I chose to use Vue.js a few years ago mainly for the easy learning curve. I have no experience with React, so I won't make any comparison here. Regarding available components, I never felt locked in because of Vue when looking for components. It happens that a component I wish to use is not available as a Vue component (and nobody published any Vue wrapper for it), but in such cases I was able to quickly hack a Vue wrapper component. In the end I don't think a decision to choose one framework over another should be made solely because of the number of components available. (And not all components in either framework is maintained, bug free, documented or easy to use)
That's good feedback to share with my friend as well. I appreciate it.
Thomas, How did you learn to hack a Vue wrapper component from an existing react component that's not in Vue? Do you expect new versions of Vue to break the components you have hacked / ported over to Vue?