Vue.js is a progressive JavaScript framework for building user interfaces. It uses declarative templates and components to render the view layer. The core library focuses only on the view layer and is lightweight, approachable for beginners knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and versatile enough to build complex applications. It works by compiling templates into virtual DOM render functions for efficient updates. Key features include conditional rendering, list rendering, templates with interpolations and directives to bind data to the DOM, and components to build reusable code. Larger applications can use a central store to manage global state.