React Introduction
React was created by Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook. It was first used in Facebook’s News Feed in 2011 and later open-sourced at JSConf US in May 2013.
React Is a Library, Not a Framework
Unlike Angular or Vue, React handles only the view layer. For a full application you’ll pair React with:
- React Router — client-side routing
- TanStack Query / SWR — server state and data fetching
- Zustand / Redux Toolkit — global state management
- Axios / fetch — HTTP requests
- Vite / Next.js — build tooling and server-side rendering
Prerequisites
Before learning React, you should be comfortable with:
- HTML & CSS fundamentals
- JavaScript ES6+ (arrow functions, destructuring, spread, modules, Promises)
- Basic command line usage
- Node.js and npm installed on your machine
TipIf you’re shaky on ES6, don’t worry — we cover the most important features in the React ES6 lesson before diving into components.
React vs Other Frameworks
| Feature | React | Vue | Angular |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type | UI Library | Progressive Framework | Full Framework |
| Language | JavaScript / JSX | HTML Templates + JS | TypeScript |
| Learning Curve | Moderate | Low | High |
| State Management | External (Redux, Zustand…) | Built-in (Pinia) | Built-in (NgRx) |
| Maintained by | Meta | Community (Evan You) |