Explain the difference between functional and class components.

Functional components are those components that returns React elements as a result. These are just simple old JavaScript functions. React 0.14 has given a new shortcut for creating simple stateless components that are known as functional components. These components make use of easy JavaScript functions.

Class components – most of the tech-savvy people are more familiar with class components as they have been around the corner for a longer time. These components make use of plain old javascript objects for creating pages, mixins, etc in an identical way. Using React’s create a class factory method, a literal is passed in defining the methods of a new component.