11 Top VueJS Developer Tools for 2020

Vue developer tools you should add to your toolbox.

Vue JS has recently grown in popularity, mainly due to the ease it offers both in terms of learning and developing applications. Whether you are an experienced developer looking to switch to Vue, or just getting started, it is essential that you do so with the right tools. This would help you to quickly build great apps without having to reinvent the wheel.

We considered the entire Vue JS development cycle when selecting tools for this list. Beginning at setting up a boilerplate for your new application with all the essentials, we covered many important application concepts, debugging, and even testing.

Let’s get down to business.

1. Vue CLI

Like in any other JavaScript framework, you can’t do much on Vue without a CLI tool. The CLI allows you to rapidly create project structures and deploy boilerplates. It also allows you to create instant prototypes to demonstrate new features.

In addition to the usual bells and whistles, the Vue CLI offers much more like support for web development tools like TypeScript, Babel, PostCSS, ESLint, Unit Testing, PWA, and End-to-end Testing. It is also compatible with extensible third-party plugins created by the community.

Another benefit of the Vue CLI is that it does not require ejecting. In other words, it is possible to do more in terms of customization with the Vue CLI, when compared to other frameworks. The Graphical UI of the Vue CLI is one of its most important features and allows you to create new projects and manage them conveniently.

2. Nuxt JS

Once you have VueJS setup, the first step in creating your applications is to set up a good boilerplate. This will help you avoid having to write code from scratch. There are many options for creating boilerplates, but we selected Next JS for our list because it allows you to create many types of applications such as Server-Side Rendered (SSR), Progressive Web Applications (PWA), Single Page Applications (SPA), and Static Sites.

Nuxt has a modular architecture and has more than 50 modules that can make your development process faster. These modules support tasks like getting PWA benefits, adding Google Analytics, or generating a sitemap.

It also offers out of the box performance tuning by implementing best practices of Vue JS and Node.JS through its bundle analyzer.

3. Bit for Vue

Example: Vue components shared on bit.dev

Bit is a CLI tool ( Github ) and a component hub ( bit.dev ) that solves the problem of sharing and collaborating on individual Vue components across repositories.

It is commonly used as a way to build a UI component library, collaboratively and gradually. It lets you export reusable components as you go so that you could enjoy the benefits of a traditional UI library (and much more than that), without paying the high costs that it usually entails (building a component library can easily become a major project in and of itself).

Bit does its magic by tracking each component’s dependencies and versioning it as a stand-alone unit of code. It also makes sure shared components are truly reusable by building and testing them in an isolated environment, before exporting them from their local projects to a collection in bit.dev .

Learn more here:

4. Vue-router

The concept of routing should not be new to you if you are familiar with any other JavaScript framework. Routers are used to map application URLs to components. Vue-router does this well and supports a component based router configuration.

In addition, it also supports router params, querying, and wildcards in order to allow for complex routing. Features such as transitions effects that make changing routes more attractive to users and links with active CSS classes make the vue-router offer a lot more in comparison to other frameworks.

Vue-router also provides the possibility to choose between HTML5 history or hash mode. This is very important as it affects the user experience, especially when the nature of the application requires that users navigate to previous pages.

5. Vuex

State management is a considerable issue which many developers struggle with. Not having proper control of state would mean that an application can be unpredictable. Vuex helps to solve this problem by centralizing all state management functions and only allowing state to be mutated in a predictable manner.

Mutations are allowed based on State, View, and Actions. The state defines the truths about the application; the view displays these truths to the user, and actions cause the state to change, restarting the cycle of mutation.

Vue-router also provides features such as zero-config time-travel debugging and state snapshot export / import.

6. Axios

Axios is a popular third-party library for creating and managing ajax requests. Subsequent to the separation of “vue-resource”, the once “official” ajax library of Vue from its repository, the Vue team’s go-to choice has been Axios. This has lead to an increase in the popularity and usage of Axios.

It is for good reason, while not part of the official Vue repository, Axios is very similar to its predecessor, and is universal, supports cancellation, and has TypeScript definitions. One of the catches to using Axios is that, if your server doesn’t natively support promises, you need to provide a polyfill yourself.

7. Vuetify

Vuetify, as the name suggests, is a combination of the words “Vue” and “Beautify” and will do just that for your application. It is an elegant library of handcrafted UI components that can help you to create beautiful applications even if you are not a designer.

It provides more than 80 components based on the Material Design Specification with ready-made project scaffolding through its Vue CLI plugin. SSR support is also built-in. These components include Alerts, Banners, Badges, Buttons, Form inputs and controls, Progress widgets and more.

8. Vue Apollo

GraphQL is a versatile tool to harness the power of APIs. It allows you to query for just the right data that you require for your application or function. Vue Apollo is one of the most convenient ways of using GraphQL for Vue.

Apollos components help to use GraphQL in a truly declarative manner. At its core, Apollo provides a Schema Language for the back-end application and a Query Language for the front-end for easy data exchange. It also supports SSR so that your HTML can be rendered on the server-side.

9. Mocha

Testing is an important aspect of any application. It ensures that client expectations are met and that development has been done in an appropriate manner. This becomes even more important for applications built with Vue, or any JavaScript framework in general.

While many frameworks that can be used for this purpose, we selected Mocha because it runs on both the back-end via Node.JS and the front-end. This makes asynchronous testing both convenient and more meaningful as both ends of the process are verified. The ability to map uncaught exceptions to relevant test cases on GitHub makes tracking and resolving them much more convenient.

10. Vue.js DevTools for browsers

Debugging is essential for an efficient development process. It is almost impossible to find out what’s going on with your application without a good debugging tool. What better option can we add to our list, other than the Vue JS recommended official debugging tool.

It has plugins for both Firefox and Chrome and also a stand-alone Electron app that works with any environment. The browser plugins add the “Vue” tab to their native developer tool implementations making the debugging experience smooth and user-friendly.

11. Official Vue.js Guide

Last but not least, if we’ve sparked an interest in Vue and all the great tools it encompasses, the official Vue JS guide is the best place to learn more.

The guide is available for all current and past versions of Vue, so that you can make the most of it whether you are just starting up or looking to improve or expand your existing application which is built upon an older version of Vue. You can also easily compare how components have changed through the version history.

In addition, videos, code segments, and interactive applications are built-in to make the guide more interactive and easier to understand. The last section of the guide provides a useful comparison between other frameworks such as React and Angular. This provides an attractive way for developers who are already familiar with such frameworks to adapt to Vue.

Conclusion

Did you like our list? We hope that it created an interest in you to learn Vue, or to try out some of these tools even if you are already familiar with Vue.

These tools can make your development process more efficient, whether you are just starting up or an experienced developer. Make sure to have a look at the official documentation , as Evan You, the creator says, “You’ll enjoy the Vue!”.