Bootstrap Vs React – Which One To Choose For Front-end Development

Here is the basic understanding of what each subjects’ purpose is, Bootstrap is an open-source front-end toolkit whereas React is a JavaScript library for building UI. However, both are close competitors for designing and building the best UI for web applications.

Overview

Bootstrap employs CSS framework to create mobile-first websites that are responsive. Besides CSS, the front-end framework template can also be based on various HTML templates with support from JavaScript components like jQuery. It has a very responsive design template, framework, grids, and multi-site compatibility. Because of its many assets, it has become the second popular UI development framework. Here are some of the apps built with Bootstrap:

• Vogue
• Apple Maps Connect
• Lyft
• Whatsapp

React is an open-source JavaScript library, which creates rich user interfaces for web apps. Furthermore, React offers flexibility to create custom components for rapid development. It’s a library, which allows quick rendering of your web page to make it more search-engine friendly. Here are some of the apps built with React:

• PayPal
• The BBC
• Facebook
• Netflix
• Twitter

To understand which is better for you, let us understand each of their distinct quality, characteristics, and features so you can understand which will be perfect for your project.

Performance Comparison

Bootstrap offers extensive customization features in order to increase the app’s performance even if it is content-heavy. In fact, it is known for its user-centric ease when it comes to developing websites and web applications.

Moreover, it utilizes requirement-specific resources to reduce the heaviness of the website by using source code instead of using the entire library. When there is minimal use of CSS and JavaScript codes, it minimizes the load on downloading and thereby increases the efficiency while displaying. Lastly, with the best practices, Bootstrap can lower the fully loading time of 2.1 seconds of a page size 1.3 MB.

React has a faster and more lightweight performance in comparison to Bootstrap, especially when it comes to user experience. Since React is component-based, it helps build more robust single-page apps. Its reusability helps in removing code clutter and its reduced DOM manipulation speeds up the loading of the page.

Ease of Testing

In Bootstrap, external plugins and compatible tools are used to test the apps and sides made with them. However, there are no internal components available within Bootstrap for running tests. It should be noted that running tests across browsers of different devices are needed to check how consistent and uniform the application is. For testing a bootstrap application, you can use Chrome Developer Tools, DesignModo, BrowserStack, TestComplete, and many more.

Unlike Bootstrap, React offers some important test runners which are easy to follow during the development process. One such feature found in Jest, Mocha, and others is that it helps in practicing the standard pattern of executing test suites that help testers identify problems in real browsers environments. Eventually, this reduces the time-to-market and speeds up the deployment of apps, and gives a push to a more productive environment.

Application Architecture

We can summarize the architecture of Bootstrap as View-View-Controller. This is because the built uses two components called the Logic layer and View layer. As the names suggest, the view component primarily focuses on the visual display whereas the view-controller sets the visual components’ behavior within the framework.

React has no built-in architecture pattern. Instead, it caters to the view layer of an application made up of components. These components render the user interface as the data changes.

Scalability

Bootstrap has a mobile-first framework; therefore it can be relied on to make scalable websites and applications. So, you can scale up or down on the browser, application, or screen the user is using through Bootstrap. Moreover, there is no cross-browser bugs or compatibility issue because of its universal codes. Therefore, it is preferable amongst developers.

Because React apps are made up entirely of javascript, developers can make the project more scalable because it relies entirely on the traditional ways to organize the code. Additionally, React provides an excellent framework to build scalable UIs related to virtual DOM and component reusability.

Suitability for Building Complex Applications

Bootstrap is extremely favorable for building complex applications as it is part of the HTML/CSS/JS frontend framework. This framework gives it a wide range of components, templates, themes, and many other resources pertaining to project requirements. Furthermore, Bootstrap can be used to develop applications to support different platforms, devices, and screens without the need to repeat the code.

React is also suitable to build complex applications; its main focus is to build highly interactive single-page apps.

Security

Frontend frameworks are known to be vulnerable to threats and Bootstraps are no exception. It is more prone to XSS vulnerabilities through the data-target attribute, and developers have reported this threat even over the updated versions. These vulnerabilities exist because of insufficient validation of user input. To overcome this threat, developers can implement a new JavaScript sanitizer in order to allow whitelisted HTML elements in the data attribute and set the HttpOnly flag for cookies.

React applications are also prone to XSS vulnerabilities, Server-side rendering attacks, SQL injections, and some more. To ensure security for your applications, developers will have to implement exploitation of script-injection flaws, defense from the insecure links, using the serialized Javascript module, etc.

Conclusion

When it comes to designing and customizing the best UI for web applications, Bootstrap and React are close competitors. Depending on what your requirements are, each offers a large number of benefits.

Augmento Labs help organize your business and helps it grow to reach new heights. We can guide you in making the right decision and choosing the right technology for building your application. Our cutting-edge solutions and expertise across domains ensure that there is consistent growth and productivity. Our team of experts will help you move up the maturity chain, guaranteeing consistent growth and productivity. Reach us for a quick consultation now!