I hope you know what is React and React DOM. Now let’s dig deeper to understand what is the difference between these two.

As you understood earlier, React and ReactDOM are two distinct libraries that are commonly used together in the development of web applications with React.

What is React?

React is a JavaScript library focused on building user interfaces. It follows a declarative approach, where developers define what the UI should look like based on the current state of the application. React then efficiently updates and renders components as the state changes. Its design emphasizes flexibility and efficiency, making it a popular choice for developing both web and mobile applications.

Its design prioritizes flexibility, performance, and reusability, making it a popular choice for building applications across different platforms, not just for the web.

What is ReactDOM?

ReactDOM, on the other hand, serves as a bridge between React and the DOM (Document Object Model). The DOM is a hierarchical structure representing the HTML content of a web page. ReactDOM provides a set of methods that enable React components to be rendered and updated within the DOM. It ensures that the user interface is synchronized with the underlying HTML structure.

Why are React and ReactDOM separate?

From the React v0.14 Beta release announcement.

As we look at packages like react native, react art, react canvas, and react three, it has become clear that the beauty and essence of React has nothing to do with browsers or the DOM.

To make this more clear and to make it easier to build more environments that React can render to, we’re splitting the main react package into two: react and react dom.

This paves the way to writing components that can be shared between the web version of React and React Native. We don’t expect all the code in an app to be shared, but we want to be able to share the components that do behave the same across platforms.

Yes, React is not only used for web development. It is also used in libraries like React Native, React Canvas, and React Fiber.

The benefits of splitting the core logic (react) from the platform specific renderer (react-dom) include:

• Platform independence: Use React for mobile (React Native), VR, canvas, etc.
• Maintainability: Renderers can evolve separately.
• Optimization: Smaller bundles and leaner code for specific environments.

Summary

In summary, React is a library for building user interfaces, while ReactDOM handles the interaction with the DOM, rendering React components onto the web page. Although they are often used together, they serve different purposes and can function independently of each other.