Blissfully fast and simple JavaScript frameworks

Simple and fast. That’s all we want from our software tools. And meeting the requirements, of course. You can’t go without that. Also, we’d like them to be pleasant to use, with a good developer experience. It would be really great to have a friendly community. A large ecosystem is important as well. Extensible, maintainable, up-to-date, and easy to integrate with other systems… Actually, come to think of it, we ask a lot of our software tools.

JavaScript and its libraries have undergone intensive refinement on all these fronts over the years, and this refinement continues today. As ever in software, like life, it’s all about tradeoffs and balancing different demands. 

One key area of focus in recent months has been in improving performance on the front end. There is work going on in the underlying frameworks to find the right balance between server-side rendering and client-side rendering, as well as in providing the tools to app developers to intelligently apply rendering best practices to their specific scenarios. This objective is generally called “hydration” and the drive to improve it collides with another objective: simplicity.

When we talk about simplicity in JavaScript frameworks, three standouts spring to mind: Astro, HTMX, and Alpine.js. We’ve got you covered with new content for each.

Top picks for JavaScript readers on InfoWorld

Combine Astro and HTMX HTMX lets you do a lot of JavaScript work using HTML extensions. Astro lets you build a full JS stack with minimal wrangling. Put the two together for a groundbreaking developer experience.

A conceptual intro to AstroA gentle introduction to Astro and its role in web development, focusing on the concepts. If you have been hearing about Astro and you want a fast, high-level understanding, dip into this quick and instructive guide.

Alpine.js in a nutshellBecause Alpine.js is so tiny (but powerful!), this article both introduces and covers most of the framework. If you want a reactive UI in the smallest possible package, this is it.

Things we love, and don’t love, about JavaScriptYou really get to know a programming language when you use it as much as we use JavaScript. This intimate knowing leads us to strong opinions, good and bad. Take a look at our list of JavaScript upsides and downsides, and see if you feel the love… or something else.

TypeScript gets a shot of Go speedA new Go-based TypeScript compiler gives the strongly-typed JavaScript superset a speed boost. Microsoft’s port ultimately aims to scale TypeScript for larger code bases.

Core updates to JavaScript coming in JuneThe latest version of JavaScript is firming up with ECMAScript 2025 set to drop in June. A highlight is the standardization at the language level of how we import JSON files as modules. (Interesting discussion there as to why security brought us the “with: json” modifier to these imports.) Also on tap are new Set methods, sync iterator helpers, and regular expression modifiers.

More good reads and JavaScript updates

Why Create React App must goThe decision by React to sunset Create React App might seem puzzling. This handy little CLI tool lets you stand up a new React-based app with a dev server in no time. Why would the React team discontinue a popular means for launching new React projects? It’s because it leaves the app developer with a simple structure that requires manually implementing all of the various things a production app needs. React recommends using a “meta framework” like Next.js instead.

Angular’s push to fine-tuned hydrationYou can see the same forces at work in Angular’s evolution of incremental hydration. This feature, just now arriving in Angular 19, allows you to define fine-grained resource loading at the component level with the @defer syntax. In essence, Angular aims to provide a fairly sophisticated capability—determining asset loading at the component level with various triggers—in as simple a form as possible.

Bun continues the drive to speed and complianceBun is another effort to unite simplicity and speed. In essence, it wants to give you what you already know, a Node.js compatible runtime, with radically better performance. But it’s also more than that. It puts the runtime together with a bundler, package manager (like NPM), and test runner, the developer, doesn’t have to put all of these elements together. Bun is constantly releasing updates to improve the coverage of Node/NPM APIs and find speedups.

Rendering on the WebThe Google Chrome team offers thoughts on server-side rendering versus client-side rendering. Don’t miss this excellent deep dive with thoughts from the builders of key components of the web.

The State of Vue.js Report 2025The state of Vue.js report gives a deep and broad look at one of the most popular frameworks in the world.