Currently one of the biggest differences between Ajax and React is that they are processes that will help different web pages or applications work in certain ways to make the user experience as enjoyable as possible.
Another difference between Ajax and React is that one serves primarily as a javascript library for developing user interfaces and the other is a programming language to enable updating of web pages.
Generally speaking, Ajax and React are two very important processes in building web pages and applications, without them they would not be able to have the correct functioning expected from these programs.
Both Ajax and React must be handled by professional programmers who know how to use them completely since the correct functioning of a website and its fluidity will depend on them.
What is Ajax?
Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Is a programming language that allows the update of specific sections of content on a web page without the need to completely reload the page.
The term Ajax was first used by Jesse James Garrett in 2005, in his publication “Ajax: a New Approach to Web Applications”.
With Ajax, web applications can send data from a server and retrieve it asynchronously (loading in the background), without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page.
By decoupling the data exchange layer from the presentation layer, Ajax allows web pages, and by extension web applications, to change content dynamically without reloading the entire page.
How does AJAX work?
If a user uses PHP or some other language to communicate with a server, they will make a request to the server for a response.
In this process, with AJAX the page will not wait for a response but will respond in a certain amount of time. During this short wait, the user can continue performing tasks.
AJAX speeds up the response processes. It avoids delays in each request and uses background data transmission (prepares a data packet). This leads to the page not being reloaded.
AJAX uses Javascript to be able to modify the contents of a page quickly and dynamically.
Advantages of using Ajax
Its biggest advantage is asynchrony. That is, if a user wants to exchange data with a server, the page will not stay “preparing a response” but will make the whole process simpler. The server sends the data on the same page.
On the other hand, there is no need to reload and redraw a website. There are also no awkward delays in the process or interruptions, and there are fewer steps to work with data on a website.
Disadvantages of Ajax
The user may lose the ability to do things they did with traditional websites since there is no switching between web pages. For example, using the browser’s back and forward buttons or bookmarking a page may no longer be possible.
There are security issues and restrictions related to the use of Ajax. It should be noted that for security reasons not all processes can be performed on the client side (which by its very nature is “manipulable”). There are also security restrictions to prevent the loading of Ajax content from third-party sites.
What is React?
It is an open-source JavaScript library for developing user interfaces. It was launched in 2013 and developed by Facebook, which also maintains it together with a community of independent developers and companies.
Today many top-tier companies use React for their application development, such as Facebook and Instagram.
The most important element of React is the component, which is, in essence, a piece of the user interface. As a general rule when designing an application with React, remember that what you are doing is creating independent and reusable components to, little by little, create more complex user interfaces.
In that sense, React is similar to Angular since every React application has at least one component which we usually refer to as a “root” component, and contains other “child” components that turn other components, and so on.
Advantages of using React
The main advantage of React is to be able to generate the DOM (“Document Object Model”, the structure of the elements that are generated in the web browser when loading a page) dynamically.
So, in order to visualize data changes, there is no need to render the whole page again, just the component that has been updated. This feature improves: the user experience when navigating through the web application, the speed of loading pages, and facilitates the maintenance of the application.
Also, since it is based on JavaScript, it has a large community with a large number of external libraries. In addition, web applications developed with React are based on reusable components.
This makes the application more scalable and easier to maintain since errors will occur in the component’s own functionality or in communication with others.
It uses ECMAScript 6, which is the latest standard for JavaScript. It brings more readability and versatility to the code, which facilitates software development.
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