Plasmo
Open SourceThe open-source framework for building browser extensions with React and TypeScript — declarative content scripts, live-reload dev server, automatic manifest generation, cross-browser targets, and store deployment tooling.
Why we recommend Plasmo
Plasmo did for browser extensions what Next.js did for React sites: it replaced a folder of hand-edited manifest JSON, build scripts and reload rituals with a framework — write React/TypeScript components as popups, content-script UIs, or background workers; Plasmo generates the Manifest V3 plumbing, hot-reloads your extension as you type, and builds per-browser bundles for Chrome, Firefox and Edge from one codebase. The 'it just works' developer experience is genuinely startling the first time a content-script UI hot-reloads inside a live page. Its publishing pipeline tooling automates store submission, historically the most painful mile of extension development.
Best use cases
Best for: React developers building any extension more ambitious than a static popup, startups shipping companion extensions for their SaaS, and teams targeting multiple browsers who refuse to maintain three manifests. The starter templates make hackathon-speed extension prototyping realistic.
Honest limitations
Not for: minimal vanilla-JS extensions where a framework is overhead, or teams wanting maximum control over the generated manifest — the abstraction occasionally needs escape hatches. Development pace of the open-source core has slowed as the company focused on hosted services; evaluate recent commit activity against WXT before committing.
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