Why Web Components Matter: Trends, Performance Gains, and Business Benefits

Web Components are web technologies for creating reusable HTML elements. Some view them as revolutionary despite being introduced in 2011, while others remain skeptical and continue using React. They solve different problems and are not meant to replace existing frameworks.

Why We Need Web Components

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

Trend

Many large companies have adopted Web Components, including:

Twitter: embedded tweets

YouTube: site built with Web Components

Electronic Arts: site built with Web Components

Adobe Spectrum: UI framework based on Web Components

Wikipedia, Coca‑Cola, McDonald’s, IBM, General Electric and others

Data shows that over 15% of sites inspected in Chrome have registered at least one custom element, compared to only 2.3% using React (source: chromestatus.com).

Growth charts illustrate the increasing adoption of CustomElementRegistry.define in Chrome over the years.

Technical Advantages

Native Support

Native support means components can be built without any framework, resulting in better user experience, fewer network requests, and more stable iteration. Standard elements like input, video, and select are native components, and developers can now create custom ones similarly.

Non‑Exclusivity

Because browsers natively support Web Components, they can be used in any environment—React, Angular, Vue—without overhauling existing logic.

No Dependencies

Web Components can be added without importing large framework bundles, offering advantages over popular frameworks.

Performance Advantage – Priority Logic Non‑Blocking

Custom elements can be registered as soon as the page loads, allowing asynchronous execution and on‑demand loading via ES6 modules. In contrast, a typical React component blocks the main thread during its initial execution. document.createElement('my-element') When using Web Components with React, the heavy logic can be deferred, reducing main‑thread work.

Performance Advantage – Component Isolation (Shadow DOM)

Shadow DOM provides CSS and event isolation for each component, preventing style and event leakage and improving selector matching speed.

Performance Advantage – Tagged Template vs JSX

ES6 template literals with tagged templates are native and avoid the compile step required by JSX, resulting in lower CPU usage. Benchmarks on a Moto G4 show React pages consuming roughly seven times more CPU than equivalent Web Component pages.

Flame charts illustrate higher script, layout, and paint times for React compared to Web Component pages.

Performance Advantage – Native Lifecycle Control

Web Components provide native lifecycle callbacks without extra state management, simplifying component movement or removal.

Higher Reliability

Web Components align with object‑oriented principles and the open‑closed principle, promoting independent, extensible components and improving product reliability.

Better Readability

Component names appear directly in the DOM, making debugging easier compared to locating React’s virtual DOM elements.

Business Cost Advantages

Vendor Lock‑In

Vendor lock‑in occurs when switching costs are so high that users remain bound to the original provider.

Switching front‑end frameworks can be costly and disruptive to business operations.

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 generating HTML from non‑web languages such as Java or Kotlin.

Synergy

Sharing Web Components across projects reduces development cost and aligns with the Web 3.0 vision of data sharing and open ecosystems.

In conclusion, Web Components are not meant to replace existing frameworks entirely but to provide a set of technologies that enable reusable, shareable components, keeping the web ecosystem open, modular, and cost‑effective.