Introduction to Web Components

Before React and Vue, there was a native browser standard for reusable components: Web Components. They consist of three main technologies: Custom Elements (define new HTML tags), Shadow DOM (encapsulated styling and markup), and HTML Templates (<template>). I built a simple 'User Card' component by extending HTMLElement. The magic of Shadow DOM is that CSS defined inside the component stays inside. You don't have to worry about class name collisions with the rest of your site. While libraries like React are more popular for building complex applications, Web Components are great for building design systems or embedding widgets into existing websites because they work natively with any framework (or no framework). I used a Web Component for a comment box on a static site, and it was much lighter than spinning up a full React app.