The report on the “JavaScript Rising Stars” study was published for the year 2021. For the sixth time in a row, the annual study investigates which are the most popular JavaScript projects currently on GitHub. The basis is the number of GitHub stars that have been added for a project within the year. In addition to the overall winners, the most popular front-end, Node.js and testing frameworks as well as build tools are listed.
The top 10 most popular projects
The command line tool zx, which was first published in May 2021, immediately took first place in the overall ranking: it garnered 24,400 GitHub stars over the course of the year. Developed by Google, zx should enable the writing of simple command line scripts in JavaScript or TypeScript. Second place with 21,400 stars goes to the build tool Vite.js, which, thanks to the use of esbuild as a compiler, is characterized by high performance and is said to be twenty times faster than webpack. Next.js, which the study makers call the “Meta-Framework for the React World”, rounds off the top 3 with 19,700 stars.
The JavaScript library React itself, which is used to create graphical user interfaces, barely missed the bronze medal with 18,500 stars. The other places in the top 10 include the CSS framework Tailwind CSS and the web framework Vue.js, but also Microsoft’s source code editor Visual Studio Code.
Meta frameworks and faster loading times
Not only Next.js, but also other so-called meta-frameworks are proving to be particularly popular according to the star rating on GitHub. These include the Vue framework Nuxt.js, SvelteKit for creating Svelte applications and the full-stack web framework Remix.
Although only represented in 31st place in the overall ranking, the makers of the study highlight Astro as one of the most notable projects of the year: The tool should be able to create faster loading websites because they contain less JavaScript. The concept of Astro is similar to the Static Site Generation, but should differ in the point that dynamic content can be contained in “islands”.
All further information on the sixth edition of the “JavaScript Rising Stars” is available on the website.
(May)