Is it a must to use a JS Framework on front-end for a project with frequent end user interactions?

Vue is a very solid choice, because it combines some of the great things about angular, and it’s also quite simple. It can be intricate if you need it, but at the low end vue can be straight out of the box extremely simple (fits in well with plain vanilla JS), and can handle 2 way binding so that filtering and stuff is taken care of.

What You mention is not really UI intensive but more DB related.

JS frameworks are for rich UI, that does not really include a search form, even a complex one…

For example building a clone of GMail, or Youtube… but that would not be too relevant for… let’s say google search bar.

On the contrary, there is a lot to do on the backend, like optimizing queries, or making a query generator…

Or choosing GraphQL, that would be my personal choice

I suspect You would not gain a lot with a JS framework for the project You describe.

I like this post from thoughtbot about replacing react/redux with turbolinks and a sprinkling of javascript to interact with phoenix channels.

Hey there, I’ve worked on a few SPA apps and some server side rendered ones. From what your describing you can do that with just phoenix easily enough, @mbuhot has a good suggestion there. Otherwise a small amount of React/Vue/Glimmer/Elm/Reason ect. would do the job. No need for a SPA with those requirements.

@James-Byrne I have already experimented with VueJS and Phoenix API in the back-end, it worked fine, I liked specially how fast navigation experience is for end-user. I have also used in another project VueJS partially within Phoenix HTML templates, this worked also very fine especially when it comes to filtering results. What can be a concern using pure VueJS on front-end for a public website is initial page load time as the application gets larger.

Would you kindly elaborate more about when you would definitely recommend using pure VueJS on front-end? Which scenarios?

Awesome to hear you’ve got your head around it.

In my mind there isn’t any one reason you’d use a single page app over a multi page app. It really comes down to the type of user experience you want to create and what the team working on the project is comfortable with. So if you want to create a really dynamic web app with lots of user interaction, holding state (thats a big one) and provide the best user experience possible then a single page app is going to serve you well. However there are a number of downsides that come along with building a SPA. Namely you now have 2 code bases and 2 apps instead of one to look after, slower initial load times, SEO issues, javascript (10 + [] = "10" … obviously).

So choosing when to use one over the other is really a per project thing. For instance at Testing Pays we have an ember app for our main site . But our “front page” site (the marketing one) is server redered html, we’re looking to add some functionality to that one soon and we will likely use glimmer for that.

Those are my quick thoughts on it, hope it helps

@James-Byrne, thank you, I appreciate your input. In this regard, would you recommend combined VueJS & Phoenix HTML on front-end or complete VueJS on front-end for an e-commerce site?

Maybe Drab fits your requirements?

There is a huge difference in the authentication mecanism depending on your choice.

It’s fine to use session authentication if You use a mix of HTML and JS framework. But if You completely separate both, You will need to implement a token based authentication, as with most API. That can be a bit painful first time You do it.

Sometime You don’t have the choice and You need to fully separate frontend from backend. For example when You go mobile.

In that use case, I would prefer React Native over Vue, because of the ability to write real cross platform application.

Which special features / components of React Native make it easier to build cross platform applications?