Currently we’re living in an age where the backend and the frontend are divided and the heavy lifting, rendering content is today the job for the frontend.

You can use other frontend framework, for instance angular.js or even vue.js but the main advantages of react are the following:

  • It’s the V in MVC (Model-View-Controller), you only have to deal with the View.
  • Virtual DOM – It is and abstraction of the HTML DOM. It is better to think of this as React’s implementation of DOM that allows a specific component to update when there are new data instead of forcing a full page update.
  • JSX – React.js uses JSX that makes easier to read the code of each component. Of course you can do react without JSX however it’s way easier and it is the future.
  • One-way data flow – The properties and immutable and are passed from the father components to its children.
  • Components – Since it’s based on components, it’s easier to re-use and to maintain.
  • React Native – You can re-use the React.js components to build a native iOS and Android application.
  • Server-Side – It supports server side rendering, if desired, to be SEO friendly.

Since React.js only deals with the View, in MVC, the backend it’s completely independent allowing it to be PHP, C# or Java.

By Pedro Resende | Senior Full Stack Developer and Team Leader | via LinkedIn