apps.md

App Frameworks (Desktop, Mobile, Tablet, etc.) Tools

Front-End App Frameworks: [^1]

• AngularJS (i.e Angular 1.x.x) + Batarang
• Angular (i.e. Angular 2.0.0 +) + angular-cli
• Aurelia + Aurelia CLI
• Ember + embercli + Ember Inspector
• Polymer
• React + create-react-app + React Developer Tools
• Vue.js + vue-cli & Vue.js devtools
• Riot

Native Hybrid Mobile WebView (i.e., Browser Engine Driven) Frameworks:

These solutions typically use Cordova, crosswalk, or a custom WebView as a bridge to native APIs.

• ionic
• onsen.io

Native Hybrid Mobile Development Webview (i.e., Browser Engine Driven) Environments/Platforms/Tools:

These solutions typically use Cordova, crosswalk, or a custom WebView as a bridge to native APIs.

• Adobe PhoneGap [$]
• cocoon.io [free to $]
• ionic hub [free to $]
• kony [$]
• Monaca [$]

Native Desktop WebView (i.e., Browser Engine Driven) App Frameworks:

• Electron
• NW.js

Native Mobile App Frameworks (Aka JavaScript Native Apps)

These solutions use a JS engine at runtime to interpret JS and bridge that to native APIs. No browser engine or WebView is used. The UI is constructed from native UI components.

• Flutter
• NativeScript
• React Native
• tabris.js [free to $]
• trigger.io [$]
• weex

References & demo apps:

• todomvc.com
• RealWorld example apps [code]
• Frontend Guidelines Questionnaire
• Frontend Guidelines

Performance:

• js-framework-benchmark
• Front-End Performance Checklist 2018

---

ADVICE:

[^1] If you are new to front-end/JavaScript application development I'd start with Vue.js. Then I'd work my way to React. Then I'd look at Angular 2+, Ember, or Aurelia.

If you are building a simple website that has minimal interactions with data (i.e. mostly a static content web site), you should avoid a front-end framework. A lot of work can be done with a task runner like Gulp and jQuery, while avoiding the unnecessary complexity of learning and using an app framework tool.

Want something smaller than React, consider Preact. Preact is an attempt to recreate the core value proposition of React (or similar libraries like Mithril) using as little code as possible, with first-class support for ES2015. Currently the library is around 3kb (minified & gzipped).