Review the top 10 trending web development frameworks commonly used for building and scaling small to big sized portals and web applications. 

A web framework (WF), or rather a web application framework (WAF) is a type of software development framework specially designed to support web applications development including web services, web resources, and web APIs. They offer a standard way of building and deploying web applications. The aim of a web framework is to automate routine or common web development activities during the web development process and thereby save upon development time. Web frameworks typically provide libraries, templates, and session management features. They actively support code reuse.

Key advantages of using web development frameworks

  • Efficiency

Features that generally consume several hours and hundreds of lines of code to compose can be completed in a matter of minutes using pre-built functions. Development is a lot easier and much quicker.

  • Security

Large systems usually comprise of features requiring secure connections which are often prone to cyber attacks. Since large numbers of developers use the frameworks, a security issue, if it exists, is detected and fixed early.

  • Expense

Majority of web development frameworks are open source and if a special license is required it is easily afforded. Development is a lot cheaper since you don’t have to buy and pay royalties for using the dev tools as is the case with Microsoft.

  • Support

Typically, each framework has a large number of followers, and thousands of developers develop their code using it. This code is available for free when searched online. Moreover, there’s plenty of documentation, APIs, and tools which support quick development. In addition, the community forums provide a reliable and convenient medium to find solutions to tech problems and issues online.

  • Scalability

Since a great magnitude of developers uses the frameworks to fulfill varied user requirements, and since their entire code is available online, it’s very easy to pick up someone’s code and reuse it to build your application. As there are good chances of the code being tested and of good quality, you can also save a lot upon the development time. It becomes very easy to scale applications.

What are the popular web development frameworks today?

ValueCoders, the web development specialists, have thoroughly researched and shortlisted the top 10 web development frameworks.

1. AngularJS

It is a JavaScript open-source framework designed specially for single page web applications using an MVC architectural platform. Its development environment is front-end and not full-stack, and deals basically with web pages.

2. Laravel

Released in 2011, it is a free, open source PHP based web framework for building state-of-the-art web applications supporting the model–view–controller (MVC) architectural platform.

3. React.js

It is an open-source JavaScript library used by Facebook with a large developer community. The library, which can also be used as a web development framework is used extensively for developing user interfaces for web applications. The framework was designed for the purpose of building large applications dealing with data that can change constantly over time.

4. Node.js

It is not just a development framework, but rather a complete environment used mainly for developing non-blocking and event-driven I/O app features. The plus points are that the code remains lightweight and efficient, with much faster execution speed as compared to similar real-time apps supporting large amounts of data on distributed devices. Simply put, Node.JS is basically used for specific reasons to fulfil specific needs. Also used for creating easily scalable applications requiring high performance fast networking speed.

5. Ruby on Rails (RoR)

Considered to be one of the favourite frameworks of web developers, it is a fun programming language used by many big brands such as Hulu, Airbnb, and Basecamp. It allows you to transition from the planning stage to the actual development in a very short time, and is much easier to handle and use as compared to other technologies.

6. Symfony

A PHP based stable framework, it is recommended for building large scale or complex enterprise level projects. It helps developers to create scalable websites. The framework is ideally suited for organizations where the business requirements are likely to change on a frequent basis. It can work in tandem with some of the largest open-source platforms like PHPBB, Piwik, and Drupal. The environment comprises of a set of PHP components and an application framework having its own community of followers that adhere to a common development philosophy.

7. ASP.NET

Microsoft’s foray into a new web development framework, ASP.NET released in 2002 has become a highly valued web development tool for creating dynamic websites, rich web apps and dynamic web portals. .NET built on the Common Language Runtime “CLR” principle provides an opportunity to write ASP.NET code utilizing any of the languages supported by the .NET platform.

8. Yii

Very similar to ASP.NET, it is a remarkable Rapid Application Development “RAD” open source web development framework for PHP. The framework is recommended for developing system applications requiring repetitive tasks. It comes with an inbuilt component based model, database abstraction layers, several event driven programming features, and modular application architecture. The key features are easy data migration facilities and convenient upgrade/downgrade features for different types of installations.

9. Meteorjs

One the best full stack JavaScript framework, it is an efficient web development framework supporting rapid software development. It uses JavaScript on the front end as well as the back end. It makes the coding activity very easy so you can build apps much faster by reducing the coding time. It comprises of a collection of libraries and packages which are bound together. The environment is flexible, faster and requires less coding so chances of incurring bugs are greatly reduced.

10. CakePHP

An open source web development framework in PHP, it is designed to support model-controller-view and data mapping. It has detailed online documentation and many practical guides which makes it very easy to master the framework. A distinct advantage of using the framework is that you can reuse existing code from old projects to speed up the development process.

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