5 Advantages and Disadvantages of React JS | Limitations & Benefits of React JS

React JS is an open source library which improves the speed of the app with the help of User Interfaces (UI). Even without any technical knowledge in coding React JS can be used to create web applications (Do not confuse React JS with a framework). 

Besides web application, React JS allows you to build mobile apps since it can handle and view layers. Famous applications like Facebook, Dropbox and Netflix built their web applications through React JS so as to increase their productivity. In fact it was created in the year 2013 by its parent company Facebook. Many other large scale developers prefer React JS to develop their apps. Al though React JS offers plenty of benefits, there are some drawbacks which we cannot deny. Developers need to take these advantages and disadvantages into account before things start getting complicated.

In this article, I will be examining about 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of React JS | Limitations & Benefits of React JS. From this post, you will know the pros and cons of using React JS.

Let's get started,

Advantages of React JS

1. Performance

The DOM is the virtual representation of web browser components. The conventional DOM faces many problems which slows down the application speed. Especially, when it is updated. This problem is entirely eliminated through the use of virtual DOM. 

The usage of virtual DOM in React JS makes it to perform faster. The operations are carried out inside the memory. Whatever the code we write is virtual. So there is less changes to the real DOM. The HTML files are not generated frequently. Al these make React JS faster as well as smoother.

2. Learning Curve

React JS is much easier to learn and use than other frameworks. The open script JavaScript library makes it easier to learn. If you have fair knowledge in JavaScript, you can easily get started with React JS. There are various tutorials and online documentations which will help you with the learning process. This is the reason why many new companies prefer using React JS fir developing their new application.

3. Reusability

The codebase of React JS can be divided into smaller components. The components used in React JS can be effectively reused. This eventually allows the UI also to be used in different places of the code. Thus, the developer needs to write less coding. Overall, you can significantly save time spent in web development. 

4. SEO Optimization

SEO optimization is must for a site in order for a better ranking. Search engines like Google gives more preference to a react application than JavaScript used application. Mainstream JavaScript websites has a problem indexing in search engines. 

React JS applications work through the server which makes it faster to load. React JS application makes use of virtual DOM functioning as a standard web page using HTML. Eventually, this will result in faster indexing and crawling.

5. Community Support

Due to the open source nature, React JS has backed with community support. Whenever there is a problem, you can assure that you get support from this community which is absolutely free. The community is composed of contributors who wants to make React JS a strong platform. 

A problem which you currently face should already solved by the community. So you will have to look at pre-existing blogs or YouTube videos to solve the issue.

 Disadvantages of React JS

1. User Interface

React JS only offers few tools to develop a functional app. There is no multifunctioning tool here. It specifically targets the UI layers. Therefore, it cannot cover all the layers. For this reason, you have to rely on other tools for the complete development of the project.

2. Complexity

React JS uses a type of syntax extension known as JSX. It is a combination of HTML and JavaScript. While it intends to make the code readable, most often developers complaint JSX to be too complex to understand. Particularly, for the beginners. Even though the codebase is changed, the performance and user interface remains the same.

3. Frequent Evolvement

React JS is a platform which is in constant development. Even though this constant evolvement intends to provide new improvements and features, still this can bring negative consequences. The developers may fail to keep up with the speed of development, mainly because they need to learn new things frequently. With constant changes the process can get more complicated.

4. Improper Documentation

Another major drawback of constant evolvement is that it can create problems in the documentation process. Developers have no time to maintain documents since it is short period of time. So probably the documents does not cover the entire details. The developers are left with no other option but to create documents with new features and tools.

5. Indexing Issues

Al though React JS provides many benefits in terms of SEO, still it is not perfect when it comes to rendering. Particularly, for the web pages that frequently rendered on the client side. This creates a problem since Google bots doesn't receive necessary information that be be used to index. And since React JS deals with JavaScript, one single typo can make the entire indexing process to be invalid.