Why Web Components Are Gaining Momentum Over Traditional Frontend Frameworks

Web Components are a set of web technologies for creating reusable HTML elements. Opinions are split: some see revolutionary potential, while others remain skeptical and continue using React.

Why We Need Web Components

We can consider three aspects: trend, technology, and business cost.

Trend

Despite some reservations, many large companies have adopted Web Components, such as Twitter (embedded tweets), YouTube, Electronic Arts, Adobe Spectrum, Wikipedia, Coca‑Cola, McDonald’s, IBM, and General Electric.

Data shows that over 15% of sites inspected in Chrome have registered at least one custom element, compared with only 2.3% using React. The annual growth curve of custom‑element usage in Chrome is also steep.

Technical Advantages

Native Support

Native support means you can develop without any framework, resulting in better user experience, fewer network requests, and more stable iteration. Standard elements like

input

,

video

,

select

are already native components.

Non‑exclusivity

Because browsers provide native support, Web Components can be used inside React, Angular, Vue, or any environment without overhauling existing architecture.

No Dependency

You can add a specific Web Component without pulling an entire framework, giving you an advantage over popular frameworks.

Performance Benefits – Non‑blocking Registration

Custom elements can be registered as soon as the page loads, allowing asynchronous execution and on‑demand loading via ES6 modules. Compared with a typical React component that blocks the main thread, a Web Component can defer heavy logic until after core rendering.

<code>document.createElement('my-element')</code>

Performance Benefits – Component Isolation (Shadow DOM)

Shadow DOM gives each component its own DOM tree, CSS, and event scope, preventing style and event leakage and reducing layout‑repaint costs.

Performance Benefits – Tagged Template vs JSX

Template literals with tagged templates are native and require no compilation, unlike JSX which must generate a virtual DOM and transform CSS‑in‑JS, leading to higher CPU usage.

Benchmarks on a Moto G4 show that a page mixing React with Web Components consumes significantly less CPU than a pure React page.

Native Lifecycle Control

Web Components provide built‑in lifecycle callbacks without extra state management, avoiding virtual‑DOM diffing costs.

Higher Reliability

The strong encapsulation and adherence to object‑oriented principles improve code independence, reliability, and stability.

Better Readability

Debugging is easier because a custom element appears in the DOM with its tag name, unlike React’s generated

div

wrappers.

Business Cost Advantages

Vendor Lock‑in

Relying on a large framework can lock you into a vendor; switching incurs high migration costs and potential business disruption.

Security Cost

For high‑security projects (e.g., finance), using native Web Components avoids third‑party libraries and reduces the attack surface.

HTML from Other Languages

Web Components are useful when integrating HTML generated from non‑web languages such as Java or Kotlin.

Synergy

Sharing components across projects reduces duplication and aligns with the original principle of the web: data sharing.

Conclusion

Web Components are not meant to replace existing frameworks entirely but to enable reusable, shareable UI pieces that keep the web ecosystem open and unified. While not perfect, they offer compelling advantages for highly reusable web‑based component applications.