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vuejs/vue-router

★ 18,907JavaScriptAudience · developerComplexity · 2/5MaintainedLicenseSetup · easy

TLDR

Official routing library for Vue 2 that handles navigation between pages in single-page web apps, letting users move between sections without full page reloads.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((vue-router))
    What it does
      Handles navigation
      Swaps content dynamically
      Manages URLs
    Key features
      Nested routes
      Route parameters
      Navigation guards
      View transitions
    Use cases
      Multi-page web apps
      Admin dashboards
      Single-page apps
    Tech stack
      Vue 2
      JavaScript
      HTML5 history

Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Build a multi-page web app where users can navigate between sections like Home, About, and Contact without reloading the page.

USE CASE 2

Create an admin dashboard with nested navigation, like Settings > Account > Security, where each section loads its own content.

USE CASE 3

Add access control to your app so unauthenticated users are redirected away from protected pages like /admin or /profile.

Tech stack

JavaScriptVue 2HTML5 History API

Getting it running

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 5min
Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

vue-router is the official routing library for Vue 2, the JavaScript framework for building web interfaces. Routing, in web development terms, means handling navigation, deciding which page or component to display when a user clicks a link or types a URL. Without a router, a web app would only show one screen and couldn't navigate between sections without doing a full page reload. vue-router enables Single Page Applications (SPAs), where the browser loads the app once and then swaps out content dynamically as the user navigates, giving a fast, app-like experience. It supports nested routes (a page within a page, like a settings panel with sub-tabs), route parameters (dynamic segments in URLs like /user/123), and query strings. It also provides animated transitions between views using Vue's built-in transition system, and navigation guards for controlling access (like blocking unauthenticated users from certain pages). You would use this whenever you're building a Vue 2 web application that has multiple distinct screens or sections that users can navigate between. It handles both HTML5 history mode (clean URLs like /about) and hash mode (URLs like /#/about) with automatic fallback for older browsers. It's written in JavaScript and is maintained by the Vue.js team.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Show me how to set up vue-router in a Vue 2 app and create basic routes for Home, About, and Contact pages.
Prompt 2
How do I create dynamic routes in vue-router, like /user/:id, and access the user ID in my component?
Prompt 3
How do I add a navigation guard in vue-router to check if a user is logged in before letting them access a protected route?
Prompt 4
Show me how to use nested routes in vue-router to build a settings page with sub-tabs like Profile, Security, and Notifications.
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Generated 2026-05-18 · Model: sonnet-4-6 · Verify against the repo before relying on details.