Top 10 Javascript Alternatives For Front-End Developers

Everything over the web is in JavaScript. Javascript is the most used programming language with approximately 97% of websites using JavaScript as a client-side programming language. Everything around us is Javascript ranging from iPhones, Macs, Androids, OS, Linux, etc. Learning and understanding the language helps create the most complex applications with utmost ease.

This vast usage of JavaScript goes to its compatibility with both front-end and back-end and its ability to run on all devices. This programming language does not require an initial setup and can be integrated with various third-party libraries for better performance and efficiency. In this article, we’ll be going through Javascript first followed by its alternatives that can be used in its place for frontend development.

What is Javascript?

JavaScript or JS is a programming language. It is the core technology of the World Wide Web (WWW) alongside HTML and CSS. It is a lightweight, single-threaded, cross-platform, and interpreted compiled programming language. This scripting language allows the developer to create dynamic content, and control multimedia on a website. It is a powerful language that can update and change HTML and CSS. It works seamlessly alongside HTML and CSS, making the webpage more interactive and easy to interact with. Javascript is a valuable application in web, mobile app, and game development that makes it important to learn and understand.

Why Javascript?

The following features of Javascript make it an excellent choice among a pool of various programming languages:

• Simplicity: JS is an easy-to-use programming language with a simple syntax and is beginner-friendly.
• Client-side execution: The code is executed on the client-side making it a more convenient language.
• Validation: Client-side validation helps save bandwidth from getting wasted and also saves time.
• On Browser Debugging Support: Developer Tools on every browser helps debug the code on the browser itself.

Need for Javascript alternatives

The following drawbacks of javascript make room for new alternatives to emerge:

• Security: The client-side code execution is less secure than the code executed on the server side.
• Stucked rendering: Code execution stops in between the loads in case of any bugs.
• Inheritance: JS only supports single inheritance and does not support multiple inheritance.

Top Javascript Alternatives For Frontend Developers

There are numerous alternatives of any specific language but here are the best JavaScript Alternatives for any developer to know. Following is the list of Javascript alternatives for the front end:

1. Angular
2. Dart
3. React
4. TypeScript
5. Vue
6. Elm
7. Svelte
8. jQuery
9. ClojureScript
10. CoffeeScript

1. Angular

Angular is a Typescipt-based and open-source framework led by Google. Its main goal is to create single-page applications. It provides certain advantages custom components, dependency injection, testing and browser compatibility along with proper structure to help developers write code efficiently.

Features

• Document Object Model (DOM): Angular uses DOM and is efficient when multiple updates are applied on an HTML page as it considers XML and HTML files as a tree data structure.
• Typescript: Angular uses Typescript which provides an easy way to code in Javascript by giving a higher syntactical structure to the code by defining kinds of Javascript.
• Data Binding: It helps manipulate the web page via interactions on a web browser. For example in applications like calculators, forums, games etc.
• Testing: Angular uses the Jasmine framework to write check cases for your code.

To learn Angular you can refer to this tutorial : Angular Js Tutorial

2. Dart

Dart is an open-source general-purpose programming language designed by Lars Bak and Kasper Lund and developed by Google. It is a language used for server-side as well as client-side. It can be used to create web applications, mobile apps or desktop applications. It is an object-oriented, garbage-collected language with syntax very similar to C.

Features

• Object-Oriented Nature: Dart is an object-oriented language supporting abstraction, inheritance and various object-oriented concepts.
• Cross-Compatibility: Dart is supported by all operating systems. This cross-platform functionality of Dart is achieved as Dart compile runs on its virtual machine.
• Asynchronous Programming: You can run your program without getting blocked. The single-threaded programming nature of Dart makes sure that important functions are executed till execution.
• Ahead-of-time: The Ahead-of-time compilation of Dart helps convert Dart code into native machine code.

To learn Dart you can refer to this tutorial : Dart Tutorial

3. React

React is an open-source front-end Javascript library maintained by Meta. It is used to build user interfaces, single-page applications and reusable UI components. It can be used to create web, mobile and desktop applications making it a cross-platform compatible library. Apart from UI, it provides extensions for various architectural support to the application.

Features

• Javascript Syntax Extension (JSX): JSX is a combination of HTML and Javascript and can be used to embed Javascript objects into HTML tags making code easy and more understandable.
• Virtual DOM: Using Virtual DOM, React creates a copy of the original DOM and makes the changes in that DOM first and then compares the updated DOM with the original DOM and only changes the parts that need to be updated.
• One-way Data Binding: React follows one-way data binding i.e. data flows in one direction only. The data flows from the parent component(s) to the child component (s).
• Conditional Statements: Using JSX you can implement conditional statements to your web page and view the page according the the condition existing at that moment.

To learn React you can refer to this tutorial : React Tutorial

4. TypeScript

Typescript is a free and open-source programming language developed by Microsoft. It adds static typing with type annotations to Javascript. It is used for the development of large applications and transpiles to Javascript. Its object-oriented, highly scalable and cross-platform features have made it an active choice among developers.

Features

• Object-Oriented Nature: Typescript is an object-oriented language supporting abstraction, inheritance and various object-oriented concepts.
• DOM: Typescript uses DOM and is efficient when multiple updates are applied on an HTML page as it considers XML and HTML files as a tree data structure. It uses DOM features similar to Javascript.
• Portability: Typescript can be executed on any browser, device or operating system and does not require a virtual machine for execution.
• Javascript Support: You can use every Javascript element, framework and tool in Typescript.

To learn Type Script you can refer to this tutorial : TypeScript Tutorial

5. Vue

Vue.js is an open-source model-view-viewmodel front-end Javascript library developed by Evan You. It is used to build user interfaces and single-page applications. It extends HTML and HTML attributes and offers functionality to HTML applications. Its architecture focuses on declarative rendering and component composition. It focuses on view layers and is easily integrated with other frameworks.

Features

• Virtal DOM: Using Virtual DOM, Vue creates a copy of the original DOM and makes the changes in that DOM first and then compares the updated DOM with the original DOM and only changes the parts that need to be updated.
• Directives: Vue has some built-in directives that can be used to manipulate the functionality of the front end. These directives can also be made custom according to the use case.
• Data Binding: It helps manipulate the web page via interactions on a web browser.
• Event Handling: Events can be handled in Vue using the v-on attribute on the DOM elements.

To learn Angular you can refer to this tutorial : Vue Tutorial

6. Elm

Elm is a domain-specific programming language developed by Evan Czaplicki. It is used for creating web-based user interfaces. Elm focuses on usability, performance and robustness. It is considered statically written and is a backend type of program.

Features

• Immutable Values: All values in Elm are immutable, i.e. once defined the values of the variables cannot be changed.
• Statically Typed: Elm is a statically typed language and all errors are validated and corrected at the compile time only.
• Testing: Elm functions can be tested in an isolated environment, making the whole program more testable.
• Reusability: Elm functions can be reused, unlike Javascript, Python or Typescript.

7. Svelte

Svelte is a free and open-source front-end framework and language created by Rich Harris. It is a set of components, tools and rules for creating a web application using Javascript. Due to this new approach of Svelete, it is often termed as a compiler. Its easy-to-understand nature makes it a good option for beginners.

Features

• Built-in Animations and Effects: Svelete comes with pre-packaged modules with animations and effects.
• Global State Management: Third-party state management tools like Redux or Vuex are not required in Svelte. It can be done by defining variables as readable/writeable stores and using them in all of the .svelete files.
• Component Export: In Svelete, components are automatically exported and you don’t have to worry about forgetting to export a component.
• #await Block: Using this you don’t have to define states for resolved/rejected promises.

8. jQuery

jQuery is an open-source Javascript library. It is used to simplify the interactions between the Document Object Model(DOM) and Javascript. It helps simplify DOM tree traversal and manipulation, event handling, Ajax interactions, cross-browser Javascript interactions and DOM animations.

Features

• CSS Manipulation: jQuery has predefined methods to change the style of any HTML element.
• HTML Manipulation: Using jQuery it is made easy to traverse DOM elements and manipulate them.
• Ajax Support: Using jQuery, you can use the features provided by Ajav technology on your website.
• Event handling: Events like mouse clicks can be handled using jQuery.

9. ClojureScript

ClojureScript is simply just Clojure language that can be compiled into Javascript. It has support for Java libraries through Java Interop syntax. Using ClojureScript we can leverage the functionalities and features of Javascript and Clojure libraries. It is a cross-browser compatible library with easy and quick integration with other front-end frameworks.

Features

• Dynamic Development: Clojure is dynamic, i.e. you can interact with the program and not just run it.
• Functional Programming: It is a functional language which emphasises on program being more functional than robust.
• Polymorphism: Clojure supports polymorphism making the code more reusable.
• Concurrent Programming: Clojure lets the user leverage the features of concurrency.

10. CoffeeScript

CoffeeScript is a programming language that compiles Javascript. It helps developers to write code efficiently and faster using abbreviations. It promotes code readability and easy debugging and testing.

Features

• Class-based Inheritance: Unlike Javascript, CoffeeScript supports classes and can be inherited.
• Library Support: CoffeeScript can be used with libraries of Javascript efficiently.
• Understandability: The use of abbreviations in CoffeeScript makes it more understandable and readable than Javascript.
• Syntax: CoffeeScript syntax does not require semicolons or curly brackets to separate code blocks, a simple whitespace can be used for the same.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed the various Javascript alternatives that a developer should know about. The task of choosing the right alternative involves understanding them. Thus, knowing about multiple alternatives helps the developer choose among the best ones available and the use case of the project. But the alternatives list for JavaScript continues.