How We Leverage Open-Source and Third-Party Libraries in Our Development Journey
At Contrii, we’re passionate about building powerful, user-friendly web applications. But, like any great project, the foundation of what we do is made up of the tools and libraries we use. Over the years, we’ve found that leveraging both open-source and third-party libraries allows us to deliver quality products faster, with fewer headaches, and with more time to focus on what really matters—creating meaningful experiences for our users.
In this article, we’d like to take a moment to share how we use these fantastic libraries, give credit to their creators, and show our appreciation for the vibrant open-source community that makes so much of our work possible.
The Heart of Open-Source Libraries: Giving Credit Where It’s Due
Open-source libraries are the bedrock of modern web development. These libraries are freely available for anyone to use, modify, and contribute to, which means developers like us can take advantage of the hard work put in by the global community. The beauty of open-source software is that it not only saves us time, but it also connects us with a network of developers, all striving to make the web a better place.
Here are some of the open-source libraries we rely on in our development journey:
Frontend Development
- @emotion/react & @emotion/styled
These libraries are our secret weapon for styling React components. By using @emotion/react, we can write styles right inside our JavaScript code, making it easy to keep things modular and neat. @emotion/styled takes that a step further by allowing us to create styled components directly. It feels like a second nature when working with React, and we’re grateful to the creators for making our styling process so smooth. Both libraries are licensed under the MIT License, allowing us to freely build upon them. - @mui/material & @mui/styled-engine
Material UI is something we’ve come to love for building beautiful, consistent, and accessible UIs. The components are well-designed and highly customizable, which helps us craft professional-looking interfaces without sweating over every pixel. The @mui/styled-engine integrates seamlessly to bring our designs to life with ease. The MIT License means these tools are open for all to use, and we feel lucky to have them as part of our toolkit. - axios
Whenever we need to make network requests in our React applications, we turn to axios. It’s simple, efficient, and helps us handle asynchronous operations with ease. Whether it’s fetching data or submitting forms, axios handles it all beautifully. We’re thankful for the creators who have made this tool so widely adopted and accessible with its MIT License. - moment
We all know that handling dates and times can be tricky in JavaScript. That’s where moment.js steps in, making it incredibly easy to manipulate, format, and display time data. It’s a library that’s been around for years, and we can’t imagine our workflow without it. Thanks to moment, we can focus on the logic rather than the nitty-gritty of date formatting. This library is another example of the brilliance of open-source, licensed under MIT.
Backend Development
- express
When it comes to building our server-side logic, express is the framework we trust. It’s minimalistic, yet powerful, allowing us to quickly spin up web servers and APIs that power our applications. Its flexibility and ease of use mean we can focus on our app’s features instead of wrestling with the setup. Thanks to MIT, express is open for everyone to build with, and we are grateful for its simplicity and speed. - jsonwebtoken
Security is paramount, especially when dealing with user authentication. jsonwebtoken allows us to create and verify JWT tokens effortlessly, making our authentication system both secure and scalable. The ease with which it integrates into our backend systems is a testament to the thoughtfulness of the developers behind it. Like many of the libraries we use, jsonwebtoken is licensed under MIT. - bcryptjs
User passwords are some of the most sensitive pieces of data in our applications. That’s why we use bcryptjs for password hashing. With it, we can securely hash passwords before storing them in our database, keeping user information safe from malicious attacks. This simple yet essential tool is made even better by its MIT License. - mysql2
Our database is the heart of our backend, and mysql2 helps us manage our interactions with it efficiently. It provides a promise-based interface to MySQL databases, ensuring that our data queries run fast and reliably. We can’t thank the creators enough for making such a high-performance library available to the community under the MIT License. - firebase-admin
We also leverage firebase-admin for managing Firebase features on our backend. From authentication to Firestore, firebase-admin provides us with a secure and scalable way to handle server-side Firebase operations. The library’s Apache 2.0 License ensures we can use it freely in our projects, and we’re grateful for its smooth integration and ease of use. - nodemailer
Sending emails within our applications has never been easier thanks to nodemailer. Whether it’s for welcome emails, password resets, or notifications, nodemailer handles email delivery reliably and simply. Its robust, community-supported nature makes it a core part of our backend stack, and we’re thankful to the contributors for keeping it open and free under the MIT License.
Third-Party Libraries: Bringing Extra Power to Our Projects
While open-source libraries are essential, we also make use of third-party libraries to bring additional features, premium support, and specialized functionality into our applications. These libraries are often maintained by external developers or companies and come with extra capabilities that enhance our products.
- @flaticon/flaticon-uicons
Icons play a big role in creating visually appealing user interfaces. We use Flaticon for access to a wide array of beautiful icons that add polish to our designs. The free version offers plenty of options, but for premium icons, we’ve opted for their paid models, ensuring we have exactly what we need while respecting their licensing terms. - @lottiefiles/react-lottie-player
Animations are an essential part of user engagement, and LottieFiles helps us bring stunning animations to life within our web applications. Using @lottiefiles/react-lottie-player, we can seamlessly integrate smooth, interactive animations into our projects. This library is available in both free and premium versions, and it adds a touch of magic to our interfaces. - antd
Ant Design has become one of our favorite UI frameworks for React. It provides a comprehensive set of beautifully designed, customizable components that save us a great deal of time in building responsive layouts. We appreciate that Ant Design is open-source, yet they offer commercial support for enterprise applications, making it an invaluable tool in our development toolkit. - bootstrap
Bootstrap is a classic front-end framework that we still turn to for responsive, mobile-first web design. It offers a grid system and pre-built components that speed up our design process. While it’s open-source, we sometimes use premium themes to give our applications a polished, professional look.
A Heartfelt Thank You to the Creators
At Contrii, we are incredibly thankful to the developers, contributors, and communities behind all of these libraries. Without their hard work and dedication, we wouldn’t be able to deliver the high-quality applications that our users enjoy. Their commitment to open-source software continues to inspire us every day.
As we build our products, we always strive to give credit where it’s due. These libraries make our jobs easier, more efficient, and more enjoyable, and we feel privileged to be able to work alongside such amazing tools and communities.
In Conclusion: A Journey Made Better with Great Tools
Using open-source and third-party libraries has transformed the way we approach development at Contrii. By leveraging these powerful tools, we can focus on what matters most: creating meaningful, user-centered applications. We are excited about the future of development and look forward to continuing our journey with these incredible resources. Thank you to all the creators for empowering us to build better, faster, and more innovative products.