplicity of coding makes it an easy-to-use web framework
Has a simple structure and follows many concepts from Angular 1 and React frameworks.
It uses Virtual DOM to expedite the rendering
Cons
Has a small supporting team
The legacy code from Angular 1.5 has to be modified for use with this framework
These are some of the top web frameworks for creating robust progressive web apps. The decision of choosing a single framework for PWA development depends on the experience and skills of your developer. Look for a good PWA developer to build your progressive web app now.
