For years, frameworks like React, Angular, and Vue have dominated frontend development.
But in recent times, you might’ve noticed a quiet shift — more developers and companies are revisiting a question that once felt absurd:
“Do we even need a framework anymore?”
Enter Web Components — a set of browser-native APIs that allow developers to create reusable, encapsulated, and framework-agnostic UI elements.
But are they really ready to replace frameworks in 2025? Let’s find out.
What Exactly Are Web Components?
Web Components are not a single technology — they’re a collection of standardized APIs that enable you to build custom HTML elements with encapsulated logic and styles.
They’re built on four main pillars:
Custom Elements
Define your own HTML elements (<user-card>,<date-picker>) with custom behavior.Shadow DOM
Provides encapsulation so your component’s styles and markup don’t leak or get affected by the global DOM.HTML Templates
Use the<template>tag to define reusable chunks of markup that can be cloned and rendered efficiently.ES Modules
Enable modular, reusable, and importable component logic — without needing a bundler or framework.
Why Web Components Matter
For the first time, browsers give us a framework-like experience natively, without extra abstractions.
They offer:
- Encapsulation: Styles and DOM scoped per component.
- Reusability: Works across any framework (or none at all).
- Stability: Backed by W3C standards, not a company or library.
- Interoperability: You can use the same component in React, Vue, or even plain HTML.
Example: A Simple <user-card> Component
<user-card></user-card>
<script>
class UserCard extends HTMLElement {
constructor() {
super();
const shadow = this.attachShadow({ mode: "open" });
shadow.innerHTML = `
<style>
.card {
padding: 1rem;
border: 1px solid #ccc;
border-radius: 8px;
font-family: sans-serif;
max-width: 200px;
}
.name {
font-weight: bold;
margin-bottom: 0.5rem;
}
</style>
<div class="card">
<div class="name">John Doe</div>
<div class="email">johndoe@example.com</div>
</div>
`;
}
}
customElements.define("user-card", UserCard);
</script>
You can drop this <user-card> element anywhere — React, Angular, Vue, or even static HTML — and it’ll just work.
That’s the power of standardization.
The Case For Web Components
✅ 1. Framework-Agnostic Reusability
Web Components are like universal building blocks. You can reuse the same <date-picker> or <tooltip> in React, Angular, or even legacy apps.
That’s why big organizations like Salesforce (Lightning Web Components), Ionic, and Adobe Spectrum are using them for design systems shared across teams.
✅ 2. Performance by Design
Unlike frameworks, there’s no virtual DOM overhead.
The browser natively handles rendering and updating — meaning faster startup times and smaller bundles.
✅ 3. Encapsulation & Maintainability
Shadow DOM provides true isolation.
Your CSS and JS can’t leak into the global scope — a godsend for large-scale applications with dozens of dev teams.
✅ 4. Long-Term Stability
Frameworks come and go. (RIP Ember, Meteor 👋)
Web Components are built on open web standards, ensuring they’ll work as long as browsers exist.
⚠️ The Case Against Web Components
❌ 1. Developer Experience Gaps
While native APIs are powerful, they’re also verbose.
Managing reactivity, state updates, or complex data flow feels clunky compared to React’s useState or Vue’s ref().
❌ 2. Missing Ecosystem
Frameworks provide mature ecosystems — routing, state management, testing, SSR, and dev tools.
Web Components require assembling these pieces manually (or via helper libraries).
❌ 3. Integration Pain
Yes, Web Components can work inside React or Vue — but passing data or listening for events often needs extra wrappers or bridges.
❌ 4. Limited Reactivity
Unlike frameworks with reactive bindings, you’ll need manual DOM updates (this.shadowRoot.querySelector(...)) or frameworks like Lit to simplify reactivity.
The Rise of Web Component Libraries
To bridge these gaps, a new generation of libraries makes Web Components easier to build:
| Library | Description | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
| Lit | Lightweight library from Google for reactive Web Components | When you need a “React-like” DX with standards |
| Stencil.js | Compiler for reusable, framework-agnostic components | Perfect for design systems |
| Hybrids | Declarative functional approach for custom elements | For simpler, functional-style components |
| FAST (by Microsoft) | Enterprise-grade Web Component framework | Ideal for scalable UI systems |
These tools give Web Components the reactivity and ergonomics developers expect — without locking them into a specific framework.
⭐️ When Web Components Shine
Use Web Components When:
- You’re building a design system or component library shared across multiple frameworks.
- Your team works on micro-frontends with different stacks.
- You want to avoid framework lock-in.
- You need stable, long-term UI elements for enterprise products.
🚫 When to Stick with Frameworks
Use React, Angular, or Vue When:
- You’re building feature-rich, stateful SPAs.
- You need routing, SSR, or hydration out of the box.
- Your app depends heavily on reactivity and developer tooling.
- You prioritize DX and ecosystem over raw standardization.
🚀 Performance Snapshot (2025)
| Metric | Web Components | React (v19) | Vue (v3.4) | Angular (v18) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Startup Time | ⚡ Fast (no runtime) | Moderate (Virtual DOM) | Fast | Moderate |
| Bundle Size | Small | Medium | Small | Larger |
| Memory Footprint | Low | Medium | Low | High |
| Reactivity | Manual (or via Lit) | Excellent | Excellent | Good |
| Cross-Framework Reuse | ✅ Excellent | ❌ Limited | ❌ Limited | ❌ Limited |
🧭 Real-World Adoption
- Ionic Framework rebuilt its entire UI layer using Stencil-powered Web Components.
-
GitHub uses Web Components for its UI primitives (
<details>,<clipboard-copy>). - Adobe and Salesforce rely on them for unified design systems.
The ecosystem is no longer experimental — it’s quietly production-ready.
Final Thoughts
So, are Web Components ready to replace frameworks?
Not entirely — but they’ve finally earned their seat at the table.
Frameworks still offer superior tooling, reactivity, and developer ergonomics.
But Web Components now excel at cross-framework reusability, long-term stability, and performance — things frameworks struggle with.
The future probably isn’t any JS Framework vs Web Components —
It’s Framework + Web Components, working together.
Top comments (1)
The better native Web Component code you write,
the less tooling you need:
can be written as: