✨️ Deciphering the "Architectural Flavor" held by major frameworks

✅ Introduction: Frameworks are not Architecture

Many frameworks do not force a specific architectural style. However, each has a tendency (flavor) where "designing this way feels natural".

Examples:

• Rails has a strong Active Record philosophy.
• React / SwiftUI are close to MVU (Elm Architecture).
• Spring Boot / NestJS are easy to align with Clean / Hexagonal.
• Node.js induces a structure centered on Event Loop (Async I/O).

In other words, we decipher with the stance:

It is important not to think "The framework decides the architecture",
but to "Understand the direction the framework naturally induces".

✅ Architectural Flavors of UI Frameworks

React

• Classification: MVU (Model–View–Update) family / Under Elm Architecture influence
• Unidirectional data flow, immutability, declarative UI.
• Combination with Redux further strengthens the MVU color.
  → Can be treated as a representative example of UI Structural Style "MVU".

Next.js (App Router)

• Classification: Closer to "Topologies / Integration" than UI structural style
• Rendering strategies like SSR / SSG / ISR / Edge Rendering themselves determine the architecture.
• Structure where UI and API (Backend) coexist via API Routes / Route Handlers / Server Actions.
• File-based routing naturally enforces folder structure by feature.
  → Tends to become a project structure close to Vertical Slice / Feature-based.
• While containing React (MVU), Next.js itself is an entity that defines "Overall App Configuration (Topology)" rather than "Structural Architecture".

→ As an architectural style, it belongs to the world of "Topologies (SSR/Edge) + Integration (UI + API Integration)" rather than MVU.

Vue.js (3.x)

• Options API: Close to MVVM.
• Composition API: Increased functional elements leaning towards React.
  → Overall, a hybrid of MVVM and MVU.

Angular

• Clear MVVM / Layered structure
• Component (VM), Template (View), Service (Logic).
  → Easy to treat as a typical example of UI structural style.

SwiftUI / Jetpack Compose

• Completely MVU family
• Single source of truth, re-computation, declarative UI.
  → The purest implementation of recent Declarative UI.

✅ Architectural Flavors of Data-centric Frameworks

Ruby on Rails

• Typical example centered on Active Record
• MVC, but practically tends to become Fat Model / Transaction Script.
  → Representative example of Structural Style "Data-centric (Active Record)".

Laravel

• Eloquent is Active Record-like.
• Intuitive, but domain model splitting is up to the developer's ingenuity.
  → Easy to understand in the context of Data-centric.

Django

• MVT (Model–View–Template) is close to MVC.
• ORM leans towards Data Mapper.
  → Representative example leaning towards "Table Module / Data Mapper" within Data-centric.

✅ Layered / Clean / Dependency Rule Frameworks

Spring Boot (Java)

• Structure easy to make Clean / Hexagonal
• Division of Controller → Service → Repository is natural.
• Easy to control dependency direction via DI.
  → One of the frameworks with the most Clean Architecture implementation examples.

NestJS (Node.js)

• Module structure, DI, and Decorators are very similar to Spring.
• Implementation of Port / Adapter / UseCase can be made clearly.
  → Representative of Clean / Hexagonal in the Node.js world.

.NET / ASP.NET Core

• Clean Architecture templates are standardized.
• Literature and examples of DDD / CQRS / Hexagonal are very abundant.
  → "De facto standard platform" for Clean / Layered families.

✅ Reactive / Actor Frameworks

Node.js

• Event Loop based structure itself
• Async I/O, Callbacks, Promises, Event-driven.
  → Representative example of Structural Style "Event Loop".

Erlang / Elixir / Akka

• Serious implementation of Actor Model
• Message passing and supervision are at the language level.
  → Pure sample of Reactive Structural Style.

✅ Style × Framework Correspondence Table (Overview)

Structural Style	Representative Framework / Technology
MVU	React / Redux, SwiftUI, Jetpack Compose
MVVM	Vue (Options API), Angular
MVC / MVT	Rails, Django
Active Record	Rails (ActiveRecord), Laravel (Eloquent)
Data Mapper leaning	Django ORM
Layered / Clean / Hexagonal	Spring Boot, NestJS, .NET
Event Loop	Node.js
Actor Model	Erlang / Elixir, Akka

✅ Value This Page Wants to Provide

• When learning architecture, understand which style familiar frameworks are close to.
• When reading code, understand which "lens" deepens understanding.
• See which philosophy the technology you are using stands on.

Please use this page as a guide to understand "the architectural philosophy moving behind the framework".