DEV Community

Discussion on: What's the difference between a library and a framework?

Collapse
 
nestedsoftware profile image
Nested Software • Edited

I agree with that way of putting it. To me a framework dictates how we develop our applications, whereas a library is an api that we can call. It's much easier to replace a library than a framework.

Some people want to call React a library because it doesn't include some tools out of the box the way that other technologies like Angular or Vue do. I'd say the scope of what a framework offers isn't so important. At the end of the day, when we are building a React app, we're very much plugging our code into React's abstraction over what a browser looks like. That's enough for me to consider it to be a framework.

All this being said, what matters most is for people to understand one another. If you and I are both clear about what some technology does and does not do, that's all that matters. We may disagree about what to call it, but as long as the basic understanding around it is shared, then I don't really see a problem.