What Happened to These 'Game-Changing' JavaScript Projects in the last 10 years? And What's Next?

It’s been 10 years since I first set off on my software engineering journey back in 2014. Just the other day, I was going through my old bookmarks saved back then and saw some blogs about the new trends and game-changing Node.js technologies. Some of those turned out to be industry leaders, while others have faded so hard I barely remember their names. Let's see which projects thrived, and which didn't, and, most importantly, why they either became popular or lost their momentum.

What were the trends in 2014?

Before jumping directly onto the projects, I believe it's important to know about the key trends shaping the industry a decade ago.

1. Single-Page Applications (SPAs): Developers were increasingly shifting from traditional multi-page web applications to SPAs for more fluid user experience that didn’t feel like waiting for a page refresh after every click. Frameworks like AngularJS and Backbone.js became the toolkit essentials, giving us a way to build client-side interfaces that acted less like old-school websites and more like native apps.
2. Full-Stack JavaScript Movement: With Node.js becoming dominant, suddenly, developers could write both client-side and server-side code in the same language, sparking the “JavaScript everywhere” movement. This trend aimed to streamline development by enabling a single language across the stack, which reduced the need for context-switching between languages and empowered developers to become full-stack engineers.
3. Real-Time Web Applications: The demand for real-time features, such as chat applications and live notifications, drove interest in frameworks that could handle WebSockets and server-sent events effectively. Socket.io was already proving its worth by facilitating bidirectional communication between clients and servers.
4. Rise of Task Automation: As projects became more complex, the need for automation in building, testing, and deployment grew. Tools like Grunt and Gulp emerged to fill this void, helping developers automate repetitive tasks such as minifying code, compiling preprocessed files, and running tests, significantly speeding up development workflows.
5. Modular Code and Dependency Management: The need for better ways to manage dependencies in increasingly complex projects led to the rise of npm for back-end packages and Bower for front-end libraries. This era also saw an increased focus on modular programming, which was supported by the CommonJS and AMD (Asynchronous Module Definition) standards.
6. Front-End Development Maturity: The idea of component-based architecture was gaining traction, especially with React beginning to make waves by offering a novel way of structuring UI development. While React had only been released in 2013, by 2014, it was attracting attention for its declarative approach to building user interfaces.

If I remember it correctly (and also after reading the old blogs), these projects were the promising ones:

Frontend: AngularJS, Backbone.js, React, jQuery
Backend: Express.js, Meteor.js, Koa.js
Module Bundlers: Browserify & Webpack
Task Runners: Grunt & Gulp
Testing Tools: Jasmine & Mocha

Let me know if I am missing some major projects, tools, frameworks or libraries.

Survivors and Leaders Today

Let's finally talk about the projects.

Express.js

Express.js still remains the go-to Node.js web framework due to its minimalist, unopinionated design. It’s easy to learn and adapt, allowing developers to build REST APIs and full web applications efficiently. Its flexibility and middleware ecosystem have kept it relevant despite newer competitors.

I’m a big fan of NestJS for my backend projects, which is highly opinionated. It is a wrapper on top of Express.js.

Major competitors that didn't do well: Sails.js, Hapi.js

React

React has dominated front-end development with its component-based architecture and virtual DOM, enhancing performance and reusability. Its active community, support from Facebook (Meta), and continuous updates ensured it stayed ahead with innovations like React Hooks. All these have solidified its position as the preferred library for UI development.

Major competitors that didn't do well: Backbone.js, Knockout.js, Dojo Toolkit

Angular (Angular 2+)

AngularJS was reimagined as Angular (Angular 2+) to overcome its predecessor's performance issues and complexity. With TypeScript support and a modular structure, Angular 2+ became a popular framework for large-scale enterprise applications, showcasing strong updates and backing from Google.

Major competitors that didn't do well: AngularJS, Ember.js, Mithril.js

Webpack

When projects like React and Angular started getting traction, Webpack emerged as a game changer in module building. It offered features that optimized asset management and code splitting. It became the backbone for modern JavaScript projects by supporting complex build pipelines and handling assets beyond just JavaScript. Its flexibility and community support have kept it a leader in the build tool space.

Major competitors that didn't do well: Browserify, RequireJS, Grunt, Gulp

NPM and Yarn

I know Yarn wasn't even released until 2016 but it's still worth mentioning. I can only think of these reasons why these projects survived: Constant Innovation and Developer Trust.

NPM evolved beyond a simple package manager into a robust tool with added features like version locking, npm scripts, and workspaces, ensuring reliable dependency management. Yarn emerged as a faster, more secure alternative, pushing npm to improve and stay competitive. I strongly believe Yarn is the reason why NPM is so powerful today.

The rivalry between these two led to innovations that benefited the entire ecosystem, with developers continuing to rely on both for efficient project management.

Major competitors that didn’t do well: Bower, Component.io, Jam.js

The Projects That Didn't Do So Well

Honestly, there is a huge list of such projects. I have personally tried a lot of them at some time. I'll mention only a handful of projects for the sake of keeping this article small and precise. If you're interested, we can discuss more about such projects or you can suggest your favourite ones that didn't do well.

AngularJS

Since we already mentioned Angular (2+) above, we have to mention AngularJS. AngularJS was revolutionary for building single-page applications, introducing concepts like two-way data binding and dependency injection. However, its complex learning curve and performance issues with large-scale applications became significant drawbacks. When Angular 2 was released, it was essentially a new framework with a different architecture focused on better performance, modularity, and TypeScript support. This shift required developers to completely rewrite their applications to migrate from AngularJS to Angular (2+), leading many to either switch frameworks or adopt React and Vue, which offered simpler learning curves and better performance.

Reasons for Decline: Complexity, Performance, Migration Challenge

Pump.io

Pump.io was a promising Activity Streams Engine that was discontinued after a great run. It was a real-time, open-source social stream server designed to power distributed social networking applications. Although it attracted attention from decentralized web applications, it struggled to compete with the growing dominance of centralized platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The community around Pump.io decreased over time, leading to its discontinuation in 2020, with development effectively ending by 2022.

Reasons for Decline: Niche focus, Lack of Adoption

Derby.js

Derby.js was a real-time full-stack framework that featured server-rendered views and data synchronization between the client and server. While its features were impressive for the time, it faced stiff competition from more flexible and evolving frameworks. The larger ecosystem and community support of its competitors overshadowed Derby.js. The complexity of maintaining synchronized data and limited scalability made it less appealing as web applications grew more complex.

Reason for Decline: Complexity, Competition

Sails.js

Sails.js positioned itself as the “Ruby on Rails for Node.js” and was designed for building data-driven APIs with ease. While it was initially well-received, Sails.js gradually fell out of favor due to its rigid structure, which limited flexibility for developers who preferred lightweight solutions. As more modular frameworks emerged, like Express.js paired with custom middleware, Sails.js seemed heavy in comparison. Its ecosystem did not grow at the same rate, and development slowed down as community interest shifted.

Reasons for Decline: Rigid Structure, Competition, Slower Updates

Bower

Bower has seen the journey from dominance to obsolescence. It was once the go-to package manager for front-end dependencies, allowing developers to easily manage libraries and frameworks. However, as npm expanded to handle both front-end and back-end dependencies, Bower’s relevance diminished. NPM’s capabilities, combined with Yarn’s introduction, provided more comprehensive solutions for dependency management, making Bower redundant. In 2017, the Bower team announced that the project was deprecated and recommended users migrate to either npm or Yarn.

Reasons for Decline: NPM's expansion (this is the only reason I can think of)

Grunt and Gulp

In 2014, Grunt was the most popular task runner in the JavaScript ecosystem. It provided a way for developers to automate repetitive tasks such as minification, compilation, and testing through a configuration-based approach. Gulp, introduced slightly later, offered a more streamlined, code-centric approach using Node.js streams, which made build processes faster and configurations cleaner. Later on, Webpack introduced a more integrated solution that combined module bundling and build tasks, simplifying project setup. Developers also began using npm scripts for simpler task automation, reducing the need for a separate task runner.

Reasons for Decline: Webpack and npm Scripts, Complexity and Redundancy, Shifting Practices.

Jade (Now Pug)

Jade, rebranded as Pug, was widely used as a Node.js templating engine that enabled developers to write cleaner, more readable HTML templates using a whitespace-sensitive syntax. It was known for its concise and straightforward templates, appealing to developers looking to simplify their view layer. During that time, other templating engines like Handlebars and EJS provided a simpler, more HTML-like syntax that was easier to adopt. Also, the frontend component libraries like React and templates decreased the need for templates for rendering views.

Reasons for Decline: Competition, Modern View Libraries like React & Vue

PhoneGap/Cordova

PhoneGap, later known as Apache Cordova, was one of the earliest platforms for cross-platform mobile development using web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript). It allowed developers to create mobile apps that ran inside a native WebView, giving access to device capabilities through plugins. Apps built with Cordova often suffered from performance issues compared to fully native or hybrid solutions like React Native and Flutter, which offered better responsiveness and user experience. Also, there was a clear lack of Innovation and community support.

Reasons for Decline: Performance, Hybrid solutions like React Native and Flutter, Lack of Innovation, Community and Support

Phew, there are still so many projects on my list that I didn’t get a chance to cover. I tried my best to highlight my favorites from the past—the ones I used, loved, and that, sadly, didn’t make it to the big leagues.

What Made the Leaders Thrive and Others Fail to Keep Up?

Let me throw in my two cents here. If you’ve read through this whole article, you might’ve noticed a pretty clear pattern. Let’s break down why some projects soared while others stumbled:

Common traits of the winners:

• Community Support
• Frequent Updates, Staying Relevant, and Constant Innovation
• Clear Focus Without Being Overly Complex
• Backing and Adoption by Big Organizations

Now, for the not-so-successful projects, here’s why they couldn’t keep up:

• High Competition in an Already Crowded Ecosystem
• Limited Scope and Lack of Flexibility — Failure to Adapt
• Poor Performance Optimization
• Decline in Support and Community Interest

What's next in the Javascript and Node.js Ecosystem?

After reflecting on the past decade, let's make some predictions for the next decade. Based on current trends and emerging technologies, here’s a look at what might shape the future of JavaScript and Node.js development.

Svelte

Unlike traditional frameworks like React and Angular that update the DOM in the browser, Svelte shifts this work to the build step, producing highly optimized vanilla JavaScript. This approach means smaller bundle sizes and better runtime performance, which could set a new standard for modern frameworks.

Solid.js

Gaining traction as an innovative UI library, Solid.js focuses on fine-grained reactivity and true reactivity systems, promising high performance without the virtual DOM overhead.

Remix

Built on top of React, Remix emphasizes server-side rendering and routing with a focus on full-stack development. It could redefine how we think about building data-intensive web applications by making performance optimization more straightforward.

Deno

Created by Node.js co-founder Ryan Dahl, Deno addresses some of Node.js’s longstanding issues, such as security and built-in TypeScript support. With a more modern approach, Deno has been gaining interest among developers looking for a secure and developer-friendly alternative to Node.js.

Bun

A newer JavaScript runtime that promises incredible speed due to its tight integration with the underlying JavaScript engine. Bun combines the capabilities of bundling, transpilation, and package management into a single tool, simplifying the development process.

WebAssembly (WASM)

While not strictly a JavaScript technology, Wasm allows developers to run code written in other languages at near-native speed in the browser. JavaScript libraries that integrate with Wasm can offload heavy computational tasks, making web applications faster and more capable.

Unified API Projects

GraphQL and tools like Apollo have changed how we fetch and handle data, making it more modern and efficient. But new tools and standards are always around the corner. These upcoming advancements could make APIs even faster, more integrated, and better at handling real-time data. (Btw, do you know of any such projects already working on it? I would love to know and learn more about it.)

AI ???

Nowadays, so many projects around AI coming in. People are already using ChatGPT, Github Copilot, and other tools for programming, I can't think of what would be the next big thing after a decade. But I am pretty sure, AI will play a huge role in it.

Conclusion

In this article, we’ve seen that success isn’t just about that first spark of innovation; it’s about keeping the fire going. It’s about continuous improvement and staying relevant as the tech world keeps shifting. The future’s set to bring even more exciting changes, and the ones who stay curious, adapt quickly, and aren’t afraid to experiment will be the ones leading the pack.

As always, thanks a ton for reading this. Do share it with your coworkers—or your friends (if you actually have a social life). And hey, if you want more of this kind of content, don’t forget to subscribe!