DevConf.IN 2025: Web Components

Hello, LinkedIn community! 👋 I’m excited to share that I had the incredible opportunity to speak at DevConf.IN , where I explored a topic that is transforming modern web development: "Unlocking Framework Independence with Web Components."

In my session, we dove into how Web Components are providing a solution to the chaotic, unreliable, and unmanageable front-end experiences many developers face today.

The Challenge: A Chaotic, Unreliable, and Unmanageable Front-End Experience

With each new update, frameworks evolve — often introducing breaking changes. As your application grows, this creates an increasingly chaotic development environment where dependencies are tough to manage, and integrating third-party libraries or tools becomes a nightmare. The result? A front-end experience that’s unreliable, where each change risks introducing bugs or requiring extensive rewrites, and every new framework update feels like an unpredictable shift in the ground beneath your feet.

For many developers, this cycle creates an unmanageable situation, where productivity is constantly halted by compatibility issues and concerns over future upgrades. Framework lock-in limits your ability to scale your project or switch to a new tool, making it harder to adapt to new technologies.

The Solution: Web Components

That’s where Web Components come in. By enabling the development of framework-agnostic, reusable, and encapsulated components, Web Components allow developers to create modular, scalable, and future-proof web applications that can evolve with technology, without being locked into a specific framework or toolset.

In my session at DevConf.IN , I shared how Web Components solve many of the issues that developers face when dealing with tight framework dependencies.

Here's how Web Components provide a better, more reliable solution:

Web Components: A Unified Language for the Web

1. Write Once, Use Everywhere: One of the most powerful aspects of Web Components is that you can write once and use everywhere. Once a Web Component is created, it can be used in any modern web application, regardless of the framework. Whether you're working in React, Angular, Vue.js, or even plain JavaScript, Web Components ensure compatibility across all platforms. This eliminates the need to rewrite components or deal with integration issues when switching frameworks.
2. Encapsulated and Reusable Components: Web Components are self-contained and encapsulated. This means the functionality, style, and behavior of a component are isolated from the rest of the application, reducing the risk of conflicts between components or with the global styles of the app. This encapsulation leads to more predictable behavior and makes components easier to maintain, scale, and test.
3. Framework Agnostic: Web Components are inherently framework agnostic. Whether you’re using a framework or not, Web Components are a standardized way to build and share components across different environments. This provides you with the flexibility to move between frameworks or even to opt out of them entirely, without having to rewrite your components. This agnostic approach allows developers to avoid the pitfalls of framework lock-in and ensure their codebase remains agile.
4. Future-Proof Your Web Applications: The ability to create framework-independent components that work across any future tools or frameworks means that Web Components can help you future-proof your applications. Because they’re based on web standards and supported by all major browsers, Web Components provide stability and long-term viability, allowing you to adapt and evolve without worrying about obsolescence.

Core Concepts of Web Components

In my session, we dove deeper into the fundamental building blocks of Web Components. Here are the key concepts I discussed:

1. Custom Elements: Custom Elements enable developers to define new HTML tags that encapsulate specific functionality. These elements can be used like any other HTML tag but come with their own behavior and properties. This allows for cleaner, more modular code.
2. Shadow DOM: The Shadow DOM is what allows Web Components to encapsulate their structure, style, and behavior. By creating a "shadow" boundary between a component and the rest of the page, it ensures that styles and scripts do not conflict or leak, leading to more predictable and isolated components.
3. HTML Templates: HTML Templates allow developers to define pieces of reusable markup that can be dynamically instantiated when needed. These templates are not rendered until they are activated, which makes them an efficient way to define complex component structures without bloating your application with unused HTML.

Creating Your Own Web Components

One of the highlights of my session was showing developers how to create their own Web Components. The process is surprisingly simple and involves defining your custom element, applying the Shadow DOM for encapsulation, and using HTML Templates for reusable structures.

I walked through the following steps:

• Defining the custom element with JavaScript.
• Using the Shadow DOM to ensure encapsulation of styles and behavior.
• Using HTML templates to provide a flexible structure for your components.

Once created, these components can be used across your entire application or even across different applications, regardless of the framework or tool you're using.

Ensuring Accessibility in Web Components

As we embrace the power of Web Components, it’s crucial that we also ensure they are accessible. In my session, I discussed how developers can ensure their Web Components are accessible by design. Accessibility should never be an afterthought. Ensuring that our components work for all users, including those with disabilities, is a key responsibility.

Some best practices include:

• Using semantic HTML to ensure screen reader compatibility.
• Implementing proper keyboard navigation and focus management.
• Ensuring sufficient contrast and text size for visually impaired users.

By focusing on accessibility, we ensure that Web Components can be used by a diverse audience, fostering inclusivity in the web development community.

Conclusion: Embrace Web Components for a More Manageable Future

At DevConf.In, it was evident that Web Components offer a game-changing solution for developers looking to escape the chaos of framework lock-in and create more reliable, flexible applications. They allow us to write once, use everywhere, create encapsulated and reusable components, and ultimately future-proof our web applications.

By adopting Web Components, we can regain control over our front-end codebases and build applications that are easier to maintain, scale, and adapt as new technologies emerge. It’s time to embrace a unified language for the web, one that is framework-agnostic and designed for the future.

I’m excited to continue the conversation around Web Components and how they will shape the future of web development. Have you started using Web Components in your projects? How are they transforming your development workflow? Let’s connect and continue exploring the power of Web Components!

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the attendees who contributed to making this event truly memorable. Your active participation, insightful questions, and genuine interest in Web Accessibility highlighted the importance of this vital topic. It is through our collective efforts that we can make a meaningful impact and foster digital equality.

I am also deeply thankful to Nilamdyuti Goswami and Red Hat for their invaluable support throughout this journey. Your encouragement and assistance have been greatly appreciated, and I am truly grateful for your involvement. Thank you for being such a crucial part of this endeavor.

If you were unable to attend my session at DevConf.IN or would like to continue the conversation, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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