The Difference Between a Framework and Library

What the difference between framework and library?

Both libraries and frameworks are reusable code written by someone else. Their purpose is to help you solve common problems in easier ways.
The Technical Difference

The technical difference between a framework and library lies in a term called inversion of control. When you use a library, you are in charge of the application flow. You choose when and where to call the library. When you use a framework, the framework is in charge of the flow. It provides you with a few places to plug in your code, but it calls the code you plugged in as needed.

You tell libraries what to do, frameworks tell you what to do.

One definition I know is:

a framework is a software where you plug your code into
a library is a software that you plug into your code

Why is React a library and not a framework?

React itself does not include many of the React-specific libraries you’re going to need for most projects. Angular and Vue, by comparison, include many more tools all bundled within the core package itself.
Many developers consider this discussion of what is and isn’t a library to be trivial. But it has real consequences for our development process. In other words, because React is a library and not a framework, becoming a skilled React developer entails having a good knowledge of third-party React libraries.
- The Third-Party React libraries example:
- Redux, Redux Form, React Router, Styled Component

Since React is a library, you must choose the tools on your own

That means, in order to build complete React applications, you will need to choose these packages and tools on your own.
For a form library, I have to decide whether I want to use the package React Hook Form or Formik. These are both React-specific form libraries to add important features to our forms like validation.
For testing my React application, I might use either React Testing Library, Jest, or some combination of the two.
For making network requests, I might need to choose between the Fetch API and Axios. I might also need to decide if I want to add an additional library to make managing my server state easier, such as React Query or SWR.

3 Reference: Is React a framework or library? - Everything you need to know

When choosing the right libraries and frameworks to build your mobile app or we app, it
s important that a framework is popular so that it has a well-established dev community around it. If you were to search on google or StackOverflow a question regarding some specific functionality or bug inside the framework, you’d most likely want to see other people who might have encountered the issue and found a solution.