Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

React VS W3M

Compare React VS W3M and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

React logo React

A JavaScript library for building user interfaces

W3M logo W3M

w3m is a text-based web browser as well as a pager like ' ...
  • React Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-19
  • W3M Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-06-22

React features and specs

  • Component-Based Architecture
    React encourages the creation of reusable UI components, which can be leveraged to build complex user interfaces efficiently. This promotes better code organization and separation of concerns.
  • Virtual DOM
    React uses a virtual DOM to optimize and accelerate the process of updating the browser’s DOM, significantly improving application performance.
  • Strong Community and Ecosystem
    React has a large and active community, which means plenty of third-party libraries, tools, and community support are readily available to assist developers.
  • JSX Syntax
    React’s JSX syntax allows developers to write HTML structures within JavaScript code, making the code more readable and easier to debug.
  • Unidirectional Data Flow
    React promotes a unidirectional data flow, which helps maintain the predictability and ease of debugging, especially for larger applications.
  • Extensive Documentation
    React's official documentation is comprehensive, well-organized, and provides numerous examples and tutorials to help developers get started and advance their skills.

Possible disadvantages of React

  • Steep Learning Curve
    React comes with a steep learning curve for beginners, especially those unfamiliar with JavaScript ES6 and JSX syntax.
  • Boilerplate Code
    Setting up a React project often requires boilerplate code, which can be cumbersome and time-consuming compared to simpler frameworks.
  • Fast-Paced Development
    React and its associated libraries evolve rapidly, necessitating frequent updates and learning new patterns, which can be overwhelming for developers.
  • Complexity in Larger Applications
    As a React application grows in size, managing state and props across components can become complex, sometimes necessitating additional state management libraries like Redux or Context API.
  • SEO Challenges
    React, being a JavaScript library, can present challenges for search engine optimization (SEO) due to Googlebot's limitations in executing JavaScript, although this can be mitigated with server-side rendering (SSR) or static site generation (SSG).

W3M features and specs

  • Lightweight
    W3M is a lightweight browser, making it suitable for systems with minimal resources, and performs well even on older hardware.
  • Text-based
    As a text-based browser, W3M is useful for accessing web content via command-line interfaces, which can be beneficial for users who prefer non-GUI environments.
  • Fast Performance
    Due to its minimalistic design, W3M provides fast browsing experiences, especially when handling simple webpages or when operating over slow connections.
  • Keyboard Navigation
    W3M allows efficient browsing using keyboard shortcuts, which can enhance productivity for users who master these controls.
  • Inline Image Support
    W3M supports the display of inline images when combined with certain terminal emulators, offering better multimedia support compared to some other text-based browsers.

Possible disadvantages of W3M

  • Limited Modern Web Support
    W3M struggles with rendering complex websites that rely heavily on JavaScript and modern web technologies, limiting its usability on many current sites.
  • User Interface
    The text-based user interface can be difficult for new users to adapt to, especially those accustomed to graphical web browsers.
  • Limited Interactivity
    Due to its text-based nature, W3M has limited support for interactive web features, which can impede full functionality on interactive pages.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    The reliance on keyboard shortcuts and the lack of a GUI can present a steep learning curve for new users who are not familiar with text-based navigation.
  • Dependency on Terminal
    W3M requires a terminal interface, which might not be as appealing or accessible for users used to graphical environments.

React videos

What Is React?

More videos:

  • Review - NOT Worth Buying? Nike EPIC REACT FLYKNIT 2 vs Epic React REVIEW
  • Review - NIKE REACT INFINITY RUN FLYKNIT REVIEW | The Ginger Runner

W3M videos

Terminal-based Web Browsing with w3m - Lunduke Show

More videos:

  • Review - nVLC Browser Extension for W3M - Linux TUI
  • Review - w3m-img -- View Images in the Console - Linux CLI

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to React and W3M)
Javascript UI Libraries
100 100%
0% 0
Web Browsers
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Rental Property Management

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare React and W3M

React Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
ReactJS is a JavaScript based UI development library which is developed by Facebook. It is an open-source framework which is widely used by developers for web development. One of the major reasons why React.JS is widely popular is because it uses Virtual DOM. This enables developers to create web applications faster.
Source: solguruz.com
The 20 Best Laravel Alternatives for Web Development
React’s the cool kid on the block, turning heads since Facebook dropped it at our feet. Building dynamic user interfaces feels less like coding, more like crafting with this JavaScript library.
Top 9 best Frameworks for web development
React uses a virtual DOM to optimize the performance of UI updates and follows a one-way data flow for easy tracking of data changes. With its active community and abundance of third-party resources and libraries, React is a solid choice for web development.
Source: www.kiwop.com
9 Best JavaScript Frameworks to Use in 2023
React can be used as a base in the development of single-page or mobile applications. However, React is concerned with rendering data to the DOM, so creating React apps usually requires additional libraries for state management, routing, and interaction with an API.
Source: ninetailed.io
JavaScript: What Are The Most Used Frameworks For This Language?
Some of its top features include server-side rendering, automatic code splitting, client-side routing, built-in CSS support, static site generation and API routes. Overall, Next.JS is a powerful and flexible framework that provides developers with a simple and intuitive way to build complex React applications with ease. It is widely used in the React community and has a...
Source: www.bocasay.com

W3M Reviews

We have no reviews of W3M yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, React seems to be a lot more popular than W3M. While we know about 814 links to React, we've tracked only 10 mentions of W3M. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

React mentions (814)

  • Indie Hacking with Open Source Tools: Innovating on a Budget
    One inspiring example is a developer building a "Todoist Clone" using a combination of React, Node.js, and MongoDB. The developer tapped into open source libraries and community support to create a highly responsive task management application. This project underscores how indie hackers can achieve rapid development and adaptation with minimal budget – a theme echoed in several indie hacking success stories. - Source: dev.to / 17 days ago
  • Next.js Localization: How to Build a Multilingual Website with Next-Intl
    Next.js is a very popular framework built on top of the React.js library and it provides the best Development Experience for building applications. It offers a bunch of features like:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Web Development Using React Framework
    Explore the official React documentation. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Monorepo Tutorial With Lerna, Storybook & Next.js
    We’ll be creating the components package inside the packages directory. In this monorepo package, we’ll be building React components which will be consumed by our Next.js application (front-end package). - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Migrating from AngularJS to React
    After evaluating our options including upgrading from AngularJS to Angular (the name for every version of Angular 2 and beyond) or migrating and rewriting our application in a completely new JavaScript framework: React. We ultimately chose to go with ReactJS. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
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W3M mentions (10)

  • dnf update is downloading ImageMagick?
    [code]Installed Packages Name : w3m-img Version : 0.5.3 Release : 57.git20220429.fc37 Architecture : x86_64 Size : 32 k Source : w3m-0.5.3-57.git20220429.fc37.src.rpm Repository : @System From repo : fedora Summary : Helper program to display the inline images for w3m URL : http://w3m.sourceforge.net/ License : MIT and UCD Description : w3m-img package... Source: over 2 years ago
  • Setting up lynx
    You should check w3m http://w3m.sourceforge.net/. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • The sad truth
    Try http://w3m.sourceforge.net some day. :). Source: about 3 years ago
  • w3m rocks
    Does anyone have a chart/rundown of why we should choose links/lynx/w3m? The old main page calls links / lynx "neighbors"... http://w3m.sourceforge.net/ I use links (gentoo user here), but I do not really see a huge difference between the three. - Source: Hacker News / about 3 years ago
  • Is Firefox the only alternative to all the chromium-based browsers?
    Lynx is pretty good, but I personally like w3m. Source: over 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing React and W3M, you can also consider the following products

Vue.js - Reactive Components for Modern Web Interfaces

Lynx.invisible-island.net - Thomas Dickey is the maintainer/developer of the Lynx text-browser. This page gives some background and pointers to Lynx resources.

Next.js - A small framework for server-rendered universal JavaScript apps

Browsh - A fully-modern text-based browser, rendering to TTY and browsers

Svelte - Cybernetically enhanced web apps

Links - Links is a graphics and text mode web browser, released under GPL. Links is free software.