?? Front-end development trends to watch in 2023 ????????
Naim Latifi
Senior Frontend developer (consultant) at Trafikf?rvaltning, Region Stockholm
Front-end development is evolving and growing rapidly over the years. Staying up to date with the latest trends and emerging technologies is crucial for us developers, clients, and companies to maintain competitiveness in the industry. In this article, we will look at some of the most significant trends to watch in 2023. So, let’s dive into them.
?? Front-end frameworks/libraries popularity and usage in 2023?
As a part of the front-end development process nowadays it is common to choose a framework for building a fast, responsive, and secure User Interface (UI). But, what do the trends look like regarding the popularity and usage of those frameworks? We will explore survey results and analyze the latest data about framework usage and popularity pulled from the State of Javascript.???
According to the survey, the top most popular JavaScript frameworks/libraries with experience over time are ranked as follows:??
?React.js as seen from the screenshot above continues to be the most widely used and trusted framework in the industry and according to the statistics around 67.9% of questions respondents from 2022 plan to use it again.?
Vue.js is ranked as the second most popular JavaScript framework and according to the questions of respondents, 35.7% plan to use it again with a significant increase in awareness of 99.5% in the last years.?
Angular on the other hand has decreased in popularity in recent years which may be due to the learning curves, its architecture, or any other factor. According to the survey statistics and questions of respondents, 40.5% are not interested in the framework followed by 28% that would not use it again. This may indicate that the framework may not be a promising choice for the front-end developer to choose on their future front-end projects.
Conversely, according to the data suggestion from the survey for React.js, Vue.js, and Angular, the percentage of respondents not interested and would not use it again (screenshots below) in general in those frameworks has been steadily increasing in the last years which may indicate opportunities for new light-weighted front-end libraries and frameworks to gain reactions.
Preact, Svelte, Alpine, Lid, and Solid? - are relatively new players in the front-end world with a very low percentage of usage but some of them with a steady increase in the percentage of Interested which may indicate that developers are open to trying out new frameworks/libraries.
?? Monorepos and building tools
Monorepo is becoming popular nowadays, especially among web developers. It is a software development approach where multiple distinct projects are stored in the same repository. The Monorepo approach makes it easier for developers to share code between teams, reduce duplications, and increase efficiency.??
Moreover, there is also a new approach that is known as micro front-ends where larger front-end applications are broken down into smaller front-end applications that can be developed, tested, and deployed independently and still appears to customers as a single cohesive product. However, when working with micro front-ends it is common to place micro front-ends in their repository. While this brings isolation, it also makes managing dependencies across the application hard. Thus, Monorepos simplifies tasks to share source code between the micro front-end and manage dependencies across the entire application. For managing Monorepos and making them scale there are tools available where the State of JavaScript ranks them by “usage” as below:
In summary, combining micro frontends and Monorepos allows teams to collaborate more effectively, have faster development cycles, and maintain consistency across projects.?
?? The popularity of Progressive Web Apps?
Progressive web apps (PWA) will continue gaining traction in 2023. These are indistinguishable from native apps that aim to deliver a native app-like experience to the users. The main advantages of PWA are that they are fast and they can also provide some offline experience to users such as push notifications and background updates. PWAs are considered to be much lower development costs as there is a single codebase that is shared across multiple devices. Users can easily bookmark PWA as apps on their devices.
?? Accessibility?
As the web is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, front-end developers are paying special consideration by ensuring that applications built are accessible for all types of users and regardless of their limitations. Accessibility is nothing more than building applications that are as comfortable as possible for everyone. Nowadays developing applications according to the principle of accessibility is becoming more than a trend and where companies are looking to serve all kinds of audiences. Web accessibility is also mandated by law that refers to digital product development in the EU public sector to be accessible and meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 standards. However, what was lacking is the same legislation for the private EU sector. Finally, with the EU directive - European Accessibility Act (EAA) formally known as Directive 2019/882 we will see a huge improvement in accessibility for the private sector as well. This directive aims to create a common accessibility standard for essential products and services. From 28 June 2025, the following products and services are covered by Act: Computer and operating systems, TV equipment related to digital television services, E-commerce, phone services, banking services, e-books, e-readers, ticketing and check-in machines, ATMs and payment terminals, Smartphones, and other communication devices,? certain elements of airbus and water transport services, websites, mobile services, electronic tickets, and information, answering emergency calls to the European emergency number 112. As of 28 June 2025, companies must ensure that the newly marked products and services covered by ACT are accessible otherwise customers will be able to file complaints before national courts or authorities if the mentioned products or services are not accessible.
?? Headless CMS
A headless content management system (CMS) is predominantly a back-end function that allows content creators to manage and store content but does not include a front-end interface layer. Instead, content is pushed via APIs that can be displayed in several front-end applications such as websites, mobile applications, smart devices, etc. This trend is increasing in popularity and many companies are already pushing for headless CMS capabilities for their platforms.
Some of the top headless CMS to consider for 2023 includes Sanity, Storyblok, Contentful, Starpi, Hygraph, etc…
?? AI/ML in code development
Artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are going to continue to be significant trends in 2023 and where they have already begun to impact developers and the way they code. With the release of GitHub and Copilot developers can pair programming with AI programmers in their favorite editors. It is as simple as typing code or comments and GitHub Copilot suggests the next line to its best understanding.?
Another arrival of AI powered by OpenAI is ChatGPT. It has automated the chat system so you feel you are talking with a human presence on the other end. Moreover, it is also able to perform programming coding tasks. According to a survey taken in 2022 from GitLab 24% of respondents now are using AI/ML as part of code review, software testing, and more.?
More and more companies nowadays are exploring and finding ways of leveraging AI/ML in the development cycle by making it as developer-friendly as possible. But, does this mean that AI will replace front-end developers? The answer is no. AI will enhance front-end development rather than replace it.
That was it, I hope you found this article interesting and helpful :)
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