With hundreds of free JS libraries out there it’s tough to know where to put your energy. Some end up discarded or forked into new projects, while others grow rapidly and achieve widespread adoption.
Most developers already know the big names like jQuery and React. But in this post I’d like to introduce twelve alternative JS libraries that are less well-known but rising rapidly.
1) D3.JS
Big data is a growing industry and data visualization is quickly becoming just as important. There are tons of charting & mapping libraries but few stand out as much as D3.js. This JS library works with SVG and canvas elements to render graphs, charts, and dynamic visualizations on the web.
It’s completely free to use, and it’s one of the most powerful visualization tools built on JavaScript. If you’re looking for a modern way to render data in the browser.
2) NODE.JS
I know many devs are sick of hearing about Node all the time. But it really is the fastest growing JS library and it offers so much more than a dev environment. With NPM you can manage local packages for all your projects right from the command line.
This makes Node a full development toolkit that works well with other tools like Gulp. Plus dozens of related open source projects have been built on Node so you can work with unit testing in Mocha.js or build a front end interface with the Sails.js framework.
If you haven’t tried Node yet then you might be surprised just how much you’re missing.
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By Jake Rocheleau