Programming with Shahan

Posted on Feb 20 • Edited on Feb 21

Which JavaScript framework is best (React or Vue in 2025?)

#webdev #react #vue #javascript

React vs. Vue.js in 2025, Which One Should You Choose?

React remains one of the most popular JavaScript libraries for building single-page applications in 2025. Meanwhile, Vue.js continues to call itself a “progressive framework” and its popularity skyrocketing day by day. Both share more in common than, say... Angular, which is often considered a “true” framework.

In this article, I will walk you through a detailed comparison between React.js and Vue.js, updated with the latest 2025 trends, so you can decide which library or framework is best for your next project.

⚖️ Framework Overview

React was created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook (now Meta). It’s maintained by Meta and a large community of individual developers and companies. In 2025, React’s ecosystem is richer than ever, making it a top choice for building complex user interfaces and handling data processing tasks.

Furthermore, React Native remains a popular extension of React.js, allowing developers to create hybrid mobile applications using the same skill set.

Vue.js, on the other hand, was created by Evan You after he worked on several Google projects using AngularJS. Vue focuses on simplicity and efficiency in UI design and development. By 2025, its intuitive syntax and built-in features (like transitions and official state management via Pinia) have continued to attract developers seeking a straightforward framework for building interfaces.

🍏 Reasons for Using Vue.js

Vue.js has maintained its reputation for simplicity. Developers appreciate its clear and logical design, which speeds up development workflows. Unlike some other frameworks, Vue.js retains a consistent syntax throughout UI functionality. That's why I love it personally.

Efficient Official Plugins: Vue’s core team provides well-structured solutions for common tasks like routing and state management.
No Corporate Ownership: As of 2025, Vue remains community-driven and independent, appealing to developers wary of data exploitation by large tech companies.
Great Ecosystem: Plugins like Vue Router and Pinia cover most app needs out of the box.

⚛️ Reasons for Using React

React.js brings unique features that keep it at the top of many developers’ lists (even though its popularity has been declining over time).

Here is why it is still popular nowadays:

JSX Syntax: JSX (JavaScript XML) makes creating custom components more intuitive. You can write HTML-like code within JavaScript, streamlining component creation.
SEO Support: React.js applications are relatively easy to optimize for search engines, especially when combined with frameworks like Next.js.
React Native: Developers can reuse their React.js knowledge to build native mobile apps for iOS and Android.
React Dev Tools: In 2025, the React Developer Tools are more handy than ever, offering deep insights for debugging and organizing complex apps.

🥇 Comparison of Popularity and Performance

Both React.js and Vue.js remain in high demand in 2025. React has a slight edge in terms of overall popularity, backed by its extensive ecosystem and the community around React Native.

Performance: Both use a virtual DOM for efficient rendering. Vue.js often shines in component creation and updates due to its super fast optimizations.
Usage Stats: According to a 2025 developer survey, over 45% of respondents have used React.js for web development, while around 20% have used Vue.js.

Note: The Statista survey report from previous years still shows React leading in global adoption, though Vue continues to grow steadily.

🧊 Scalability

React.js has the idea of “smart” and “dumb” components to manage complex architectures. Smart components handle data-heavy tasks, while dumb components focus on rendering.

Vue.js offers official libraries like Pinia for state management, enabling developers to handle larger applications. By 2025, Vue 3+ has proven its ability to scale effectively in enterprise projects.

📲 Adjust to Mobile Devices

Both frameworks have a growing demand for cross-platform solutions, although Vue.js is becoming more popular day by day. Let's have a brief overview:

React Native: An established leader for building native iOS and Android apps with React.js.
Weex (Vue): A mobile UI framework by Alibaba Group, allowing Vue.js components to run on mobile. While not as widespread as React Native, Weex provides a solid Vue-based mobile solution.

🚎🔩 Size and Community Support

Bundle Size: Vue.js typically ships with a smaller bundle size, making it ideal for projects prioritizing fast load times.
Community: React benefits from Meta’s backing and a massive open-source ecosystem. Vue.js, though smaller, boasts an active and dedicated community with thorough documentation and ongoing improvements. I think it's becoming more popular than React.js as recent data suggests.

🏒 Use Cases

React.js: Perfect for complex web apps, large-scale projects, and teams needing to pivot between web and mobile with React Native.
Vue.js: Ideal for small to medium-sized apps, real-time platforms, and content delivery systems where simplicity and performance are key.

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👏 Conclusion

I would say React.js is the first choice for developing large and complex apps. Also React Native for mobile apps is a huge plus. But you have to write separate code for web and mobile apps which is a huge downside as well. Therefore, plus-minus = zero.

Vue.js, meanwhile, is loved for its simplicity, fast performance, and smaller default size. It’s a more lightweight framework without sacrificing modern features. The great news is, you don't have to write separate code for web or mobile. Write once and now you can build desktop, mobile, or web apps in one go. So no downside. Only plus plus.

I would choose Vue.js for its simplicity and super fast performance.

Thank you for your time. For more regular posts visit: codewithshahan.com

If you enjoyed this, check out my 𝕏 (Twitter) account for more frontend development insights.

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Top comments (23)

Stasi Vladimirov • Feb 21

While I do like the idea of this article, I dislike the execution and conclusion. Pretty certain it was written by AI.
I’ve been working with React and Vue professionally for over a decade, here are some of the details that were missed by this article:

popularity: while React is indeed more popular, according to many surveys (check the state of JS for example) it’s consistently declining in popularity for the last few years, where Vue is consistently growing.
ecosystem: in short react ecosystem is in shambles. It’s not a framework, every company/project uses different setup and tools for routing/state management/styling/etc. One of the reasons is because all of the solutions have issues and don’t really scale well. On another hand the Vue ecosystem produced a widely adopted across the industry tools such as Vite, Vitest and Vpress, etc.
performance and scalability: React is the slowest and heaviest framework in the space. Full stop. It’s so bad that reacts team constantly have to come up with apis such as useCallback, useMemo, useEtc just to keep the lights on. The move to server components is an admission in defeat in that regard. React also does not scale due to the constant patching and babysitting developers need to do to keep it from rerendering half the DOM all the time. Meanwhile Vue is leader in performance and scalability without known performance issues.
community support: Reacts community has been fed up with multi year long issues such as missing good routing and styling solutions, rare updates, refusal to support signals and conflicts of interest related to Vercel. Vue meanwhile is known for consistent updates and support.
platforms: while React Native is a great solution and in my opinion the only thing that keeps React alive it has one significant disadvantage: you practically need to write separate code for web and mobile due to the distinct tempting between the 2. React’s team has been trying to solve this for years without success. Meanwhile Vue offers solutions such as Quasar where you can create an application for any platform (desktop, browser, mobile, embedded, etc) from a single codebase. This offers significantly better maintainability and product adoption.

In conclusion I don’t think React is the right choice in 2025. If you are stuck with it due to legacy or need to bust out something quickly and temporarily, it’s not great, but all right. But if you are starting a new project… there are a dozen of alternatives (including Vue) that would certainly be a better choice in the long run.

leob • Feb 21

Blunt but oh so true - Vue just rocks, React falls short (but hey, it's popular - jobs and gigs) ... I couldn't have said it better!

Programming with Shahan • Feb 21

Exactly, I researched about it and found React.js is still popular for frontend jobs. Some people are commenting like they were with me while writing this article.

Programming with Shahan • Feb 21 • Edited

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

By the way. It's not AI-generated. You can't judge an article just by its conclusion or something. Maybe the writing style seems AI-generated, but why would I spend over eight hours researching, writing, and designing this article?

To the point: I found that the majority of frontend jobs still require React.js in 2025. I simply made a comparison, as I don’t know everyone’s goals and needs. That said, I personally love Vue.js for its fast performance.

Rense Bakker • Feb 22

SSR has nothing to do with performance... You can still render slowly on the server. SSR exists because of SEO. SPAs typically don't have any initial content on the page for search engines to index.

Also, while I agree that a lot of people write horribly performing React code, that's not the frameworks fault. React is very forgiving in this regard, which unfortunately made the problem bigger, as more people with more opinions started using it. useMemo and useCallback were not "added" to remedy this. They we're part of the core of React hooks from the beginning... What they DID add to remedy the problem is the React compiler in React 19, which let's developers "forget" about properly ensuring the stability of their application state. That imho is a terrible move and will eventually lead to the downfall of React, but not for some time. Hopefully enough time for SolidJS to become stable and work on it's ecosystem.

mehmet akar • Feb 22

Why don't you write an article about that? I'll wait for it!

Comment deleted

Programming with Shahan • Feb 21

Man you are promoting your own article by insulting me 😆

You better check the rules first

This article is about React.js and Vue.js only.

Dario Mannu • Feb 21

Sorry, no personal insult intended, nothing with you in particular, but this is now becoming a social issue on DEV and it's starting to demand awareness.

Every other day someone comes up with yet another article about the same "top" 4 (ok, this time just two) frameworks put on the same top list for the same top reasons. The other day I've seen a list of the "fastest" JavaScript frameworks and guess what? Same Angular and React on top. Something's so broken here...

Come on, guys, let's get creative, let's put some effort and come up with something new, dunno, the most exotic frameworks, the top contrarian ones, the slowest ones, the most beautiful ones, the most boring ones, the most promising ones, the newest ones, the least buggy ones, the ones making best and worst use of memory, the ones causing the most bugs or the ones preventing them the most, or something, shall we? :)

Programming with Shahan • Feb 22

Oh yeah... like this idea. We should do that.

Btw I don't follow these trends. I literally chose hashtags that are described in a particular article. doesn't matter if its popular or not.

Massimo Artizzu • Feb 21

Man, we really need a way to flag AI generated articles 😩

Programming with Shahan • Feb 21 • Edited

Man, this is not an AI-generated article. I wrote it by hand, just slightly refined by AI for better readability. I didn’t just ask AI and copy-paste ... come on, that’s bullshit, and everyone knows it.

I researched and found that the majority of tech companies still require React.js for frontend jobs in 2025. It was a solid comparison. So why are people making negative comments about it?

Alois Sečkár • Feb 22

the especially frustrating part is that this crap with zero information value gets attention, while you spend half a day composing something meaningful and it shows to noone