The Best Websites Examples Built With React JS

What Do You Need to Know About React Web Development

Netflix is a very good React website example; as well as Salesforce, Yahoo Mail, Flipboard, and many React examples. Some of these were early believers while others joined in late. What’s common to all of them is that, at some point, they took a decision to switch from a previous tech stack. Then, we need to ask, what makes this JS library stand out?

It is one of the most popular open-source Javascript libraries today that prides itself upon enabling developers to build interactive user interfaces. Thus, there are popular websites built with React in abundance. It was originally developed as an internal technology for use within Facebook but became open-source in 2013.

As such, even the Facebook website features among the most popular React JS websites. We think it would be more helpful to explore the best React JS websites (including a single page app – SPA) from a variety of companies.

Statistics

Here are some important statistics that show the importance of React JS in the web development world:

• As of last year, it was the second most used web development framework globally, with 35.9% usage.
• Over 7.4 million live websites currently use the library.
• BuiltWith It has over 170,000 stars on GitHub.
• It is the 4th most loved framework by developers in 2021, with 69.28% of developers choosing it.

Benefits

• Community-driven: when we delve into the popular React JS websites, you will discover that one of the common motivations is the community drive. The framework provides a strong ecosystem for developers to thrive. Also, it uses one of the most popular languages in web development: JavaScript. In essence, community support is huge.
• Intuitiveness: the best React websites make an excellent showcase of its intuitive architecture that allows for flexible implementation through features like virtual DOM. That means, besides the fact that it can be used to build anywhere, it can be integrated anywhere too, even on platforms where it had not been used.
  
  Such a flexible model is sure to save developers a lot of time trying to make a framework to work with other technologies. It makes it one of the most valuable benefits of ReactJS It also has an intuitive interface design (UI/UX).

• Faster Iteration: another common theme for companies is the speed of iteration; publishing updates for apps (including web apps) becomes faster and smoother. From a business perspective, this enables you to sustain the interest of your target audience for a longer period. Updates are delivered over the air and can be implemented easily.
  
  Moreover, you can update the software on multiple platforms at the same time. This kind of streamlined experience is particularly important for games. Even products that are not among the best websites built with React can boast of faster iteration.

• Cost-effectiveness: from a business perspective, it is a very good solution when it comes to saving development costs. In one of the examples of companies considered in this article, it took a team of only three main developers to rewrite a codebase from scratch. Companies hire fewer developers and rely on fewer resources, while yet achieving greater results. You would be surprised at how little it cost to create some of the most popular websites built with React.

Disadvantages

React is not very consistent with updates delivery. Sometimes, updates may break existing apps, such that developers have to rewrite parts of the code. This is exacerbated by the fact that its updates are delivered very often, which might be frustrating for developers.

In using React Native, a framework that’s an offshoot of the library, developers sometimes have to write native code for separate platforms. Indeed, it enables cross-platform development, but this is not the reality for 100% of the stack. There are parts that must be written natively. Learn more about React Native vs React JS differences in our article.

Moreover, because the framework was originally developed for iOS and later expanded as a cross-platform framework, there still remains some obvious weakness in its Android support. There are ongoing efforts to fix this, anyway.

It sometimes fails to run memory-intensive (web) apps properly, although one may attribute this to JavaScript. However, while the framework runs lightweight apps very smoothly, it can be difficult to efficiently run a website that relies heavily on memory usage. It doesn’t help that some of the best React sites use heavy memory resources; the company knows how to maneuver that anyway.

In addition, debugging is not the most straightforward aspect of the framework, especially because of the programming languages it uses. It’s surprising that even some of the best React JS websites witness such issues.

Popular React JS Websites List

Facebook

React was created by a software engineer at Facebook. Since then, Facebook has maintained the framework even though it remains open-source. As such, it would be unusual if Facebook does not use it while others do. There is a lot of interactivity on the Facebook website.

Basically, if you like a post or add a comment, the entire page must be reloaded to reflect this change. However, developers can bypass this by enabling partial reload. That is, in the case of liking a post, the ‘like’ icon changes color to reflect the change, while the rest of the page remains the same.

British Broadcasting Corporation

This is another one of the top websites built with React. The BBC has migrated its website since 2015 and it still uses it till now, although it moved to a new React-based application called Simorgh around 2020. Simorgh is a Single Page Application built by the BBC World Service as a rendering platform.

The Simorgh platform was built to perform well even on lower end phones, support accessibility technologies, support different languages (41+), handle massive traffic volumes, and support Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Simorgh currently powers the BBC frontpage, story page, articles page, photo gallery page, media asset page, and other pages on the website.

Netflix

Another good React website example is Netflix. Many beginners trained by building Netflix clones at some point in their development. Such is how much the video streaming website has come to be associated with the library. Netflix uses it to render the server side of its web pages by prefetching React, particularly for its signup flow. This has enabled a boost in performance.

In 2017, Netflix had fully rolled out this new web playback UI for all users after a series of AB web app testing to optimise performance. By implementing this, Netflix introduced a visual playback design that users really loved as well as new and optimised video player controls. This places Netflix among the best websites made with React.

Salesforce

Salesforce is another one of the React site examples that were an early adopter. According to Salesforce’ blog, the experience as more of a library than a framework endeared them towards the platform. Particularly, because it is presentational and declarative, it could be built into existing projects, conveniently.

Salesforce’ use of this library contributed to their building their Lightning Design System, an open-source CSS framework. Now, there is the Lightning Design System for React, which implements variants of LDS components for React.

Asana

Yet another firmly established among top react websites is Asana. One of Asana’s primary motivations for migrating was to build a system that would be optimized for developers to be the most productive. They had a First Experience (FX) team whose goal was to deliver the maximum experience for first time users in the first few seconds. This FX team had to facilitate cohesion between Asana’s Luna framework and React.

Today, as has been since 2014, Asana writes most of the frontend of its web application in React and TypeScript, mainly due to the high-end performance and stability that the combination offers. The process of this is detailed in an article titled ‘How we moved fast without leaving a trail of tech debt.’ One of the results of this is that Asana has recorded great improvement in user experience.

Instacart

Instarcart joined the list of best React sites in 2016, when the grocery delivery and pick-up service moved the technology stack for its website, which had been built as a single-page application (SPA) using jQuery, Haml, Underscore, and Backbone. However, this app started having issues with performance and debugging as it grew in size.

To migrate, its team began by switching Backbone Views to React Components, addressing complications along the way. This was easy since React only represented the View aspect of the Model-View-Controller architecture. More importantly, Instacart migrated without causing any significant upset to its infrastructure since it could implement it alongside its old tools.

Dropbox (HelloSign)

One of the best websites built with React is Dropbox. Last year, the Dropbox tech team documented how it migrated the HelloSign Editor from jQuery to React. Before then, it already used the library for the Signer. HelloSign is a company owned by Dropbox and it offers a way to electronically sign documents.

The reasons for the migration were motivated by a need to boost performance and usability of the Editor. The Editor was separated into 4 main parts and the rewriting was done in layers of those parts. This ensured that rollout was seamless and no users were negatively affected.

Flipboard

Flipboard, a self-declared big fan of React, has used the library for its web app since 2015. The team at Flipboard love it because of one of its most prominent features: virtual DOM. The project in 2015 was to combine the canvas layout engine into React components to make React Canvas.

It also effected changes such as infinite scrolling, as well as ensuring a cleaner codebase including integrating css-layout into the Canvas. This shows the range of applications of top React websites.

Scribd

Another one of the top websites built with React is the book subscription service, Scribd, which uses it for the frontend of its website. Initially, implementing it was challenging, due issues with updates. Particularly, the use of JSX for code in React made it ‘joyfully easy to read and write.’ The Scribd team was also motivated by the fact that it enjoyed good support from the developer community. Thus, coding in JSX was less challenging than the alternatives.

Yahoo Mail

The last but not the least of this collection of top React websites is Yahoo Mail. In 2017, Yahoo Mail completely redesigned its desktop experience through a refreshed tech stack built upon technologies like React as well as its cousin, Redux. The main purpose of the change was to improve performance and reliability.

ProCoders Experience

At ProCoders, we consider React a good option to choose for a modern web development stack and we used it to build some very efficient websites and apps for clients. One of these is Quartz Network, a professional B2B platform that enables professionals and executives to network and engage each other productively. Building the web application with React was key to the speed of development and enabled Quartz to become a first-to-market platform.

In a separate case, we built a simple development solution for a SaaS company that provides services to other SaaS companies. The company, Frontegg is based in Israel while our developers worked from Ukraine. Despite the time and location differences, we built an efficient solution in record time, using React.js as well as a couple of other tools.

Conclusion

In recounting their journeys, almost all these companies encountered some form of challenges. However, the ones that have stuck to React pulled through by seeking adaptive solutions to their problems. Every organization deserves a team of developers who understand a project’s needs, can properly articulate solutions and can deliver an efficient app in record time. Knowing ReactJS Developers Salary and React Interview Questions will help you to hire React JS developer who has all the needed skills to fit your project in the best way.

That is what ProCoders specializes in, building customized development teams for companies across the globe. We have excellent developers on standby, ready to take up your team’s next project. The companies that have trusted us in the past were not disappointed, and you won’t be, too. We can help you build the best websites made with React.