| Framework | First release | Sep 2026 | Licence | Rendering model | Demo (gzip) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| React 7,897 | 2013 | 19.3 | MIT | Virtual DOM | 65.8 KB |
| Preact 268,577 | 2015 | 10.29 | MIT | Virtual DOM | 5.4 KB |
| Solid 269,718 | 2021 (1.0) | 1.9 | MIT | Signals, compiled JSX | 5.2 KB |
| Vue 5,482 | 2014 | 3.5 | MIT | Proxies + virtual DOM | 20.3 KB |
| Angular 42,088 | 2016 (v2) | 22.1 | MIT | Signals, compiled templates | 34.8 KB |
| Svelte 36,701 | 2016 | 5.57 | MIT | Compiler + signals | 15.1 KB |
| Lit 310,034 | 2017 (lit-html) | 3.3 | BSD-3-Clause | Web components | 5.8 KB |
Technical merit rarely decides alone. Work through these in order:
Team and hiring. React's 44.7% share in the Stack Overflow 2025 survey means the most libraries and candidates. Prefer what your team knows unless it fails a requirement.
Kind of project. Content sites suit Astro 17,728 ; large enterprise apps suit Angular; app-store apps suit Ionic 20,753 ; widgets embedded in other sites suit Lit or Preact.
Rendering needs. If search engines or slow phones matter, start with SSR or SSG (Rendering Strategies).
Longevity. Prefer projects with a foundation, company or sponsor base and a published release policy; AngularJS 25,759 teams learned what a forced rewrite costs.