Frontend development tools and technologies are evolving continuously. React JS is one of the most demanding technology because of several factors. Because of having a vast collection of tools and libraries which increases the level of scalability.
Therefore in this article, we will look at the Best React development tools, that every web developer should know. We will see how it simplifies the process of designing user interfaces.
First of all, let’s know a little about React js
React.js is a component-based Javascript library, which is used to develop interactive user interfaces for websites or web applications. The components of React js can be used multiple times within the project, which enhances productivity.
There are several benefits of React JS, which will encourage you to use it on your business applications.
What is React Developer Tools?
React developer tools are a series of extensions, libraries, tools, and framework which is designed to simplify the React js development process. Developers use React utilities, code generators, debugging, and other React tools to develop robust and stable code, which in turn saves development time.
Some React developer tools work as an extension on browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, etc.
Why do you need React Developer Tools?
Before moving into the deep, let’s see why we need React development tools for our business or web applications.
- Inspecting and debugging applications conveniently and smoothly
- You can easily install the developer tools on your browsers, so you can have a powerful resource within your reach.
- Lets you test and monitor various components’ states without affecting the other components
- Enables quick and easy examination of root React components renders for a page.
Top 13 React Development Tools
Now you can understand, how to React development tools can enhance your project. There is almost 30 to 40 percent of development tools are available, each with a specific function. So, it might be difficult to choose the right one. Thus we are providing the best 12 React development Tools guide, which will make your decision clear.
Reacticide
It is the first Reacticide IDE for React js web application development. Reacticide runs on an integrated Node server and custom browser simulator which eliminates the need of configuring server-built tools and even offers hot module reloading out of the box.
Features
- Offers hot module reloading for quick previews
- Structured and optimized configurations
- High-level component visualization for navigating the application structure
- Compatible terminals for workflows, commands, etc
- Integrated Node server and Custom browser simulator for an extensible developer environment
Storybook
Storybook is an ideal option for rapid iteration and testing UI components. This helps you to visualize various states of each component of your applications. It ensures better testing of UI applications.
The main concept of a Storybook is to create stories that represent the behavior of each component. For example, you can create a story for the current state of the button, active button, or default button. It perfectly fits well with your existing testing workflows and can be integrated with testing tools like Enzymes and Jest. It simplifies the process of doing snapshots and testing interactions.
Features
- Enables faster setup and configurations
- Render components to replicate hard-to-reach use cases
- Real-time publications and performance measurement to capture feedback
- Universal sandbox which develops UIs in isolation
- UI Documentation with a focus on tracking, searchability, and reusability
Bit
Bit is a CLI tool for sharing components of React JS. This common line utility allows teams to work together on individual components. It makes it possible to check the component dependencies and test them separately from the main projects.
You can think of Bit as a third-party platform or marketplace, where you can browse for specific solutions and choose the best as per your project requirements. Even you can find this tool easy to integrate and extend with other React developer tools for performance enhancements.
Features
- Transforms monolithic applications into manageable and composable forms
- Easy to extend and integrate
- Makes your components discoverable
- Component-led development to make the application consistent, reusable and maintainable
- Complete CI/CD cycle for every component
React Cosmos
This React development tool offers a complete solution for building reusable components. It enhances the small and big components for React js development. It scans the components and allows you to render components with state, context or props.
By connecting it to the running instances, you can visualize the changes in applications in real-time. This React developer tool delivers performance as well as surface dependencies. It also takes the role of debugging tool for React JS. It contains everything, that you will need to build rich and interactive UIs.
Features
- Shareable UIs made using Reusable components
- The component libraries can be published within the organizations or public platforms
- Visual test-driven development allows quick iterations and prototyping
- Reusability of components and isolation of UI help developers to maintain quality at every scale.
Evergreen
It belongs to the enterprise-grade React components developed and maintained by segments. It is best considered for large-scale projects. This React developer tool does not have any preset configurations, because it helps in constructing frameworks that can estimate current and future requirements.
This React development tool is an out-of-the-box UI framework that is recognized for its extensive documentation. It has a wide selection of ready-to-use components which supports vast customizations.
Features
- Have detailed and insightful documentation
- Comes loaded with React components that work excellent
- In-built sensible defaults, which can be customized through expressive APIs
- It is built on top of React UI primitive which sets the stage for endless composability
- Server-side rendering is available with automatic hydration, which is compatible with Gatsby
Create React App
As per the name, this tool is used for developing single-page applications with React. By using this environment, developers can get the benefit of current Javascript features and lets you optimize the application for production, and have a comfortable experience during development
It does not handle any backend logic or databases, it only provides the command to build the front end so you can use it with any backend. As a result, it saves developers a lot of time and effort.
Features
- Auto optimizations of bundles during load times
- It offers local development servers
- Instant reloads to prioritize development and minimize learning
- Single dependency to eliminate version mismatching
React Proto
It is an application prototyping tool that enables the collaboration of developers and designers. In the visual interface, they can plan the project structure, create components and change their properties whenever needed. Like you can drag or drop elements instead of writing the code.
Moreover, it helps the developers to create an application architecture from scratch. It supports the development cycle by supplying all the application files required at every stage and mapping the process in visual design form.
Features
- Easily define props and stats
- Visualize applications architecture
- One-click injection of new architecture into existing projects
- You can easily specify component hierarchy by defining parent and child components
Rekit
It is the all-in-one React developer tools that can create modern, scalable digital applications with React JS. This React developer tool extension combines React, Redux, and React-Router for development skills.
It has two primary modules the IDE and the Rekit Studio. The Rekit CLI is used for creating, renaming, moving, and deleting components, actions, or pages.
Features
- It decouples business logic from components, libraries, patterns, and configurations
- The all-in-one React app built on React, Redux, and React-Router
- Organizes code and folders in an opinionated manner
- Come equipped with a dedicated IDE, Rekit studio for Rekit development
React Sight
React sight is the visualization tool that enables you to visualize your apps with the live component hierarchy tree. It is a lightweight and unconstructive platform. It works well with all libraries including redux,react-router, and react-fiber.
It is widely used for debugging complex and large projects. When you hover over the nodes, you can get a direct link to the components, which will take you to the tree.
Features
- It has built-in features that avoid deviations
- It requires no setup for the modification of the code base
- Can be simply used by adding it as a chrome extension
- Enhances the Speed
React Testing Library
This library is a lightweight solution for testing React-based components. It is built on the. It is built on top of the DOM Testing library. This library is a small but useful library for testing your React Code without any hassle. This library adds functionality to the DOM Testing library and contains excellent documentation.
Features
- Built on the top of React DOM
- It acts as a test runner or framework
- Allows you to write maintainable test codes
- Extremely light-weight solution for testing React components
Cypress
It is a Javascript framework for writing end-to-end tests in front-end projects. It is the standard front-end testing library that every developer or QA tester needs. It is built on a completely new architecture.
It is the best test-script runner, it offers you visual interface to indicate all tests and which all commands are running, passed, or failing. It enables you to test highly interactive applications which carry out different tests such as manipulating the DOM, reading or writing data into form fields, submitting forms, and many more.
Features
- It is an optimized tool for local development
- Great platform to quickly debug and maintain code easily
- Unique test runner which allows you to see commands when they execute
- It contains locators for identifying the UI elements for the application under test
Material UI
It follows Material design concepts by Google, which aims to develop minimalistic and neat applications. This is a well-documented having collection of components such as buttons, dropdown menus, and toolbars so on. It even offers advanced layouts and customizations for more complex use cases.
Features
- Allows you to build interactive and neat web applications
- Contains a wide collection of components such as toolbars, buttons, drop-down menus, and so on.
- Offers a great opportunity to combine trendy and modern user interfaces with React capabilities in one project
- Offers advanced and intuitive customizations
Belle
Belle is an easy-to-use configurable React component. It is considered one of the best React development tools. It offers you a set of React components like Toggle, ComboBox, Rating, Button, Card, Select, and many more.
All these components can be easily optimized to work both on mobile and desktop devices. It enables you to configure the basic styles of all the components and modifies each of them individually.
Features
- Easy to use and customize tools
- Contains wide set of React components
- The styles are highly customizable
- Compatible with any browsers including safari, Firefox, Mozilla, and Explorer
- You can easily import any of the components
Conclusion
The above-listed tools are the best React development tools, which are mainly designed to solve various issues. Among them, some of best considered for visualization, and some are best known for debugging and testing. In fact, these are not enough, there are even more tools are available, which makes development easier. You can use any one of them which will match your requirements.
It is important to choose the best React tools based on your project requirements and tools. So, you must hire React js developers with the best level of expertise on any one of these tools.
FAQS
What are React Development Tools?
React development tool is a chrome extension tools, for the open-source JS library which allows you to inspect the React components hierarchies in the chrome development tools
Which IDE is used for React.js?
Visual Studio Code IDE is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems. Therefore it is best considered for React js