Survey Overview & Demographics

• 2024 marked a "slow year" for JavaScript - fewer new APIs and frameworks compared to 2023
• Top 3 frontend frameworks (React, Vue, Angular) all launched over a decade ago
• 15% of respondents from US, median age slightly younger than previous surveys
• 43% of respondents between 30-39 years old
• Strong correlation between age and income - people over 30 make less than 25-29 age group initially
• 75% of respondents have college degrees
• Degree holders make significantly more money on average despite claims that "you don't need a degree"
• Gender ratio better than expected due to renewed outreach efforts

Sponsor Segment - Code Rabbit

• AI-powered code review bot for GitHub pull requests
• Provides line-by-line reviews, summaries, and commit suggestions
• Caught PHP naming convention errors (camelCase vs underscores)
• One-click commit suggestions accepted by engineers
• $12/month base subscription, free for open source
• Promo code: Theo1M for one month free

JavaScript Language Features Adoption

• Nullish coalescing: 85% adoption - "awesome" growth
• Dynamic imports: 70% usage, higher than expected
• Private fields: 45% adoption, surprisingly high
• Logical assignment: 44% usage
• String.replaceAll: Only 76% adoption despite being essential
  • String.replace only replacing first occurrence called "most unintuitive behavior"
• Array methods:
  • toSorted(), toReversed(), toSpliced() creating new arrays vs mutating originals
  • Should have been default behavior from start
• Promise.allSettled: Recommended over Promise.all for most use cases
• Set operations: Union, intersection features underutilized despite usefulness

Browser APIs Usage

• WebSockets: Widely adopted as expected
• PWA: 49% usage, higher than anticipated but "feel dead"
• Geolocation: 35% usage seems inflated, "terrifying" that it's 2x more popular than WebGL
• WebRTC: Surprisingly low adoption
• Temporal: Still waiting to ship

Framework Sentiment Analysis

React

• 47% positive, 30% neutral, 20% negative sentiment
• Still considered dominant but sentiment declining due to widespread adoption
• Average React developer didn't choose React - assigned to projects using it
• Complexity + involuntary adoption = worse sentiment

Next.js

• Similar sentiment pattern to React (35% positive, 47% neutral, 35% negative)
• Becoming "the way businesses use React"
• Sentiment expected to worsen as more developers forced to use it without choosing
• More people using Next.js aren't using it by choice

Vue

• 42% positive, 17% negative - better sentiment than React
• Some Vue developers feel "burned by Vue 3" (incorrectly according to presenter)

Angular

• 23% positive, 40% negative - worst sentiment
• Making improvements again after stagnation period

Svelte/SvelteKit

• Negative sentiment swing despite Svelte 5 being "great release"
• API changes when reaching stable release upset developers
• Some Svelte developers preferred it as non-framework, now upset it's becoming "big framework"

Framework Adoption Patterns

• Popularity vs Sentiment Inverse Relationship: As tools become more popular, sentiment decreases
• Pattern: Tools go "up and then left" on usage vs sentiment charts
• React only framework consistently breaking 50/50 usage line
• Most frameworks drifting left (negative sentiment) in 2024
• Only Angular moved right due to recent improvements

Meta-Framework Landscape

Usage Rankings

• Next.js: 54% usage, maintaining #1 position
• No framework: Second most common approach for full-stack
• Astro: 23% usage, climbed from 6th to 2nd place (2022-2024)
• Remix: Significant decline in rankings
• SvelteKit: Mixed sentiment despite technical improvements

Growth Analysis

• Astro doubled from 2022-2023, slower growth 2023-2024
• Next.js gap still substantial - Astro would need to double again to match
• 31% of developers haven't used any meta-frameworks
• More people unaware of meta-frameworks than people using Astro

Testing Tools

• Jest: Still most popular
• Storybook: Higher adoption than expected, though presenter considers it problematic
• Playwright: Growing fast, "really good" tool
• 21% haven't used any testing tools

Build Tools & Development

Vite Dominance

• Continues climbing but growth rate slowing
• "Every project that should be using Vite is at this point"
• Remaining projects stuck on webpack due to complex plugin dependencies
• Even Vite showing slight negative sentiment drift

Webpack

• 18% positive, 47% neutral, 35% negative sentiment
• Still pays better salaries than newer tools
• Deeply integrated into Next.js, making migration difficult

Monorepo Tools

• pnpm: Leading package manager
• Turbo: Growth slowed massively
• NX: Doing fine but not dominating
• Monorepos remain "unsolved problem" - happiness metrics never improved
• Most people only know Turbo when it's broken or they configured it

Developer Happiness Trends

• Overall happiness flatlined - no improvement in 5 years across categories
• Frontend developer sentiment getting more negative despite tools not getting worse
• 2024 pattern: Nearly everything moved left (negative) on sentiment charts
• Framework authors putting effort in but not seeing happiness improvements
• Suggests developers becoming more frustrated/negative generally

Technology Adoption Highlights

TypeScript Dominance

• Less than 20% of developers use under 50% TypeScript
• TypeScript decisively won the adoption battle

AI/Development Tools

• ChatGPT: More users than GitHub Copilot (surprising)
• Cursor: Only IDE over 10% adoption, "slaughtering" competition
• Most developers writing 0-10% AI-generated code

Hosting/Deployment

• Vercel: Getting close to AWS for hosting
• Heroku: Still 19% usage, "time to move off"
• Netlify: Beating Cloudflare

Backend Frameworks

• Express: Still dominating
• Fastify: Underrated, presenter's go-to for non-Next.js projects
• Nest: Twice as popular as Fastify (disappointing to presenter)

Content Creator Rankings

• Presenter ranked close to Fireship in developer resources
• Midudev: 4th place overall, representing vibrant Spanish-language ecosystem
• Spanish-only creator having double the next English creator's reach is "huge"

Survey Conclusions & Concerns

• Innovation Dilemma: Not innovating doesn't help sentiment, but innovating gets penalized
• Developer Negativity: General trend toward more negative sentiment regardless of actual tool improvements
• Adoption vs Choice: Most developers using popular tools didn't choose them
• Education Gap: Need better materials to help involuntary adopters become enthusiastic
• Future Concerns: Worried about web development world becoming scared of innovation

Key Takeaways

• JavaScript ecosystem stability (top frameworks over decade old) vs constant change perception
• Sentiment declining across nearly all tools in 2024
• Success paradox: Popular tools get worse sentiment due to involuntary adoption
• Framework authors facing thankless task - effort doesn't translate to improved developer happiness