Today’s world is witnessing a digital transformation in its true essence – something that individuals, businesses, and governments will strongly agree with. Thanks to various technological disruptions, businesses across the globe can bring about successive innovations in the domain of mobile and web applications with some great web development tools. 

Global business expenditure on digital transformation is likely to reach $2 trillion in 2022. Much of it is because businesses are increasingly committing to their consumers’ digital experience. After all, these technologies have made it possible for businesses to appease digital-savvy consumers by creating intuitive user interfaces and incorporating innovative technology capabilities in their front end. 

However, application developers working for businesses should not forget that creating seamless, omnichannel experiences reckon upon a strong back-end. For the back-end to support all functions, developers have to adopt a nifty web framework.

There are innumerable tasks involved in back-end web development. For example, developers have to protect the APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) from unscrupulous hackers, facilitate uninterrupted interaction with databases, route URLs to various databases to derive information requested by users, and so on. Certainly, an intelligent, back-end web application framework can make all these functions a breeze for developers.

Top 5 Web Development Tools Developers Need to Learn

To brace themselves for the future, the time for developers to learn new web development tools and diversify their skills is now. So, here are some of the top frameworks/web development tools that can give today’s developers an edge in the realm:

Laravel

Developed by Taylor Otwell, Laravel is essentially a Model-View-Controller web development framework. Website developers consider it the best framework for PHP (Hypertext Pre-processor), which is one of the most popular programming languages in the present time.  

Laravel comes with robust API support, and it also has a reasonably good amount of feature packages that extend its reach. The framework sets out a programming method that is coupled with a dedicated dominion handler. It is more inclined towards syntactic sugar and aids developers in application support and execution.

Here are a few highlights of this framework:

• Streamlines the bootstrapping process and provides end-to-end flexibility
• Adds quick upgrades on the current projects to the Laravel framework
• Offers a Fast Route Library that sends requests to relevant handlers
• Makes use of tokens to verify profiles of multiple users at the same time
• Supports error identification, caching, and log management very efficiently

Further, developers can access Laracasts, which is a screencast tutorials website featuring over a thousand videos, to get detailed information on the Laravel ecosystem.

Tutorial References:
An example of a file upload tutorial using Laravel Framework can be found in this article.

Django Framework

As one of the best open-source web development tools, Django has risen to the top owing to its ability to facilitate API development along with premium back-end web applications. Named in honor of Django Reinhardt, the renowned guitarist, this Python framework was launched in 2003. 

Django web applications are created from one or more apps that are connectable and detachable. Because of this approach, Django’s design is significantly different from some others (for example, Laravel and Ruby on Rails).

Here’s what makes this framework beneficial to developers:

• Protection: Provides a seamless mechanism for user authentication that provides complete protection against risky security errors which may jeopardize the project.
• Scalability: Since it is based on a “share nothing” design, developers can add new hardware at any stage. Hence, it’s an incredible option for developers to generate high website traffic.
• Speed: Django allows web developers to create a web application in the quickest way possible. As a result, it becomes the most suitable framework for web developers struggling to meet looming deadlines.
• Complete package: The framework of Django works by using many additional features, all of which help developers with website maps, user authentication, content administration, RSS, and many other functions.
• High-level framework: The high-level Python web application evolution framework provides a logical perspective to various database-operated websites. The framework is based on the Model-View-Template (MVT) architecture. As a result, it becomes durable and compatible with plug-in elements.

Further, developers can refer to this guide here to know more about this framework. 

ASP.Net Core

Developed by Microsoft, ASP.NET is one of the widely used web development tools to create resounding work areas and adaptable web applications and interfaces. The framework works great for the HTTP convention and simplifies HTTP directions. Additionally, Microsoft has utilized the Common Language Runtime (CLR) to build this web application framework.

The open-source version of ASP.NET is ASP.NET Core, which runs on operating systems like macOS, Windows, and Linux. This framework was first launched in 2016 as a re-designed version of the previous Windows-only frameworks of ASP.NET.

Here are noteworthy features of this web development framework:

• For ASP.NET Core, performance is the primary focal point. The framework is much faster than most other web application frameworks in the marketplace.
• Coding page-focused scenarios have become a lot simpler and more productive thanks to Razor Pages.
• Developers can use C# in the browser alongside JavaScript with Blazor. They can now share client-side and server-side application logic, all of which are written with .NET.
• Integration of latest, client-side web frameworks and development workflows.
• An environment-based configuration system that’s compatible with cloud technologies.
• Developers get the ability to host web applications on Nginx, IIS, Docker, Apache, or self-host following their own process.
• A high-performance, lightweight, and modular HTTP request pipeline.

Why web APIs and web UI using ASP.NET Core?

• The Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern of ASP.NET Core enables developers to make testable web APIs and applications.
• Advanced built-in support provided to developers for multiple data formats. Content negotiation allows developers’ web APIs to reach a wide spectrum of businesses, including web browsers and mobile devices.
• Features model binding, a feature that automatically maps data from the pipeline of HTTP requests to various action method benchmarks.
• Features model validation, which is capable of automatically performing client and server-side authentication.

Here’s a detailed overview of ASP.NET Core, including tutorials from Microsoft, to help developers grasp concepts and perfect their skill of using this framework.

Ruby on Rails

First launched in 2004, Ruby on Rails is an open-source, Model, View and Controller (MVC) web development framework for Linux. Ruby enjoys the reputation of being one of the most developer-friendly languages. So, developers are likely to get all the capabilities of Ruby language when they leverage the Rails framework for developing web applications.

Using this framework, developers are very likely to find pre-defined solutions to execute repetitive functions. Furthermore, it aids uber-fast web development and provides more or less every component that a developer desires to get from a well-developed framework. The framework has found use in the back-end of popular web applications such as Airbnb, Shopify, GitHub, and Zendesk.

Some Important Aspects of Ruby on Rails Framework

Here are a few noteworthy aspects of this web development framework:

• It supports the “Convention over Configuration” (CoC) approach, which increases flexibility while doing various back-end functions related to web development.
• It strictly follows the “Don’t Repeat Yourself” (DRY) approach, which enables developers to create lightweight web applications.
• The framework provides error-log management features, which help developers to keep bugs and malware away from their web applications.
• It perfectly supports the design and development of search engine-friendly URLs.
• It integrates fast route libraries that make handling of serve data easy and simplifies the codes.
• The web development tool allows upholding the unique attributes of each object—something that facilitates quick interaction with third-party objects and ensures seamless web development.       

The primary benefit of using the Ruby on Rails framework is the enhanced speed of web development. The development speed is determined by a huge range of ready-to-use standard RoR tools, pre-created solutions in the coding fraternity, the Ruby language, and not to forget simple codes.

The standards for writing codes in a project, adding files to a project, and general programming in the Ruby on Rails framework can arrange any project to the maximum possible extent. Owing to this method, the program becomes quite readable, and novice developers can start working on any project without any delay.

Developers can check out this detailed tutorial to learn and use the Ruby on Rail framework to ace the web development game.

Express

Last but certainly not least, there is Express, which is an open-source web development framework. Express or Express.js is the most prominent framework of Node.js. Moreover, it is quite non-restrictive in nature, which is why developers across the world are utilizing this framework to write back-end web applications and create user-friendly and efficient APIs. 

IBM, Accenture, and Uber, as well as many other companies, have used Express for developing their web applications. Additionally, it has also found application in other development frameworks such as Sails, Kraken, and Loopback.

Launched in 2010, Express helps developers to create back-end web and mobile applications following a minimalist approach. The framework forms one of the essential elements of the MEAN Stack development.

Here are some of the features of Express that makes it so developer-friendly:

• Provides uncountable HTTP utility methods to create adaptable and perceptive APIs.
• Smoothens the path of routing by following HTTP and URLs methods.
• Has pre-configured plug-ins and template engines, all of which significantly reduce the time taken for web application development.
• Supports developers in high-speed test coverage.
• Exudes resilience and maintains complete diligence along with REST API.

Here’s an overview of the Express framework that developers can use to learn the ropes. 

There are many web development tools used by developers. But the above five are considered the best. Certainly, their ability to seamlessly integrate with other technology stacks while creating web applications makes these developers the go-to choice of many developers.

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