What is React? Why Use It?

React is a JavaScript library, not a framework.

We use React because it gives us all the power of JavaScript, but with built-in features that improve the way we build and think about building applications.

It gives us a way to easily create user interfaces with tools like JSX

It gives us components to easily share parts of our user interface (UI), which static HTML itself cannot do

It allows us to create reusable behavior across any of our components with React hooks React takes care of updating our UI when our data changes, without the need to update the DOM manually ourselves.

Extra Credit: There are frameworks in React that give you everything you need to build an app (with little to no third-party libraries), like Next.js and Gatsby.

React was created for building single-page apps in particular, but you can make everything from static sites to mobile apps with the same React concepts.