A commonly used programming framework for web development is React. Developed by Facebook, React allows developers to build user interfaces using a component-based architecture. This framework enables the creation of dynamic and responsive single-page applications, improving performance by efficiently updating and rendering only the necessary components. React's popularity stems from its flexibility, strong community support, and ecosystem of libraries, which simplify tasks like state management and routing. Other notable web development frameworks include Angular and Vue.js, each offering different approaches to building web applications.