Top React Developer Tools for Creating React-Powered Sites
React has become one of the most popular JavaScript libraries. According to a Statista survey, it’s used by 42.62% of respondents.
React’s modular & flexible architecture, combined with an active and vibrant developer community, make it a powerful JS library for creating fast and dynamic web apps.
But with so many developer tools available for React, it can be challenging to pick the best ones.
In this article, we’ll cover:
- What’s React
- What are React developer tools
- Top 13 React developer tools for creating React-powered sites
What’s React?
Created and maintained by Meta (formerly Facebook), React is a popular JavaScript library. It allows developers to create reusable UI components and efficiently manage the app’s state.
React is known for:
- High performance
- Scalability
- Flexibility
Big companies like Facebook, Airbnb, Netflix, etc widely use React.
With its virtual DOM, React minimizes the number of DOM operations, making it faster and more efficient than traditional JavaScript frameworks.
What are React Developer Tools?
The popularity of React has led to the development of a wide range of React developer tools to enhance the dev experience.
React developer tools include libraries, testing tools, and extensions. These tools are programmed with ready-made ways to solve complex issues like:
- Building and deploying interactive UIs
- Explore component states
- Create better and cleaner code
- Added advanced functionality without writing code from scratch
Top 13 React Developer Tools
Here are the top 13 must-have React developer tools that will make your development experience fast and easy:
1. Vault Vision
Vault Vision is a no-code passwordless user authentication platform that supports React out of the box. It helps React developers integrate seamless, fast, and secure advanced login methods like Passkey, OIDC, SSO, MFA, and more.
As Vault Vision is a no-code tool, developers can use it in React within a minute. They only need to run a single command to access world-class user authentication solutions.
We have published a React Boilerplate project that has user authenication built-in: https://github.com/vaultvision/react-boilerplate-vv
2. React Developer Tools
React Developer Tools is a browser extension that helps developers debug and analyze React applications. It allows you to:
- Inspect the component tree
- View the state and properties of each component
- Track interactions between components
- Debug performance issues
- View source code.
The tool also fully supports React Hooks and provides filtered mechanisms for navigating nested hierarchies. React Developer Tools is available as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge and is a must-have for any React developer.
3. Reactide
Reactide is a top-notch IDE that provides out-of-the-box solutions for:
- React web development
- Streamlined configurations
- Component visualization
- Hot module reloading.
Reactide automates rendering and has an integrated Node server. Also, it features a custom browser simulator, and GUI features to make getting feedback from the browser simulation a breeze.
Lastly, this open-source, cross-platform IDE provides visual editing support, making it a highly recommended tool for React developers looking for an all-in-one solution.
4. React Cosmos
React Cosmos is a powerful tool for React developers, providing a sandbox for creating, testing and improving UI components in isolation. Its laser focus and long-term design approach enable developers to build reusable component libraries easily.
By enhancing component design with surface dependencies, React Cosmos promotes predictable UIs and easier debugging.
Its key benefits include:
- Real-time application changes
- API imitation
- Sharing UIs across multiple projects
With extensive component libraries and isolated development environments, React Cosmos is a go-to tool for creating high-quality, scalable user interfaces.
5. Storybook
Storybook is an open-source, interactive environment for developing and testing UI components. With this tool, developers can independently create, develop and test UI components, ensuring component reusability, testability, and improved development speed.
Storybook is compatible with various frontend frameworks such as React, Angular, Vue.js, and Svelte and with other testing tools like Jest and Enzyme.
The tool’s main selling point is that it runs separately from the main project. Moreover, it provides a UI editor and sandbox for developing and tweaking components in isolation, simulating various use cases, and automating testing.
6. Belle
Belle is a customizable set of React components. It offers an effortless way for programmers to enhance their applications.
With various components, including Button, Card & Select, ComboBox, Rating, TextInput, and Toggle, Belle simplifies adding UI elements to any device, from mobile to desktop.
Belle’s unique selling points include:
- Encapsulated components
- Built-in mobile support
- Customizable features such as isolated modification and easy base style configuration.
Belle aims to deliver the best possible UI/UX experience by offering flexibility to its users.
7. React Sight
React Sight is a lightweight and user-friendly tool that provides developers with a visual representation of their app’s structure. Its live component hierarchy tree structure lets you view your project as a flowchart.
React Sight is open-source, easy to learn, and compatible with all libraries, including Redux, React Router, and React Fiber. It comes with built-in filters to avoid deviations and doesn’t require any installation or setup.
Boost your development speed and enhance your React debugging experience with React Sight today.
8. Create React App
Create React App is a tool that simplifies the setup of new React projects. It does that by handling the pre-configuration of tools like Babel & Web Pack and optimizing production-specific tasks.
To run Create React App, you need Node.js and npm. The tool can be used on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
Create React App streamlines the development process, allowing developers to focus on coding and testing. With a single command, developers can create a React app without worrying about building configs, project structures, or supported modules.
9. Rekit
Rekit is a versatile toolkit designed to simplify building cutting-edge React applications. This all-in-one solution includes project management tools like Rekit Studio and CLI for easy navigation.
Rekit is scalable, feature-oriented, and follows a one-action design, making it an excellent testing tool for React apps. It lets you focus on business logic rather than dealing with extensive libraries, patterns, and configurations.
Rekit supports all the latest dependencies, such as React and React Router. With Rekit, renaming and deletion of Redux actions are also possible.
10. React Proto
React Proto is a prototyping tool that bridges the gap between designers and developers. It provides a visual interface where you can quickly create, drag, and resize components to design a visual representation of the app you want to build.
React Proto lets you define parent and child components, props, and states. After completion, you can export and integrate the files into your project.
All-in-all, it’s an A-grade tool for developers who are more into visual design than coding and for creating a prototype of your UI.
11. Evergreen
Evergreen is an open-source JavaScript framework that allows for the creation of flexible systems that anticipate future design requirements rather than relying on fixed configurations. Its key features include easy setup, infinite composability, and aesthetics.
Evergreen features polished React components for easy implementation and customization, making it perfect for creating beautiful apps. With a UI design language and in-depth documentation, Evergreen is highly composable and flexible, making it a solid choice for enterprise-grade applications.
12. Jest
Jest, an efficient JavaScript testing framework developed by Facebook, is designed to ensure code correctness, particularly for React components.
Jest is a popular tool among big tech companies like Twitter and Facebook. It boasts features like:
- Easy to set up
- Does not require extra configuration
- Works out of the box
- Lets you test JS projects like Angular, TypeScript, and Vue.
- Interactive mode
- Snapshot testing
- Debugging with VS Code
13. Redux
Redux is a popular JavaScript library that stores an application’s state as a global container. All components can access and use this state, and Redux Toolkit makes writing Redux logic easy.
Redux is ideal for complex applications that require efficient state-sharing between components. It establishes processes and rules to interact with the store and manage the state.
Redux remains a valuable tool for developers working on complex projects.
Final Words
Use the top 13 React developer tools for creating amazing sites! And while you are at it, check out our no-code user authentication tool to provide passwordless secure & unlimited user logins. Our tool is fully compatible with React; check it out today by signing up for free.
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