As per the Stack Overflow survey, React.js was the 2nd most popular web framework after Node.js. With popularity comes support! Many libraries have been built to help accelerate development, improve productivity, reduce bugs, test apps, and more. In this blog, we will read about a few of the top React libraries and explore the top one's worth trying.
What is a React Component Library?
A React components library is pre-written code that helps developers add specific ready-to-use design components during development. Now, how does it help?
Imagine this; you want to add a sidebar to an app. Now there are two options. You can code it by hand, which can take anywhere between 20 hours to 40 hours, or use the components library with a sidebar that hardly takes 20–30 minutes to add in code. Here is where libraries come into the picture.
One of the significant reasons why react libraries are so popular is that developers don’t have to code things repeatedly. They can use the pre-coded library and save both time and energy.
Now, let's start with popular React libraries worth trying in 2023.
Top React Libraries That Must try in 2023
1. Mantine UI
No. of Stars on GitHub: 18.2k Stars
Weekly Downloads: 121,574
Mantine UI is a fully featured React library that helps build functional and accessible web apps with lightning speed. It comes with 100+ customizable components and 40 hooks, which are more than enough for the entire project. Moreover, all the components have the overriding capacity, so developers can modify them as needed.
One unique thing that stands out is that the library is categorized into packages like mantine/dates and mantine/hooks, which helps developers pick the right package without bloating the app.
Mantine is based on Emotion which gives access to auto vendor prefixing, lazy evaluation, dynamic theming, and type-safe styles with TypeScript.
2. Chakra UI
No. of Stars on GitHub: 31.6k Stars
Weekly Downloads: 359,750
Chakra UI is a styled system under the hood. Styled systems give a systematic approach to development, improving developers' productivity. However, the main aim of Chakra UI is to build accessible web apps.
Let's understand it. Google takes accessibility very seriously, as it wants every user to have access to sites and apps. Accessibility also helps people with disabilities. These accessibility principles are defined in the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI).
Since Chakra UI follows WAI guidelines, your apps won't struggle with performance. Another good thing about Chakra is that it makes dark mode easy to use, and its tree-shakeable design ensures that your app only uses the code.
3. Next UI
No. of Stars on GitHub: 9.5K Stars
Weekly Downloads: 14,188
Next is another React library that has gained massive popularity among developers. Next is fully typed, which means there is a low learning curve and better productivity. Thanks to its simplicity, developers at all experience levels can build functional, beautiful React apps.
It's a fully featured UI library with unique features like focus interactions, build media queries, critical path CSS, server-side rendering support, and more. It provides an easy way to customize the default theme and eliminates unwanted style props, which boosts performance.
4. Prime React
No. of Stars on GitHub:3.7k Stars
Weekly Downloads: 59,365
Prime React is a React library for enterprise app development. Top brands like Mercedes, Airbus, Ford, Fox, Volkswagen, eBay, Intel, Nvidia, Verizon, and American Express use Prime React for app development. Its design-agnostic feature helps select the look and style of existing libraries.
Prime React comes with customizable templates and 280+ UI blocks you can copy and paste directly while developing your interface. Although they do not have a large community, they provide excellent support and can expect a response within one business day.
5. Ant Design
No. Of Stars on GitHub: 84.9k Stars
Weekly Downloads: 971,677
Ant Design claims itself as a second most popular React library. It's an enterprise-level library and is used by Alibaba and Baidu. It follows a philosophy called, ‘certain, meaningful, and growing.’ It comes with over 50 components that serve as building blocks of apps.
All the components support the internalization of a dozen languages, which is helpful for global enterprises. It has an engaged community on sites like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and Segment Fault.
6. BluePrint
No. Of Stars on GitHub: 19.7k Stars
Weekly Downloads: 192,202
Palantir developed BluePrint which is an open-source React UI kit. But it stands out from other React libraries because it is made for complex desktop apps. Blueprint does come with detailed documentation but lacks community support. Some of its essential features include more than 300 icons that can be easily modified. It also separates core components based on use cases and dependencies for better developer productivity.
7. Storybook
No. Of Stars on GitHub: 77.3k Stars
Weekly Downloads: 334,637
Storybook have been quite popular in recent times. But this one is different because it's not exactly a library. It's an open-source UI development ecosystem that helps build react UI components in isolation.
Storybook lets developers work on one component at a time, enabling faster development. It also allows you to document, reuse, and test user interface components, leading to better, speedier development; Storybook features extensive plugin systems that help fine-tune JavaScript apps and is a must-have tool for any development toolbox.
These are few of the libraries which are worth trying in 2023. However, two libraries surely deserve mention:
Notable Mentions: Popular React Testing and State Management Libraries
- Redux: Redux is a popular state management React library. It connects components with their states to reduce callbacks. It's also called developers' best friend owing to its user-friendly environment.
- Enzyme: Enzyme is a testing library that allows React Developers to manipulate, transverse, and simulate React output. The best thing about enzymes is that they prevent overload by testing multiple components simultaneously.
Conclusion:
There's no doubt that React is one of the most powerful frameworks developed today. And its ecosystem of libraries just adds more to its charm.
