ReactJS

React is a JavaScript library that helps web developers build sites from components that are reusable and repurposable. This approach helps save on developer time and costs. These components, such as contact forms and buttons, can be easily extended or switched out even across different projects. 

You’ll often hear the term Single Page Application (SPA) when people talk about React. It’s the idea of bundling a site’s structure, text, and core functionality and sending it to the user in one small package. This makes the site feel much faster and more responsive. 

Without those jarring waits between clicking a link and the next page loading, your site feels more like a fast desktop application than a traditional website. 

In a business environment, React, and other SPA libraries are great when you need fast data entry, “offline” capabilities for when a user is on the road, or even to mimic the look and feel of a “native” office tool or mobile app. It’s also likely that you’ve already used one — Google Maps, Twitter, and Facebook are all well-known examples of SPAs.

When Facebook started using React, they thought it was so impressive that they decided to share it with the world. When they released the Open-Source library, hundreds of businesses started adopting it, due to its appeal to developers and the end-users:

Fast to learn – Because it’s a JavaScript library, it’s effortless for JavaScript developers to add to their projects. By studying the documentation, a JavaScript developer can start using React in just a few hours.

Reusable components – React operates on a component-based structure. Each component acts as a building block and can be reused multiple times across the app. This helps give a consistent look and feel to the app and makes maintaining the codebase faster and easier.

Fast render – The use of virtual DOMs explains why React apps are so performant. Virtual DOMs are kept in memory. Whenever there are any changes to the view, these changes first apply to the virtual DOM. Then, the updates are applied to the DOM while ensuring a minimum amount of read/write time.

SEO-friendly – While JavaScript frameworks aren’t usually search engine friendly, React changes the game. By rendering the virtual DOM to the browser as a regular web page, React makes interactive websites SEO-friendly.

Both React and React Native is widely used with the difference that React JS is designed for web development projects while React Native is used for mobile app development. 
React Native allows JavaScript developers to write mobile apps using React. There are a lot of common elements between the two, with some core React developers also working on React Native. As a cross-platform technology, your React Native builds will work on both Android and iOS devices. 

If you are not sure on what to build and where to start, check out our Work out what to build packages.