Angular vs React: Which Should You Choose for Front-End?

Angular and React are two technologies that many front-end programmers are interested in and choose as their career orientation. Although they are both JavaScript frameworks/libraries, the way of developing and building applications between these two platforms is very different. Therefore, choosing a direction from the beginning is important for programmers. 

In this blog, we will learn about these two technologies to help you answer the question of what are the differences between Angular vs React, which is better for front-end development.

Overview of the two platforms - Angular and React

ReactJS is an open-source JavaScript library introduced by Facebook in 2013 for building and developing user interfaces. Angular is a JS framework written in TypeScript that Google released/upgraded in 2016 (distinguished from the AngularJS version released in 2009). Angular is part of the MEAN stack (software stack written in JS) with the function of creating Web applications.

Angular is a full-fledged Web framework, while React is just a library, because it always needs to be used with a few other JS libraries to provide a complete architecture for React-based products, such as Flux, MobX, or Redux. Both Angular and React use a module architecture to develop functions such as routing or dependencies in a single-page application.

With the support and development of two giants Facebook and Google, the features, support communities, and performance of both Angular and React are good enough for today's Web applications. 

What are the differences between Angular and React?

Both Angular and React have their strengths and weaknesses, they differ significantly in their approach to development.

Angular vs React: Popularity

According to Google Trends, React has more searches than Angular. However, people show more interest in Angular due to the availability of many ready-made solutions. Don't forget both technologies are growing which means that both are popular in the market.

The difference: Architecture

Angular and React have a component-based architecture which means they have cohesive, reusable, and modular components. But, the difference comes from the technology.

React uses JavaScript while Angular comes with Typescript which makes web development more compact and bug-free.

Angular vs React: Learning curve

Google Angular IO framework provides multiple ways to solve a particular problem, has a complex component management system. It also requires familiarity with different concepts and languages, ​​like templates, pipes, dependency injection, RxJS, TypeScript, etc.

Besides, the framework is constantly evolving - making it necessary for developers to look at what is new in the Angular ecosystem and upgrade their skills accordingly.

However, the same is not true for the React JS framework. Reactjs allows you to easily learn and create an application in the React ecosystem if you are good at JavaScript.

ReactJS offers a wealth of useful resources for beginners.

The difference: Development Speed ​​and Productivity

Angular offers an enhanced development experience - thanks to the CLI it allows one to create workspaces and design working applications quickly.

But, when it comes to React, the development speed and productivity are affected due to the involvement of third-party libraries. React JS app developers have to determine the appropriate architecture along with the tools.

Besides, the toolkit for React mobile apps varies from project to project, implying more time and effort invested if the project is handed over to new developers to update the application.

This indicates that Angular is superior to React in terms of development speed and productivity.

Angular vs React: Flexibility and freedom

Another factor that contributes to the choice of React vs Angular is flexibility. React framework gives you the freedom to choose the tools, libraries, and architecture to develop an application.

It permits you to build a highly customized application using only the features and technology stack that you require, provided that you have hired a skilled ReactJS development team.

Angular, on the other hand, offers a limited amount of freedom and flexibility. For example, the latest version of Angular IO, allows you to use only Angular components inside other frameworks and embed code in an HTML-based application.

This indicates that React offers better flexibility and freedom than Angular.

The difference: Programming language

Angular uses TypeScript as its programming language, along with requiring programmers to follow binding conventions and MVC architecture. Because of this, it is more difficult to start learning with Angular, it takes more time to get used to it, and you may feel uncomfortable using it. 

However, thanks to the application-building architecture as well as the use of TypeScript (a superset of strict JavaScript syntax), applications written in Angular are highly appreciated for their ability to maintain, expand, and upgrade source code in the future.

React has the opposite approach when using JSX - a special syntax that mixes HTML and JavaScript code, making it easier to approach, learn, and write code in React. JS is known as a fairly comfortable programming language, so React coding is also easy to customize according to the architecture and model that the project chooses. 

The downside of this is that without a clear architecture from the beginning, the project can be very difficult to control and expand in the long term.

Angular vs React: Data Binding

Data binding is a technique for linking UI components in the layout with data sources in the application, which is a factor that affects the determination of the appropriate development framework. 

React uses one-way data binding in which UI components can only be changed after changing the state model. Meanwhile, with Angular, two-way binding is supported to ensure that the state model changes automatically when any changes are made to the UI components and vice versa.

Although Angular's support for two-way data binding provides a more flexible approach, it also leads to difficulty in controlling data when the application expands. React's approach is still considered reasonable by the developer community and provides a better overview of the data.

The difference: Testing

It is possible to test and debug Angular IO for a complete project with a single tool like Jasmine, Protractor, and Karma. But, this is not possible in the case of React js application development. A set of tools is required to perform different test suites.

For example, you will require Jest for testing JavaScript code, Enzyme and Unexpected-React for component testing, Skin-deep for Render test utils, React-unit for unit testing, etc. 

So, the winner in this Angular vs React battle is Angular.

Angular vs React: Development speed

Angular provides us with a complete workspace, which promotes the project development speed to be faster and clearer. Having to follow built-in processes can limit the flexibility and freedom in Angular, but it is also an advantage of this platform compared to React. React is flexible and free but depends a lot on the participation of third-party libraries. This makes React programmers need to get familiar with and determine the architecture suitable for the tool used.

The difference: DOM (Document Object Model)

Angular uses real DOM in which the entire tree data structure is updated even when only a part of it changes. React creates a concept called Virtual DOM that helps track and update changes on nodes without affecting other components of the tree. In this regard, React is said to be better, faster, and more performant than Angular. 

However, with recent updates, Angular has added new features like Ivy, Shadow API to compete with React. So, in terms of processing performance, it can be seen that there is a similar competition between these two platforms.

Angular vs React: Easy to update

Angular has an improved CLI that contains commands like ng_update, which makes it easy to upgrade the application to the latest Angular version. It makes Angular application development more difficult, given that most of the update process is automated.

Similarly, React also provides a facility to make a seamless transition between the two versions. However, the front-end development library relies heavily on external libraries, which allow for updating and migrating third-party components. Additionally, developers have to constantly check whether the third-party libraries used are compatible with the latest versions of the JavaScript framework, which adds to the effort of the developer. 

The difference: Community Support

React has a wider community support than Angular on GitHub. But, when it comes to the StackOverflow 2018 Developer Survey, the number of developers working with Angular is somewhat higher than those working with React.

So, both front-end development frameworks have similar community support.

Angular vs React: Documentation

The documentation in the Angular framework is slower due to the ongoing development. Besides, most of the documentation and tutorials for AngularJS, are outdated and useless for developers.

But this is not the case with Reactjs development. The React framework is also being updated regularly, but the insights from previous versions are still valuable.

Should you choose to learn Angular or React?

In terms of popularity, React shows are much more superior than Angular. Angular is favored by the programming community because it provides complete solutions. Both of these platforms are developing, have a large support community, and have always been at the top of the Frontend framework selection in recent years. 

Therefore, the answer to the question of whether to choose to learn Angular or React depends on your career development orientation. The recruitment demand for these two platforms is large. Choose React to learn if:

• You already have good professional skills in HTML, CSS, and especially JavaScript

• You like a platform with a high level of customization

• You need to learn quickly, work immediately, be easy to learn, easy to understand, and easy to apply

And you can choose Angular if:

• You want to learn and work with a complete platform, clear and strict processes, and architecture

• Having a relative understanding of MVC architecture will be an advantage if you have previous knowledge of languages ​​such as Java or C#.

• Want to improve programming performance, understand source code and application architecture.

What is the future for React and Angular?

The one-line answer is that neither of the two frameworks will be out of the picture next year or even in the near future. React has introduced major changes that allow React developers to easily provide feedback on new features, improved JavaScript syntax, and experimental APIs.

On the other hand, while Angular has seen a growth in usage - it will increase significantly when Angular 8 releases its beta version.

Some courses that may be useful to you:

Modern React JS Hooks and Context with Most Recent Edition

In this course, we will take you through everything you need to know to master web development using ReactJS by providing powerful knowledge through a mixture of diagrams and the creation of a simple application.

Each aspect of creating websites and applications entails a unique set of skills. Udemy offers a host of courses to bring you up to speed on modern front-end, back-end, and full stack web development practices and skills.

Angular Testing: Unit Testing Angular and E2E Testing

This course is great preparation for any Angular testing that you may have coming up. Quality code testing needs a lot amount of knowledge, but the best way to prepare for it is a lot of practice! In this course you will everything that come from real Angular projects about testing. There are no excersises that nobody asks here. In every video you will learn something useful that you will write every day. We will take a deep dive into the skills, concepts, and techniques that are required to solve each problem.

Foundation Level Exam Preparation for Software Testing

Whether you're a beginner in software testing or an experienced professional seeking certification, this course provides the knowledge, skills, and practice you need to succeed in the ISTQB® Foundation Level exam and beyond. Enroll now and embark on your journey to becoming a certified software testing professional!

Conclusion

With the analysis of the differences between Angular vs React in the article, I hope you have partly answered the question of which is better to learn. Any choice will be correct if you understand that platform well and dig deep into the learning process to master the technology.

Don’t forget you can register for Skilltrans technology courses to understand more about these two platforms.