Frontend
The visible part of an application – layout, design, navigation and interactions. Modern frameworks: React, Angular, Vue.js and Next.js.
The frontend is everything the user sees and interacts with: buttons, forms, animations, navigation. A good frontend drives satisfaction, conversion and business success. Modern frameworks like React, Vue and Angular enable interactive, fast and responsive UIs that used to require native desktop apps.
What is Frontend?
Frontend development (client-side development) is building the user interface of a web application or app. The frontend runs in the user’s browser and talks to the backend via APIs. The three core technologies are HTML (structure and content), CSS (visual design and layout) and JavaScript (interactivity and logic). Modern frontend uses frameworks and libraries: React (Meta), Vue, Angular (Google), Svelte and meta-frameworks like Next.js (React, SSR), Nuxt (Vue) and SvelteKit. TypeScript has largely replaced JavaScript as the standard for professional frontend.
How does Frontend work?
Modern frontends use a component-based architecture: the UI is split into reusable components (header, button, card, modal) with their own state, styling and logic. Frameworks like React use a virtual DOM: instead of touching the real DOM on every change (expensive), React computes the diff and updates only what changed. Server-side rendering (SSR) with Next.js sends pre-rendered HTML for fast initial load and SEO. Static site generation (SSG) pre-renders at build time. Bundlers like Vite, Webpack or Turbopack bundle and optimize code for delivery.
Practical Examples
Next.js e-commerce: SSR for SEO, React for interactive product pages, Tailwind for styling, Vercel for automatic deployments.
React admin dashboard: Data viz with Recharts, tables with TanStack Table, drag-and-drop with dnd-kit – all as React components.
Vue SPA: Single-page app for an internal tool with Vue Router, Pinia and Vuetify.
Astro content site: Static marketing site with Astro (zero JS by default), loading JavaScript only where needed – best performance.
Typical Use Cases
Web applications: Interactive SPAs and MPAs for SaaS, e-commerce and enterprise portals
Dashboards: Data visualization and business intelligence UIs
Mobile web: Responsive sites and PWAs that feel like native apps
Design systems: Reusable component libraries for consistent branding
Marketing sites: Fast, SEO-friendly landing pages and corporate sites
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
- User experience: Modern frameworks enable smooth, app-like interactions in the browser
- SEO: SSR and SSG with Next.js/Nuxt deliver search-engine-friendly content
- Performance: Code splitting, lazy loading and image optimization for fast load times
- Component-based: Reusable UI building blocks for consistent design and faster development
- Large ecosystem: npm has hundreds of thousands of packages for almost any need
Disadvantages
- JavaScript fatigue: Many frameworks and tools can be overwhelming
- Bundle size: Uncontrolled dependencies bloat the app and slow it down
- Browser compatibility: Different behaviour in Chrome, Safari and Firefox requires testing
- Fast evolution: Frameworks and best practices change quickly – ongoing learning needed
Frequently Asked Questions about Frontend
React, Vue or Angular – which framework?
What is the difference between SPA, SSR and SSG?
How do you optimize frontend performance?
Related Terms
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