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March 13, 2023

The Top Open Source Frameworks of 2023

Open Source

Frameworks play a critical role in an organization’s software development. In the 2023 State of Open Source Report, we devoted an entire section to open source frameworks and to get an accurate snapshot of the top open source frameworks, we expanded the category this year to include frameworks for more programming languages. It’s also worth noting that it’s common for organizations to use more than one open source framework.

In this blog, I will share what we learned about OSS frameworks from this year’s survey respondents. For details about other technology categories, I encourage you to download the full 2023 State of Open Source Report.

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Top Open Source Frameworks in 2023

This year's report reveals that the top three open source frameworks are the same as last year’s: 

1. React.js

2. Spring Boot

3. jQuery

Usage of these three technologies is virtually identical, within one percentage point of each other. While jQuery is technically not a framework, we felt it made sense to include it here, as it is a very useful and complete JavaScript library. It's interesting to see a number of JavaScript frameworks being used across industries.

The graph below shows the top 10 open source frameworks, but in total we asked about 20 different frameworks. If you’re curious about a framework you don’t see here, refer to pgs. 33-34 in the report

Chart showing open source framework adoption

Other things to note: Usage of Django, the web framework for Python, is up by 6% compared to last year, and Angular and Vue.js (JavaScript frameworks), declined by 4% each. 

Speaking of Angular…

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EOL OSS Frameworks Still Being Used

In 2022, the State of Open Source Report came out about a month after AngularJS reached end of life. So it was not surprising to see that many organizations had not yet migrated off of the framework. However, a year later, we see almost exactly the same usage for EOL AngularJS: close to 16% (15.71%) across all organizations, and nearly 21% (20.67%) of large organizations. 

Chart showing AngularJS usage by org size


We were curious to see which industries in particular were still running applications on EOL AngularJS, and it turns out that the top three are Technology, Energy/Oil/Gas, and Education/Research:

Chart showing AngularJS usage by industry

If your organization is part of the 15% still running unsupported AngularJS, I highly recommend looking into AngularJS alternatives and planning your next steps. There are a lot of risks associated with EOL software including exposure to newly disclosed vulnerabilities, so consider getting AngularJS LTS from a vendor like OpenLogic to get security patches and fixes to protect your applications in the meantime. 

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Support Challenges Using Open Source Frameworks

Chart showing support challenges using OSS frameworks


When it comes to challenges using open source frameworks, a few themes emerge from the data. More than half of our survey respondents selected installation, upgrades, and configuration issues, followed closely by keeping up with updates and patches. Because open source frameworks have active communities that regularly advance the software, it is challenging for organizations to keep up-to-date with the latest versions. 

Two personnel-related challenges also show up here (personnel experience/proficiency and lack of personnel), which does not surprise me given the high level of expertise and specialized skills required to set up and troubleshoot open source frameworks. So it makes sense that this would also be a pain point for many organizations, particularly smaller ones. 

Zooming in a little more to see which industries have skill gaps, we see that Energy/Oil/Gas, Media/Gaming, Telecommunications, Retail, Healthcare/Pharma, and Government/Public Services and selected one or both of these personnel issues as a top challenge in implementing OSS frameworks:

Support Challenge

Top Industry

Second Industry

Third Industry

Not Enough Personnel

Energy, Oil, or Gas

Media or Gaming

Telecommunications

Personnel Experience and Proficiency

Retail

Healthcare or Pharmaceuticals

Government or Publica Services 

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Final Thoughts

Open source frameworks are a key ingredient in software development and it’s good to see that the communities are constantly enhancing and releasing new and safer versions of the most popular and heavily used OSS frameworks.

It is important for organizations to pay attention to the new releases and patches on the different frameworks. Moving away from EOL frameworks, such as AngularJS, and updating frameworks to the latest version could be the difference between a exploited vulnerability and a safe app built and deployed.

Download the 2023 State of Open Source Report

For more insights on the top open source trends and OSS being used by organizations around the world today, get your free copy of the report via the link below.         

Get the Report 

Additional Resources

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