What Reactor is
A plugin runtime in two languages that implement the same architecture, so that a host which lists, describes, groups or draws plugins never has to ask which side of the wire a plugin came from.
Three pages, and they are worth reading in order: what this targets that a callback does not, the constructs the model is built from, and the one distinction the whole thing rests on.
Why Reactor
Reactor targets a full plugin platform, not only hook callbacks:
Architecture
Constructs
Slots or Contribution Points?
Both let a plugin add something. They answer different questions, and choosing