frameworks, libraries and tools

Practically no software can be developed without frameworks, libraries and "tools". This is one of the reasons for the triumph of open source, because software projects are almost always and to a large extent based on existing code. The better these can be viewed, understood and, above all, adapted, the more suitable they are for developers to use in their projects. 

If you were already surprised by the 115 languages in the previous section (link), hold on tight. Frameworks and libraries exist in the thousands. If "only" 220 were mentioned here, it is probably because the study participants did not want to list everything that is still used somewhere as a dependency in a project. (A library or a framework is also often referred to as a dependency.) It can also be controversially discussed what is now most likely a framework, a library or a tool.The boundaries are not clear and many projects move more or less in all areas.

Nevertheless, the right choice of framework is just as relevant for the success of a solution and the satisfaction of the developers as it is for the programming languages. By choosing the right framework, sometimes even a less popular language can be upgraded and the work becomes fun again. Conversely, a tedious framework or an exhausting library can destroy any fun in a language.

In general, the comparability here is less strong than with programming languages, since the frameworks, libraries and tools can come from very different areas and are not always interchangeable.

>Relevant data online as Excel

Frameworks, libraries & tools developers use

In general, there were fewer additional nominations beyond the pre-selection than in 2019 - certainly also because we adapted the pre-selection based on the feedback from last year.

These adaptations from 2019 had a particularly strong effect on Maven and Gradle: simply by being included in the shortlist, both jumped into the top ranks. This could be related to the fact that both solutions are needed in the context of Java projects. The situation is similar for Java EE and Hibernate, which were not listed as separate frameworks in the previous year and are now among the frontrunners following their inclusion in the shortlist (both are Java solutions). The original shortlist was compiled based on international statistics. These strong deviations show how strongly Switzerland still relies on Java, while internationally Python has already taken the lead.

In the frontend area, Angular, React and Vue.js are holding their own again. Angular is clearly and stably in the lead, while React was able to make up some ground.

In contrast, .NET and .NET Core have fallen back - probably also because fewer C# developers took part in the survey in 2020, despite the increased total number of participants.

The decline in Ruby on Rails, once hailed as the killer framework, is even greater - probably also because many frameworks in other languages are now based on the concepts established by Rails. So Rails concepts live on, while the Ruby language seems to have lost its power as a driver.

2020		2019
Node.js	317	Node.js	344
Spring	257	Angular	234
Maven	255	jQuery	224
Angular	230	Spring	194
jQuery	227	.NET	160
Gradle	159	.NET Core	149
Bootstrap	156	React	134
React	148	ASP.NET	109
Java EE	143	Vue.js	92
Hibernate	142	Ansible	68
.NET	135	Express	66
.NET	126	Xamarin	47
Ansible	96	Django	45
ASP.NET	95	Pandas	40
Vue.js	95	Cordova	39
Redux	66	Ruby on Rails	38
Express	62	TensorFlow	37
Jakarta	47	Flask	35
Vaadin	46	Symfony	31
Terraform	43	Laravel	28
Pandas	40	React Native	27
Jupyter	39	Unity 3D	26
Django	38	Puppet	21
TensorFlow	37	Spark	19
Flask	36	Hadoop	18
Laravel	31	Grails	17
Puppet	31	Torch/PyTorch	16
Cordova	30	Apache	11
Unity 3D	29	Chef	11
Symfony	28	Vaadin*	10
Qt	28	Unreal Engine	9
GWT	27	Flutter	9
Ruby on Rails	24	Terraform*	7
Xamarin	19	Docker*	7
React Native	19	Kubernetes*	6
Torch/PyTorch	18	Maven*	6
Apache Spark	14	Keras*	6
Spark	13	CryEngine	6
Flutter	13	Hibernate*	5
Play! Framework	13
Keras	12
Hadoop	9
Grails	8
Chef	6
Unreal Engine	5
Quarkus*	8
Akka*	6
Tailwind CSS*	5

Frameworks, libraries and tools developers would like to use

• Many developers still want to use React, Vue.js and Angular - however, the enthusiasm has decreased compared to 2019. This can probably be explained in part by the increased adoption, for example, of React, which was used by 134 developers in 2019 and 148 this year. Nevertheless, web front-end frameworks continue to dominate the top 5 of this ranking.
• It is important to keep in mind that the swiss developer survey does not primarily address "web developers", but that more and more, if not the majority of developers are developing for the web. This is also because practically all solutions are now moving to the web and hardly anything is built as a desktop application anymore.
• Machine Learning with TensorFlow has slipped back a little, although it is still in the top 5. PyTorch as an alternative to TensorFlow has also dropped.
• The evaluation also suggests that the drop of some frameworks compared to the previous year is not due to decreasing enthusiasm: Rather, votes were more broadly distributed and less clustered, while at the same time the amount of votes cast in this area dropped by 10 percent, even though there were about 10 percent more participants.
• 2020 also saw the inclusion of Quarkus - a solution that sees itself as the silver bullet for Java in today's increasingly containerized world.
• Also exciting is that while many developers are using Java EE and, hardly anyone wants to use it again - unlike Spring, which is being used more this year, but still seems to continue to generate interest.

Would like to use 2020		Would like to use 2019
React	100	React	157
Vue.js	95	Vue.js	101
Node.js	73	TensorFlow	90
Angular	69	Angular	77
TensorFlow	69	Node.js	71
React	40	React Native	55
Ansible	36	Hadoop	45
Flutter	35	Unity 3D	43
Unreal Engine	34	Unreal Engine	42
Spring	32	.NET Core	36
.NET Core	31	Spring	35
Unity 3D	30	Flutter	36
Terraform	23	Xamarin	34
.NET	22	Ansible	32
Hadoop	21	Django	32
Xamarin	18	Spark	31
Gradle	18	.NET	26
Apache Spark	17	jQuery	21
jQuery	16	Apache Spark	21
Django	15	Torch/PyTorch	20
Ruby on Rails	14	Ruby on Rails	18
Spark	13	Cordova	17
Vaadin	13	Flask	17
Micronaut	13	Puppet	15
Jupyter	13	Express	13
Flask	12	Pandas	10
Laravel	12	Laravel	10
Torch/PyTorch	12	Chef	10
Qt	12	ASP.NET	9
Redux	12	CryEngine	8
Pandas	11	Symfony	7
Keras	11	Grails	7
Express	10
Cordova	8
Symfony	8
Puppet	8
ASP.NET	7
Hibernate	7
Quarkus*	6
Bootstrap	6
Grails	5
CryEngine	5
Jakarta EE	5
Java EE	5

Frameworks, libraries and tools developers like

For this question, we see a more eager voting than in the last chapter as well as a broader distribution. By adding the 2019 proposals to the preselection, the reality in Switzerland is also better reflected. At the same time, many shifts can probably be explained by these additions.

However, it is clear that the top 10 are dominated by Java and JavaScript (TypeScript) solutions. 

2020		2019
Node.js	217	Node.js	173
Spring	210	Angular	158
Angular	178	Spring	141
React	168	.NET Core	139
Maven	141	React	121
jQuery	140	.NET	117
.NET Core	129	Vue.js	95
Bootstrap	121	jQuery	92
Vue.js	119	ASP.NET	58
Gradle	113	TensorFlow	48
.NET	112	Django	47
Hibernate	86	Ansible	46
Ansible	78	Unity 3D	45
Java EE	73	Xamarin	38
ASP.NET	67	Flask	38
TensorFlow	62	Laravel	38
Redux	58	React Native	35
Express	54	Ruby on Rails	35
Django	48	Express	31
Unity 3D	47	Pandas	31
Jupyter	45	Symfony	26
Flask	40	Unreal Engine	23
Terraform	40	Cordova	22
Qt	40	Spark	21
Pandas	39	Hadoop	17
Laravel	39	Puppet	17
Ruby on Rails	38	Flutter	17
Unreal Engine	34	Torch/PyTorch	15
React Native	33	Apache Spark	12
Jakarta EE	33	Grails	11
Symfony	32	Chef	7
Flutter	30	Qt*	5
Xamarin	28
Vaadin	28
Torch/PyTorch	23
Puppet	22
Hadoop	22
Apache Spark	21
Keras	19
Spark	18
Cordova	13
Micronaut	13
GWT	12
Play! Framework	9
Grails	8
CryEngine	8
Chef	6
quarkus	5

Frameworks, libraries and tools developers don't like

Here, too, there is a stronger distribution due to the larger and more tailored preselection. This again shows that solutions with many followers and users also have many participants who do not like them.

An outlier here is Google Web Toolkit (GWT), which more people "dislike" than use. It's good to know that most GWT applications are now being replaced by Angular or generally web-based single page applications. Here, frontend and backend are separated by a well-defined interface. GWT, on the other hand, dates back to a time when people wanted to tightly couple backend and frontend - a strategy that has not proven to be as effective as drag'n'drop development environments.

In mobile, you see that solutions like Xamarin, React Native, or Cordova don't have much appeal for app development. Perhaps this is related to the fact that it now makes less and less sense to develop apps. Going through the App Store is a big hurdle for the user and many people consider it annoying to install apps that they only use once a year.

Not liked 2020		Not liked 2019		Used 2020
jQuery	159	Angular	99	Node.js	317
Angular	121	Node.js	91	Spring	257
Node.js	102	jQuery	90	Maven	255
Maven	83	Spring	47	Angular	230
Spring	69	Cordova	44	jQuery	227
.NET	64	Xamarin	43	Gradle	159
Java EE	63	ASP.NET	42	Bootstrap	156
ASP.NET	54	React	41	React	148
.NET Core	48	.NET Core	33	Java EE	143
GWT	45	.NET	32	Hibernate	142
React	44	Ruby on Rails	26	.NET	135
Cordova	42	React Native	20	.NET	126
Gradle	42	Symfony	19	Ansible	96
Xamarin	38	Django	16	ASP.NET	95
Hibernate	36	Flutter	16	Vue.js	95
Bootstrap	33	Laravel	15	Redux	66
React Native	29	Puppet	14	Express	62
Django	28	Ansible	12	Jakarta	47
Vaadin	26	Grails	12	Vaadin	46
Vue.js	25	Unity 3D	10	Terraform	43
Ansible	25	CryEngine	10	Pandas	40
Symfony	23	Vue.js	9	Jupyter	39
Puppet	23	TensorFlow	9	Django	38
Ruby on Rails	22	Flask	9	TensorFlow	37
Redux	22	Chef	9	Flask	36
Jakarta EE	20	Spark	8	Laravel	31
Laravel	19	Express	7	Puppet	31
Unity 3D	18	Hadoop	7	Cordova	30
Grails	16	Pandas	6	Unity 3D	29
Play! Framework	16			Symfony	28
Terraform	15			Qt	28
Express	14			GWT	27
Qt	14			Ruby on Rails	24
Hadoop	13			Xamarin	19
Chef	13			React Native	19
Flutter	13			Torch/PyTorch	18
Flask	12			Apache Spark	14
Spark	11			Spark	13
Pandas	10			Flutter	13
Apache Spark	10			Play! Framework	13
Jupyter	10			Keras	12
Keras	9			Hadoop	9
TensorFlow	8			Grails	8
Torch/PyTorch	7			Chef	6
Micronaut	7			Unreal Engine	5
Unreal Engine	6			Quarkus*	8
CryEngine	6			Akka*	6
				Tailwind CSS*	5

Frameworks, libraries and tools developers want to adopt

• Again, the JavaScript frameworks are strong, with React, Vue.js, and Angular all making equally strong gains.
• Spring is a newcomer, probably as a replacement for Java EE, as we will see in the following sections.
• An exciting newcomer here is certainly Terraform, which belongs in the same corner as Ansible or Puppet: This is about the representation of infrastructure as code - in other words, about replacing the classic imperative way of working of system administrators with code-based automation. In other words, infrastructure, from servers to firewalls to storage, is defined completely declaratively and then set up, updated or adapted by solutions such as Terraform. Thus, system administrators become software developers and processes such as version management as well as CI/CD can also be lived for operations. Thus, the focus here is also on "Everything is Code".
• Who is not one of the usual suspects here? Certainly TensorFlow with reference to Machine Learning, Ansible with the topic of automating server infrastructures or Spark, a framework for Kotlin for building web applications. Does this mean that some Java developers would rather work with Kotlin and Spark than Spring?
• Non-developers may wonder if this issue is really important: in response, a definite YES! Time and energy spent learning these frameworks and libraries is high. The software developed with them remains and usually has to be further developed and maintained over a long period of time. The whole world around it is constantly changing, so if something doesn't keep up, depending on the area, this can be very painful for developers and thus also costly for companies. 

2020		2019
React	72	Node.js	57
Node.js	64	React	49
Vue.js	58	Vue.js	47
Spring	56	.NET Core	44
.NET Core	55	TensorFlow	39
Angular	52	Angular	31
Gradle	48	Spring	29
Ansible	35	.NET	22
TensorFlow	32	Ansible	21
Terraform	24	React Native	18
Maven	24	Spark	15
Bootstrap	23	Xamarin	14
Flutter	21	Django	13
Redux	19	Unity 3D	13
jQuery	18	jQuery	12
Unreal Engine	17	Express	11
Pandas	14	Unreal Engine	11
.NET	13	Ruby on Rails	10
Laravel	13	Laravel	10
Hibernate	13	Hadoop	10
Jakarta EE	13	Pandas	10
Express	12	Torch/PyTorch	10
Flask	12	Cordova	9
React Native	12	Flutter	10
Java EE	12	Flask	9
ASP.NET	11	ASP.NET	7
Django	11	Puppet	6
Symfony	11	Apache Spark	6
Unity 3D	11	Symfony	5
Torch/PyTorch	11
Jupyter	11
Hadoop	9
Apache Spark	9
Qt	9
Ruby on Rails	8
Spark	7
Micronaut	7
Xamarin	6
Vaadin	6
Keras	6
Puppet	5

Frameworks, libraries and tools developers want to replace

• If Maven and Java EE jumped straight to the top in previous chapters by being included in the shortlist, they are also right up there with the solutions to be replaced.
• ASP.NET has lost votes, but .NET has gained votes in general - for replacement, mind you. However, it's important to note that as a replacement, .NET Core is usually the closest, coming in at number 5 for solutions to be introduced.
• jQuery, meanwhile, is something most people want to get rid of, even though they actually like using it. This is probably mainly related to the fact that the underlying technology (classic JavaScript/ES5) is to be replaced.

Replace 2020		Replace 2019		Used 2020
jQuery	175	jQuery	122	Node.js	317
Maven	69	Angular	54	Spring	257
Java EE	67	ASP.NET	51	Maven	255
Angular	65	.NET	34	Angular	230
.NET	58	Node.js	30	jQuery	227
GWT	42	Cordova	29	Gradle	159
Node.js	41	Spring	28	Bootstrap	156
ASP.NET	32	Xamarin	20	React	148
Cordova	32	React	19	Java EE	143
Bootstrap	32	Ruby on Rails	18	Hibernate	142
Spring	29	.NET Core	13	.NET	135
Xamarin	25	Django	13	.NET	126
Hibernate	23	Symfony	13	Ansible	96
Vaadin	18	React Native	11	ASP.NET	95
Jakarta EE	18	Vue.js	10	Vue.js	95
Ruby on Rails	17	Puppet	10	Redux	66
.NET Core	15	Grails	10	Express	62
React	15	CryEngine	9	Jakarta	47
Puppet	15	Laravel	7	Vaadin	46
Vue.js	14	Flutter	7	Terraform	43
React Native	14	Express	6	Pandas	40
Redux	14	Unreal Engine	5	Jupyter	39
Django	13	Chef	5	Django	38
Gradle	12			TensorFlow	37
Ansible	11			Flask	36
Symfony	11			Laravel	31
Play! Framework	11			Puppet	31
Express	8			Cordova	30
Grails	8			Unity 3D	29
Laravel	7			Symfony	28
Unity 3D	7			Qt	28
Qt	7			GWT	27
TensorFlow	5			Ruby on Rails	24
Chef	5			Xamarin	19
Flutter	5			React Native	19
Terraform	5			Torch/PyTorch	18
Jupyter	5			Apache Spark	14
				Spark	13
				Flutter	13
				Play! Framework	13
				Keras	12
				Hadoop	9
				Grails	8
				Chef	6
				Unreal Engine	5
				Quarkus*	8
				Akka*	6
				Tailwind CSS*	5

Frameworks, libraries and tools developers want be keep

For the frameworks to be kept, we again draw the comparison to the "to be replaced" group.

• For example, opinions vary widely on Angular: 65 developers want to replace Angular, while 119 are convinced that it should continue to be used. That's more than last year.
• The situation is different for Java EE - 67 developers recommend replacing it and only 45 want to keep it. GWT is also particularly hard hit, with 42 developers wanting to replace it, but only 3 (therefore not on the list) wanting to keep it.

Keep 2020		Keep 2019		Replace 2020
Spring	152	Node.js	145	jQuery	175
Node.js	142	Angular	101	Maven	69
Angular	119	Spring	101	Java EE	67
Maven	100	React	86	Angular	65
Gradle	84	.NET Core	68	.NET	58
React	80	.NET	59	GWT	42
.NET Core	79	jQuery	56	Node.js	41
Bootstrap	63	Vue.js	46	ASP.NET	32
Hibernate	61	ASP.NET	30	Cordova	32
.NET	60	Ansible	28	Bootstrap	32
jQuery	58	Django	26	Spring	29
Vue.js	50	Express	24	Xamarin	25
ASP.NET	45	TensorFlow	24	Hibernate	23
Java EE	45	Xamarin	19	Vaadin	18
Ansible	44	Symfony	16	Jakarta EE	18
Redux	29	Pandas	16	Ruby on Rails	17
Django	21	Unity 3D	15	.NET Core	15
Pandas	21	Ruby on Rails	14	React	15
Express	20	React Native	14	Puppet	15
Laravel	20	Flask	13	Vue.js	14
Symfony	19	Puppet	12	React Native	14
TensorFlow	18	Laravel	12	Redux	14
Qt	17	Cordova	11	Django	13
Ruby on Rails	16	Unreal Engine	8	Gradle	12
Unity 3D	16	Hadoop	7	Ansible	11
Vaadin	16	Spark	6	Symfony	11
Terraform	16	Torch/PyTorch	6	Play! Framework	11
Jakarta EE	16	Chef	5	Express	8
Flask	15			Grails	8
Puppet	12			Laravel	7
Xamarin	11			Unity 3D	7
Jupyter	11			Qt	7
Cordova	10			TensorFlow	5
Unreal Engine	9			Chef	5
React Native	8			Flutter	5
Spark	8			Terraform	5
Hadoop	8			Jupyter	5
Torch/PyTorch	7
Flutter	5