An inside joke says: there are three things you can watch forever – fire burning, water falling, and JavaScript developers arguing which framework is better. Jokes aside, choosing the right developer for your project may notably affect the entire process. Different frameworks perform different tasks – and so do the programmers who use them. Assume you have all the specifications for your project. And your project's particular purposes require hiring a JavaScript developer. How do you choose a professional and not lose the budget planning and time scheduling game? Naturally, available specialists have different soft and hard skills, backgrounds, and experiences. Knowing the distinction between the frameworks they work with might be beneficial for making your final decision. Vue.js and React are currently among the most popular and well-known frameworks for JavaScript developers. Let's have a closer look at their key features, as it might shed some light on the question of which specialist you should ultimately include in your team.

Technically speaking, React is not a framework but rather an open-source JavaScript library for building UI components and user interfaces. It was created by Facebook to improve the interface creation and rendering process. Apps built with React: Facebook, Airbnb, Instagram, Uber, UberEats, DropBox, Netflix, Walmart, PayPal, Twitter, Reddit, and others. The library is famous for three key features: declarativeness, universality, and component-based approach. A declarative approach reduces the overall amount of code and makes it more transparent. It uses the universality principle "Learn once, write anywhere" and can be used on the web and mobile platforms. It allows you to create encapsulated components managing their own state and merge them into complex user interfaces. Vue.js is a progressive open-source JavaScript framework for building user interfaces and single-page applications. Interestingly, the framework was created by one developer, a former Google employee, in contrast to its direct competitors made by tech giants like Facebook or Google. Apps built with Vue.js: GitLab, Zoom, Grammarly, Alibaba, IPL Dashboard, Baidu, Behance, and others. Vue.js positions itself as approachable, performant, and versatile. You will have no problem mastering it if you already know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Fast virtual DOM, lightweight (20KB), and effortless optimization make it performant. It is also very scalable in terms of the feature – you can use only the required package and then scale it to a full-fledged MVC framework.

The Stack Overflow Developer Survey, the most popular and comprehensive survey for programmers, published their 2020 results on the most favorite web framework: it shows that the gap between React and Vue.js is slightly less than 3%.

To get a better picture of any topic, we always get information from various sources. There's a bit different story with GitHub Stars: Vue.js is leading here with 180k stars against 165k stars given to React.

How about The State of JavaScript? This annual survey, designed to present the current situation in the JavaScript ecosystem, shows that React firmly holds its position, while JS developers slightly lost interest in Vue.js in 2020 after a period of robust growth.

No matter the discrepancies, we would point that both packages have already found their places on the market and are widely used in many successful projects. You are unlikely to make a wrong choice if you understand your company's needs and your project's aims.

The essential point here is that one way or another, the two tools perform similar tasks. And developers don't use them simultaneously. It can be a matter of choice – experience, skills, or personal preferences. Seasoned professionals usually have no problem switching one to another. However, there are some implications.

Unlike Vue.js, React uses JSX as a template markup language. It is a syntax extension to JavaScript that allows you to combine markup with styling and scripts in the same reusable component. JSX is one of the biggest bumps on React learning curve. React core provides clean basic functionality that is relatively easy to understand. Due to the lower overall amount of code, developers will have an easier time diving into React part of the project. However, React requires deep knowledge and experience with JavaScript to make decisions about third-party libraries that will perform tasks that are not included in the core functionality.

Vue.js utilizes HTML and CSS as markup, technologies which are very familiar to any web developer. An average professional will have an easy time diving into a codebase and understanding what it does. Unlike React, Vue.js gives developers a more extensive standard toolset that enables the ability to perform the same tasks that a React ecosystem typically does with third-party libraries. This way, Vue.js code usually takes more room in the project, so new employees will need some time to go through it.

From the business point of view, React and Vue.js are like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. You can perform pretty much the same tasks with both tools equally efficiently. React is a flexible library that requires support from other libraries for development. Vue.js practices a different approach, offering many different features as part of the same infrastructure. We believe that for a skilled professional who is experienced working with one framework, it wouldn't be a challenge to switch to the other. The essential factor here is your potential team member's overall experience in web development. We summed up technologies you should consider planning to hire JavaScript developers. This is the list of the instruments essential for a front-end specialist.

Experience with the listed above technologies advances a developer in the list of job-seekers. In other words, you shouldn't limit your candidate list by only those who work with either of the frameworks.

The IT sector's latest HR tendencies show that wise recruiters no longer look for specialists limited to the knowledge of a specific language or a particular framework. At first glance, the differences between Vue.js and React may seem substantial. In reality, however, they are just two instruments of the same language. And an experienced professional would unlikely have any trouble switching from one to another or learn some new skills.