Devographics
State of JS 2026 Suggestions
I’d love to see Payload included in the survey. It could fit in the Backend section. Directus, a very similar competitor, is already there.
My suggestion is to have three categories related to JS servers:
Categories
- Backends: Low-level, focused on defining endpoints and server logic.
- Meta-frameworks: Extend UI libraries or templates with server features (React, Vue, Svelte, Solid, Astro, etc).
- Meta-backends: Similar to backends, but ship with an admin panel. This includes headless CMS or DAM (Digital Asset Management) tools. While the admin panel may use a UI framework, the exposed API is framework-agnostic.
Examples
- Backends: Express, Hono, Elysia, Koa, Fastify, Hapi, etc.
- Meta-frameworks: Next, Tanstack Start, Remix, Nuxt, SvelteKit, SolidStart, Astro, etc.
- Meta-backends: Payload, Strapi, Directus, Sanity, WordPress Headless, etc.
This division may not be perfect and there will always be gray areas. But in my view, it’s much better than grouping everything together.
When I see many libraries that don’t actually compete with each other listed in the same category, I tend to ignore the lesser-known ones with fewer votes, assuming they’re failed competitors to the big names.
But the reality is: having 30x more developers using Express than Directus doesn’t mean much, because they solve very different problems.
Something on which js frameworks differ a lot is in how to handle forms, updating values, default values, resetting, etc.
So I was looking at if governments still have some sort of requirement, as: html first, progressive enchantments, no JavaScript. In relation to form handling. As to find a weak spot in js frameworks.
I have found the following somewhat related links
- UK https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/using-progressive-enhancement
- Canada https://wet-boew.github.io/wet-boew-documentation/decision/4.html
- US https://designsystem.digital.gov/documentation/developers/
- EU https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/web-accessibility-directive-standards-and-harmonisation
So I was thinking, It would be a good idea to always include a question on the lines of "are you required to write javascript-less forms/widgets?", and ask to clarify why. Example: gov websites/accessibility.
I'm interested to see what people could say, and surely when sharing the results it will make us think of things we may not be considering, but that are important. Thanks!
Maybe, this could be a question for both surveys html/js, because while there is an overlap between the two, it's like both groups of people may have different goals/opinions/jobs.
