React is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces originally developed by Facebook and later released as an open source project. The radical difference between React and the JavaScript libraries that came before it is the development of the Virtual Document object model or Virtual DOM. The virtual DOM identifies the changes that are actually made to the actual DOM and only applies those changes, as opposed to many libraries that will send all changes to the DOM even if they make no visual changes to the page. This one feature makes React notably faster than libraries that came before it.
Since React is a library and not a framework it is more versatile and extendable, allowing other javascript libraries to be used with it easily. This makes React an exciting tool to use on sites of all kinds including Airbnb, Cloudflare, Dropbox, Netflix, PayPal, Tesla, Uber, and of course Facebook.
We have started using React on the majority of the new pages on SimpleWeb E-Commerce and we have been re-writing older pages to include it as well. The response has been great from our clients as well as their customers with everyone commenting on the speed increase and the ease of use in the newer React based pages.
In addition to using React we also use React Native to create our Native Mobile Apps.
