We've ranked the best front-end and back-end web development frameworks in the following areas.

1. LinkedIn job postings that reference a framework.
2. PayScale's average wage for those who know a framework.
3. The number of repositories returned by a GitHub language search.
4. The number of Stack Overflow inquiry threads.
5. Npm trends indicate how many people have downloaded the framework. Back-end frameworks are ignored since npm trends exclusively measure front-end frameworks.

Findings

We collected data from trends from 7th April to 23rd April 2021 and discovered that:

1. There are more queries about jQuery than any other front-end framework and more about Node.js than any other back-end framework.
2. React.js is the most popular front-end framework on GitHub, followed by Node.js.
3. Backbone.js is the highest-paid front-end framework, whereas Ruby on Rails is the highest-paid back-end.
4. Popular front-end frameworks on npm include React.js, jQuery, and Bootstrap.

Web Frameworks by LinkedIn Job Openings

We used LinkedIn data to count job vacancies for several front-end and back-end web frameworks. Our research covered just recent job postings, giving us a more current picture of which web frameworks are in demand. We narrowed our search only to show US job vacancies.

| Front end | Back-end |   |   | | Framework | Jobs on LinkedIn in Last Month | Framework | Jobs on LinkedIn in Last Month | | React.js | 34,036 | Node.js | 16,624 | | jQuery | 10,010 | Spring Boot | 8,306 | | Angular.js | 7,992 | ASP.NET | 6,880 | | Vue.js | 5,652 | Rails | 6,308 | | Bootstrap | 5,001 | Django | 2,678 | | Ember | 1,335 | Flask | 1,838 | | Backbone.js | 384 | Next.js | 977 | | Gatsby | 266 | Laravel | 763 | | Semantic UI | 119 | Express | 625 | | Svelte | 108 | Meteor | 124 |

Our research demonstrates that React.js is the most in-demand front-end framework. React.js is mentioned in more jobs than the other eight front-end frameworks combined. Thus, React.js is clearly in more demand than the other front-end frameworks listed.

Six of our front-end frameworks are cited in at least 1,000 job postings. Regardless of the framework, you study, you should be able to find a job that meets your requirements and long-term ambitions.

According to our statistics, Node.js is the most popular back-end framework, with 16,624 job advertisements mentioning it in the month before our data collection.

While there are numerous career prospects for web developers in general, knowing a framework boosts job chances. It depends on the framework you study and if you fulfill the other minimal criteria for those professions.

Takeaway: React.js is the most in-demand front-end framework, while Node.js is the most in-demand back-end framework.

PayScale's Top Web Frameworks

Employers typically pay generously for competent web developers who know how to utilize top web frameworks. But some pay better than others. We used PayScale, a website that collects wage data for different vocations and talents, to learn more about which frameworks pay the highest.

We only found PayScale data for six front-end and seven back-end frameworks. The table below lists the top five in each category.

| Front end | Back-end |   |   | | Framework | Average Salary on PayScale | Framework | Average Salary on PayScale | | Backbone.js | 93,278 | Rails | 94,596 | | React.js | 92,301 | Node.js | 90,960 | | Angular.js | 84,903 | Express | 88,561 | | Vue.js | 78,695 | Django | 85,553 | | jQuery | 68,032 | Laravel | 78,424 |

Backbone.js is the most paid front-end framework, followed by React.js. Back-end frameworks like Ruby on Rails and Node.js are popular choices.

According to PayScale, in the US, a typical web developer made $60,023 as of April 8th, 2021. Learning any of the frameworks mentioned above will improve your earning potential and employment chances.

Takeaway: All five top front-end and back-end frameworks pay more than the minimal web developer abilities. Certain frameworks seem to be more paid than others in the job market, but the differences may be small.

Top GitHub Repository Web Frameworks

When choosing a framework to learn, evaluate how much existing code already uses that framework. GitHub, a platform for code sharing and management, has over 59 million users. As a result, GitHub can tell you how many people use or have used a given framework.

This article examined how many GitHub projects were tagged with the front-end, and back-end frameworks studied. These are the most popular web frameworks on GitHub.

| Front end | Back-end |   |   | | Framework | GitHub Repositories | Framework | GitHub Repositories | | React.js | 1,975,430 | Node.js | 1,063,772 | | Angular.js | 756,838 | Django | 400,634 | | Vue.js | 534,345 | Rails | 392,741 | | Bootstrap | 320,118 | Express | 336,578 | | jQuery | 232,956 | Laravel | 313,701 | | Gatsby | 104,487 | Spring Boot | 233,053 | | Foundation | 42,046 | Flask | 212,579 | | Ember | 34,451 | ASP.NET | 111,989 | | Backbone | 24,608 | Meteor | 47,261 | | Svelte | 16,063 | Koa | 33,283 |

React.js has the most repositories using the front-end frameworks on our list. The number of repositories for React.js and Angular.js, the second front-end framework, is vastly different.

Also, the most common back-end frameworks differ greatly. On GitHub, a search for Node.js returns almost 600,000 more projects than a search for Django. The disparity in our back-end list is not as great as the one in our front-end list.

Six of our top ten front-end frameworks and eight of our top ten back-end frameworks have over 100,000 repositories. All other top 10 back-end and front-end frameworks have at least 10,000 repositories.

Top Web Frameworks from Stack Overflow

Web developers often have queries or issues to address. Stack Overflow, a programming Q&A site, is a good place to start.

The more individuals that ask and answer questions regarding the framework you are studying, the simpler it will be to discover solutions.

Here are Stack Overflow's top front-end and back-end web frameworks.

| Front end | Back-end |   |   | | Framework | Stack Overflow Questions | Framework | Stack Overflow Questions | | jQuery | 1,013,818 | Node.js | 381,804 | | React.js | 297,579 | ASP.NET | 362,502 | | Angular.js | 262,196 | Rails | 325,267 | | Vue.js | 76,346 | Django | 263,277 | | Bootstrap | 26,105 | Laravel | 171,172 | | Ember | 23,727 | Spring Boot | 102,621 | | Backbone.js | 20,662 | Express | 75,535 | | Gatsby | 4,676 | Flask | 44,664 | | Semantic UI | 2,632 | CakePHP | 31,307 | | Svelte | 1,690 | Meteor | 28,803 |

In our front-end rankings, jQuery dominates the competition. jQuery has more queries than all of our other front-end technologies combined.

Back-end, Node.js comes #1, followed by ASP.NET. Over 100,000 discussions address six technologies. The quantity of Stack Overflow inquiries for our top 10 frameworks is more equally distributed than our front-end list.

Takeaway: Our top 10 back-end and front-end frameworks all have active Stack Overflow communities, although some have more than others. Six back-end frameworks and three front-end frameworks have at least 100,000 threads each. On Stack Overflow, jQuery is the most talked-about front-end framework, with 1,013,818 threads.

Top npm Front End Frameworks

Npm is a JavaScript package manager. The npm command line allows programmers to access, manage, and create software packages quickly.

"Npm trends" shows how many times each npm package has been downloaded. We used this method to calculate the popularity of several front-end web development frameworks.

You may see our npm trends dashboard, which includes data as of April 11th, 2021. npm trends only show ten inputs per page; therefore, our data is restricted to the ten most popular frameworks.

The npm trends tool determined which of the other ten front-end frameworks had the highest downloads. See our findings.

| Framework | Number of Downloads on March 28th, 2021 | | React.js | 10,497,871 | | jQuery | 4,307,374 | | Bootstrap | 3,099,073 | | Angular | 2,605,489 | | Vue.js | 2,307,374 | | Preact | 621,096 | | Backbone.js | 507,552 | | Gatsby | 478,056 | | Svelte | 148,674 | | Semantic UI | 7,877 |

More than any other JavaScript framework in our survey, React.js is the most downloaded package on npm. React.js was downloaded more than twice as much as jQuery. That's more than jQuery, Bootstrap, and Angular together. The top two frameworks were downloaded more than the other eight combined.

Except for Semantic UI, all frameworks mentioned above have at least 100,000 downloads on April 11th, 2021. Most of the top 10 frameworks listed on the npm trends dashboard are heavily utilized, while some are more heavily so.