Top 7 Most Used Web Frameworks Among Developers Worldwide 2021 [Statistics]

The Statista web development framework statistics report lists developers' most used web frameworks worldwide in 2021. As per the report, ReactJS is now officially the most used framework by 40% of web developers, dethroning jQuery from the first position.

Another survey by Stack Overflow state that NodeJS is the most used web framework by professional developers.

Though hundreds of web development frameworks are available in the market, selecting the right one is always tricky.

Thus, when it comes to selecting the right web framework for web development, consider the following criteria:

• Most widely used and popular in the industry, people
• Are high in-demand in the job market
• Well maintained and updated for the foreseeable future
• Mostly should not be a legacy platform

Here we present some of the renowned frameworks used by the majority of web developers worldwide based on the web development statistics 2021:

Top 7 Most Used Web Frameworks Among Developers Worldwide 2021

NodeJS:

NodeJS is a JavaScript-based server-side development framework. It’s built on top of Google Chrome’s V8 engine and is a runtime environment that offers high scalability.

This JavaScript framework's unique feature is its ability to be used for client-side and server-side development. It is a lightweight, efficient framework that uses the event-driven, non-blocking I/O to develop data-intensive applications.

Key features of NodeJS:

• Offers fast performance and lightweight JS framework
• It’s a single-threaded framework and still offers high scalability
• It’s an asynchronous library with event-driven, non-blocking I/O
• Allows you to upload media files without buffer

ReactJS:

React has been dominating the current web development landscape. It has become the most preferred choice of web developers for ReactJS user interface development. React is the most popular and widely used framework from Facebook.

It’s been developed as a simple JS library and allows developers to implement the web's view layer in a component-based way. It also differs from the rest of the JS frameworks as it advocates one-way data binding.

Key Features of ReactJS:

• An unopinionated library that implements the View Layer
• Works on the concept of “Learn Once, and Write Anywhere”
• Offers virtual DOM based on the document object model
• JS objects can be embedded inside HTML using JSX

Angular:

Angular is another most widely used JavaScript framework offered by Google. It’s mostly used for building simple Single-Page Apps and even complex web apps.

Angular is a component-based full-fledged open-source framework that offers a collection of libraries and tools for building, testing, and deploying web frontends. It is a TypeScript-based framework, which is an enhanced version of JavaScript.

This framework provides a method to inject dependencies, create declarative templates and provide end-to-end tooling for client-side development.

Key Features of Angular:

• Offers end-to-end app development
• Angular CLI is best for web development and creating new Angular projects
• Offers a two-way data binding approach
• One of the most secure client-side web development framework

VueJS:

Created by Evan You, an ex-Google Engineer, Vue.js is an MVVM (Model-View-View-Model) JS-based client-side development framework. The framework is created in such a way that it combines the best parts of AngularJS and React.

Vue.JS retains Angular’s templating syntax while preserving react’s data binding quality, component-based approach, and props. Since its launch, it has become a popular, go-to, community-driven web framework. It offers a middle-ground between Angular & React and is a pleasant alternative to both.

Key Features of VueJS:

• End-to-end app development functionality like Angular
• View layer of React with external data flow
• Lower barrier to JS frontend development
• Best for PWA development

Express:

Created by TJ Holowaychuk, Express.js is a NodeJS-based server-side framework with MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture type.

The first stable version of the Express was released in 2010. The framework is heavily inspired by the minimalistic web framework Sinatra and offers similar functionalities. Express.js is used by web developers to create REST-based backends or complete web applications with server-side rendering and pluggable View Layer.

Key Features of Express:

• It offers a minimalistic approach to web-frontend development
• Supports MVC patterns and support for middleware, templating, routing, etc.
• One of the mature, high-performant, and stable web frameworks
• Mostly used for backend development, it also offers end-to-end functionalities as well

ASP.Net Core:

Microsoft is bringing innovation to its tech stack to meet futuristic web development and design requirements. ASP.Net is one of the tech stacks Microsoft is reworking to modernize.

The tool was highly successful for web application development within the Microsoft realm. But now its successor ASP.NET core takes up the charge onwards 2016. It’s an open-source and completely new framework for developers to build web apps.

ASP.NET core is a modular web framework that can be used on many platforms and seamlessly integrates other modern JavaScript client-side frameworks.

Key Features of ASP.NET Core:

• Primarily follows MVC architecture pattern
• Support for multiple platforms like Windows, macOS, & Linux
• Modular design with seamless integration with popular JS libraries
• Best suited for large-scale web application development

Django:

Django was created by two young engineers, Adrian Holovaty and Simon Willison. It’s a Python-based, server-side web development framework and follows the MTV architecture pattern.

Over the past decade, the Popularity of Python has increased dramatically. Thanks to that, Django has seen a high adoption rate.

Django is one of the popular server-side web frameworks and packs several pleasant features.

Key Features of Django:

• Offers server-side rendering and follows the Model-Template-View architecture pattern
• Includes ORM, middleware, security, and caching for rapid app development
• Extensible framework with third-party plugins
• Best suited for enterprise-grade app development

Wrapping Up

So, here we have covered the top 7 most popular web development frameworks used by web developers worldwide. Each framework has its own strengths and weaknesses and excels depending on its use case. As you may notice, most of the frameworks are based on JavaScript languages, which has become the darling of the web development industry.

Frameworks like React, Node, Angular, and Vue are excellent choices for web development projects. Also, most of these frameworks offer server-side rendering, which is critical for today’s modern web app development landscape. Thus, you must select the right platform based on your app development requirements.