Top 5 Challenges Faced by Vue Developers: The State of Vue.js Survey 2025

Vue 3, released in 2020, has become the standard. Most developers and projects have transitioned from Vue 2, thanks to better documentation and tools. The Composition API introduced in Vue 3 has gained wide acceptance for its flexibility and improved organization, especially in large projects. Vue.js ecosystem growth is expected to benefit significantly from these advancements, as Vue 3 continues to prove faster and more efficient than Vue 2, with improvements like better rendering performance and smaller bundle sizes.

The ecosystem of Vue is getting more and more advanced. The official router for Vue.js has continued to evolve, offering enhanced features for managing routes in complex SPAs. As the official state management library, Pinia has largely replaced Vuex in many projects, offering a simpler and more modern API. Vue.js developer challenges like adapting to new state management tools or debugging complex applications have been addressed by the continuously updated Vue DevTools, which effectively supports Vue 3 and its ecosystem tools.

Vue's strong community remains one of its greatest assets. Vue.js community feedback will shape the future of the framework as it is shaping now. Thanks to active forums, conferences (e.g., VueConf), and a vibrant ecosystem of plugins and extensions. While React still leads in terms of adoption globally, Vue has maintained its popularity, especially in regions like Asia and Europe, and among developers who value its simplicity and elegance.

The Vue.js ecosystem growth in 2025 is also reflected by Vue's increasing use in modern front-end architectures like micro-frontends, SSR (server-side rendering), and static site generation. Vue’s seamless integration with tools like Vite for build optimization further enhances its appeal for both small projects and enterprise-level applications. As the Vue.js community feedback continues to play a key role in guiding the framework’s evolution, developers will be better equipped to handle the Vue.js developer challenges that emerge in a rapidly evolving tech landscape.

In case you are unfamiliar with the State of Vue, it’s one of the most influential publications in the Vue.js community, authored by us, Monterail. We’re the official Vue.js partner, the first VueConf organizers, Vue evangelists, and, put simply, dedicated Vue enthusiasts. Let’s not forget about some solid (30+ Vue projects) experience with the framework since 2015. In 2025, we’re shipping already the 5th edition. The last issue was downloaded thousands of times and distributed during the biggest Vue conference in Europe - VueJS Amsterdam 2022. 

In the upcoming State of Vue.js Report 2025, you will find:

• The developer survey results from almost 1.5k developers from around the world 

• Interview with Evan You and expert insights from Daniel Roe and Vue & Nuxt core team members

• Latest updates in Vue with expert opinions 

• Challenges and practical advice on migration to Vue 3 

• Case studies
from well-established brands like Gitlab, Storyblok, Docplanner, Booksy and more 

• Trends and predictions for the future of Vue and Nuxt 

The official release is planned for the beginning of March 2025 so stay tuned for the news!

Below, you will find a list of challenges that developers mention most often nowadays while developing applications with Vue.

Migrating from Vue 2 to Vue 3 can be challenging due to several factors, ranging from technical compatibility issues to ecosystem changes. Here are the primary reasons why the migration might feel difficult:

• Breaking Changes: Vue 3 introduces changes like updated lifecycle hooks, deprecations, and reworked directives (v-model).

• Composition API: A new paradigm that, while optional, requires a shift in how components are structured.

• Dependency Compatibility: Some Vue 2 libraries and plugins are not fully compatible with Vue 3.

• Build Tools: Transitioning to Vue 3 often requires updates to tooling, like switching to Vite or upgrading vue-loader.

• Reactivity System: Vue 3’s new Proxy-based system can cause unexpected behavior in certain edge cases.

• Large Codebases: Big projects demand careful planning and incremental migration.

There are some well-known migration strategies that you can use for your Vue 2->3 migration officially recommended by Vue Team:

• Use Migration Tools: Use the official Vue Migration Build to identify breaking changes and address them incrementally.

• Implement Incremental Updates: Start with libraries and smaller components before migrating the entire app.

• Use documentation: Leverage Vue’s comprehensive migration guide to plan and execute the migration efficiently.

• Adopt Vue 3 Features Gradually: Stick to the Options API initially and adopt the Composition API as the team becomes more comfortable.

At Monterail, we have also prepared a Vue migration cheat sheet and dedicated the article to that topic that will help you migrate your project. While the migration can be challenging, it ultimately results in a more modern, efficient, and maintainable codebase, making it worth the effort in the long run.

While Vue.js is a popular framework with a strong community, it occasionally faces challenges related to educational materials:

• Beginner Struggles: Official docs are great but often assume prior experience, making advanced concepts harder for newcomers.

• Advanced Topics: Resources on large-scale architecture, performance tuning, or Pinia alternatives are limited.

• Integration Gaps: Tutorials for combining Vue with tools like TypeScript or Nuxt can be inconsistent or scattered.

• Community Content: Many tutorials are outdated or of varying quality.

• Fewer Video Courses: Vue has fewer comprehensive video courses compared to React.

• Language Barriers: Some resources are not translated, limiting accessibility globally.

There are few places where you can learn Vue and Nuxt step by step that we can definitely recommend:

1. VueSchool - Learn Vue.js and modern, cutting-edge front-end technologies from core-team members and industry experts with our premium tutorials and video courses.

2. VueMastery - As the ultimate resource for Vue.js developers, Vue Mastery produces weekly lessons so you can learn what you need to succeed as a Vue.js Developer.

3. LearnVue - LearnVue provides developer-focused learning for the Vue.js framework. With fast-paced videos, you can learn quickly and spend more time developing your projects!

Surce: Vue School

While Vue’s community has made strides in creating resources, there’s room to grow in supporting a broader range of learners, particularly beginners and those tackling advanced use cases.

Building cross-platform applications with Vue can be a challenge as the framework itself aims mainly for building performant websites but there are tools out there that we can use to utilize Vue for desktop, mobile, or multiple devices.

There are multiple solutions that you can choose such as Capacitor for Web and Mobile, NativeScript-Vue for native mobile applications, Electron for desktop Vue applications. But there is definitely one tool that can do all the following and comes with great continuous support and this tool is Quasar!

Quasar is a Vue-based framework for building web, mobile (via Capacitor/Cordova), and desktop apps (via Electron).

To build a project with Quasar and Vue, you would follow these steps:

1. Scaffold a project with the Quasar CLI.  

2. Use Quasar’s components for a consistent UI across platforms.  

3. Compile your app for:

   - Web: As a Progressive Web App (PWA).  

   - Mobile: Using Capacitor or Cordova.  

   - Desktop: Using Electron.  

Watch this official video tutorial from Quasar to learn more about it and how it can help you build cross-platform applications with Vue.

Vue.js state management has evolved over time, but it faces some challenges:

1. Managing large, deeply nested states can become difficult and verbose.

2. Vue 3 introduced reactive APIs, leading to multiple state management options (Vuex, Pinia, or plain reactive/ref APIs), which can confuse developers.

3. Excessive reliance on global state can lead to performance bottlenecks if not carefully optimized. 

4. For very large applications, maintaining a clean and scalable state structure can be challenging.  

Vue’s flexible ecosystem offers solutions for state management, but choosing the right approach requires careful consideration of project size and complexity.

At Monterail, we recently released an article about this topic that you can check out here.

Vue.js is designed for performance, but achieving optimal results requires understanding key aspects of its architecture and applying best practices. Vue's dependency-tracking reactivity system ensures only the components that rely on changed data are updated. Vue also comes with an efficient DOM diffing that minimizes actual DOM updates and it supports asynchronous component loading, reducing the initial bundle size.

However, when developing Vue applications we can run into one of the following problems:

1. Large Component Trees: Deeply nested components with frequent updates can slow rendering.

2. Unnecessary Re-renders: Mismanagement of reactive data can trigger unwanted updates.

3. Heavy Initial Load: Large bundles or unused libraries can increase load times.

4. Memory Leaks: Improperly managed event listeners or unused refs can degrade performance over time.

To solve the first problem, you can utilize the v-memo which is a built-in directive that can be used to conditionally skip the update of large sub-trees or v-for lists:

<div v-memo="[valueA, valueB]">...</div>

To solve the second problem, you can use the v-once which is a built-in directive that can be used to render content that relies on runtime data but never needs to update:

<span v-once>This will never change: {{msg}}</span>

The third problem might be the most complex as it would require you to scan your whole application for code that can be lazy loaded, removed, delayed, or refactored so that it will be more performant and lighter for the browser. To accomplish this, you could use a bundle analyzer tool that would allow you to discover heavy and non-performing code that needs to be refactored.

For the fourth problem, the most common scenario for a memory leak is adding a window event listener in the initial load of the component but not removing it after the component is unmounted. Make sure to check if you register and unregister event listeners correctly like so:

<script setup>
  Import { onMounted, onUnmounted } from ‘vue’

  onMounted(() => window.addEventListener('mousemove', doSomething))
  onUnmounted(() => window.removeEventListener('mousemove', doSomething))
</script>

See the following articles to learn more about how you can improve the performance of your Vue apps:

1. How to Maximize Vue.js Performance: 4 Proven Techniques for Faster Web Apps

2. How To Optimize Performance In Vue Apps

3. Improving Performance of Nuxt with Lazy Pattern

Vue.js allows developers to build web applications more efficiently, but it also comes with a few challenges. Among the Vue.js key challenges for 2025 are performance issues, challenges with migration to the latest Vue version, some adoption barriers for beginners, and cross-platform development struggles. Thankfully, the Vue community is amazing at providing resources like articles, video tutorials, courses, and open-source projects such as packages and starters that help overcome these problems.

Stay tuned for the upcoming State of Vue 2025 Report to get the detailed results of the survey. You will learn about challenges with Nuxt development and find out what the community finds missing in both frameworks. The report is definitely worth waiting for. Follow Monterail on Linkedin to stay up to date with the latest news!