I’m not a fan of the React at all. I prefer to use VueJS wherever it’s possible. But React is really one of the most popular JavaScript libraries now. There are a lot of people who use it and like it.
One of the most important parts of React is JSX - “a syntax extension to JavaScript. It is similar to a template language, but it has full power of JavaScript”. Honestly, it’s the one reasons why I don’t like React. But if you’re using React, it’s really painful to not use JSX too.
But you can like both React and JSX. It’s up to you: to use it or not.
You can even use JSX not only with react-based applications. You just need to
install babel and babel-preset-react and integrate it with webpack. All
details could be found here:
https://babeljs.io/docs/en/babel-preset-react.
There is also a way to use it without webpack too:
npx babel --watch src --out-dir . --presets react-app/prod
Please, be sure that you use npx, not npm command here.