On the (un-)adoption of JavaScript front-end frameworks

JavaScript is characterized by a rich ecosystem of libraries and frameworks. A key element in this ecosystem are frameworks used for implementing the front-end of web-based applications, such as Vue and React. However, despite their relevance, we have few works investigating the factors that drive the adoption-and un-adoption-of front-end-based JavaScript frameworks. Therefore, in this article, we first report the results of a survey with 49 developers where we asked them to describe the factors they consider when selecting a front-end framework. In the second part of the work, we focus on projects that migrate from one framework to another since JavaScript's ecosystem is also very dynamic. Finally, we provide a quantitative characterization of the migration effort and reveal the main barriers faced by the developers during this effort. Although not completely generalizable, our central findings are as follows: (a) popularity and learnability are the key factors that motivate the choice of front-end frameworks in JavaScript; (b) from the 49 surveyed developers, one out of four have plans to migrate to another framework in the future; (c) the time spent performing the migration is greater than or equal to the time spent using the old framework in all studied projects. We conclude with a list of implications for practitioners, framework developers, tool builders, and researchers.