Last year's prediction was that 2016 would focus on consolidation over innovation. Looking back, that's exactly what happened. React solidified position, Angular 2 shipped, tooling matured, and new frameworks emerged without fragmenting ecosystem completely.
2016 wasn't "everything changed again." It was "things settled."
Angular 2.0 shipped this week, two years after announcement. The wait was long, the changes are total, and the reception is mixed. Google rebuilt Angular from scratch—TypeScript, component-based, completely different API. Whether this was right decision depends on who you ask.
What's certain: the two-year rewrite gave React enormous opportunity.
Vue.js 2.0 is in development and coming this year. What started as Evan You's personal project in 2014 has become a legitimate third option alongside React and Angular. Vue's growth, especially in Asia, proves a framework can succeed outside the Facebook/Google ecosystem.
The question is whether Vue's "progressive framework" philosophy is genuinely better or just different.
Two years ago, choosing a JavaScript framework felt like Russian roulette. Would it survive? Would it change completely? Would something better emerge next month? Starting 2016, those questions feel answerable. The landscape has stabilized enough to make informed choices.
This isn't declaring winners—it's acknowledging that viable options exist and the churn has slowed.
Angular 2 has been in development for over a year, and beta just landed. The reaction is mixed: excitement about modern architecture, frustration about breaking compatibility with Angular 1. Google chose to rebuild rather than evolve, and that decision will define Angular's future.
The question is whether the improvements justify abandoning millions of lines of Angular 1 code.
A pattern is emerging across frameworks: organize UIs as trees of self-contained components. React does it with JSX. Web Components do it with custom elements. Angular 2 (being developed now) is redesigning around components. This convergence is interesting—but the implementations are incompatible.