We recently introduced the AssetMapper component and Symfony UX to make the most of the web platform and reduce the amount of JavaScript code to the absolute minimum.

This “radically simple” approach is generally the most efficient and should be the go-to method for most new Symfony applications.

However, API-based, JavaScript-heavy applications are still inevitable or more straightforward than the alternatives for many other use cases:

* building rich applications that leverage the device’s hardware capabilities (3D, GPS, E2E encryption, Bluetooth, NFC…) and work offline (service workers)
* building mobile applications distributed via the App Store and Google Play (React Native, Ionic)
* building “native” desktop applications (Tauri, Electron…)
* building advanced editors à la Google Docs
* creating API-first systems
* …

For these kinds of applications, you need JavaScript (or TypeScript) applications, but the Symfony ecosystem is still relevant and can help: through the API Platform project, it provides all the tools you need to design and develop the web API that will be used in PHP, then scaffold your heavy JS applications by reading machine-readable API documentation.

Symfony now has two paths for front-end application development: let’s find out when to use Symfony UX and when to take advantage of API Platform’s JavaScript tools!