Angular vs AngularJS
Angular

Angular vs AngularJS: Everything You Need to Know

Angular

Angular is also a popular open-source Typescript framework created by Google for developing web applications. Front-end developers use frameworks like Angular or React for presenting and manipulating data very efficiently.

Updated Angular is more efficient compared to the older version of Angular, since the core functionality was moved to different modules. That’s why it becomes very faster and smooth compared to the older one.

It is modular, which means we can divide the whole application into small parts (called modules) that represent a particular functionality.

Angular makes it possible to develop high-performance web applications with ease while sticking with the MVC architecture and offer two-way data binding.

AngularJS

AngularJS is an open-source JavaScript framework, which is useful for front-end web development. It is developed by Google and the intent of AngularJS is to facilitate the development of single-page applications. [Instead of allowing the web server to load entire new pages, SPAs (single-page applications) make interaction with the user by dynamically rewriting the data by fetching the same from the web server].

This framework is widely known for creating dynamic websites and web applications. Its support for writing code in the MVC(Model-View-Controller) architecture makes it possible for developers to add dynamic behavior in web applications. Its architecture also comes in handy for easy management of the source code and enables fast development.

Difference between the AngularJS & Angular

There are mainly 19 differences between Angular and AngularJS. They are:

Components

Angular JS which is based on JavaScript which uses terms of scope and controllers while Angular uses a hierarchy of components. Angular is component-based while AngularJS mainly uses directives.

Use of directives

While both Angular and AngularJS make use of Directives, how they use them makes the difference. Angular has standard Directives whereas AngularJS has a pack of them. Thus, we have to be cautious while using the Directives.

For instance, when we want to create a two-way binding in AngularJS, we have to use the “ng-model”. For one-way binding, we will use “ng-bind”.

In Angular, we will find only the model. We can use the symbols for one-way binding as:” [],” and two-way binding as:” [()].” “[]” is for property binding and “()” is for event binding.

Architecture

AngularJS 

AngularJS provides support for MVC and MVVM architectures. MVC stands for Model-View-Controller. MVVM stands for Model-View-ViewModel.

The Model contains the business logic for storing and processing data while the View displays the data to users.

Also, Controller is responsible for binding Model and View to allow users to interact with the application seamlessly. ViewModel is a value converter, i.e. it converts data objects from models to make them easy to present and manage.

Angular

Its architecture is mainly based on Components. Angular Components are a blend of templates and directives. All the applications make use of one or more Angular Components.

 Mobile Support

Applications that are developed using AngularJS are not mobile-friendly.

One of the good characteristics of Angular applications is that they are mobile-friendly i.e Angular applications are fully optimized for mobile browsers.

Performance and Speed

AngularJS comes with two-way binding that facilitates the creation of dynamic web pages. So AngularJS applications offer impressive performance. However, overall performance of AngularJS applications is not what is expected from modern applications.

Angular applications offer high performance and one of the key factors for this is its data binding feature. Data binding allows updating of page content in real-time and also without the need to write a lot of code.

Tool support

Angular JS framework depends on third-party tools such as WebStorm and IDE. However, angular uses Command Line Interface (CLI) to reduce time when creating applications.

Written language

AngularJS was written in Javascript, but angular was written in Typescript language which is a superset of ECMAScript6(ES6)

Expression Syntax

In AngularJS, “ng-bind” is used for binding data from view to model and vice versa. 

In Angular, properties enclosed in (,) and [] are used for binding data between the view and the model.

Dependency Injection

AngularJS doesn’t use dependency injection. It makes use of directives.

However, angular makes use of hierarchical dependency injection to enhance application’s performance.

Supported Languages

AngularJS supports only Javascript. However, angular provides support for JavaScript and TypeScript. It prefers using typescript due to the advantages such as Annotations and Static typing

Routing

AngularJS allows us to define all the routing information. We simply need to use “@routeProvider.when()” to define routing information in AngularJS.

Angular supports the routing between multiple views(templates). It makes use of a URL that imitates a directive to get the client’s view. To define the routing information in an Angular app, we need to use “@Route Config{(…)}”.

CLI

AngularJS doesn’t come with a CLI tool.

The angular framework comes with an AngularCLI tool that lets us create and manage components and other project files from the command line.

Structure

AngularJS is very less manageable while comparing with Angular.

Angular has a better structure compared to AngularJS, easier to create and maintain for larger applications.

Applications

Applications built using AngularJS are iStock, Netflix, and AngularJS official website.

Example applications built using Angular are Upwork, Gmail, and Wikiwand.

Ease of managing projects

In the case of AngularJS, there is no need to follow a particular structure. Thus, AngularJS projects are very difficult to manage, especially when the projects are large and complex.

Angular defines a proper structure that we need to follow while developing an application, Thus, projects created with Angular are easily manageable.

Testing

The testing of AngularJS code is possible using unit tests that we can write while developing the application. But AngularJS relies on third-party tools to build and test applications comprehensively.

Angular supports unit tests with “Karma”, which is the Javascript test runner. Also, the Angular CLI facilitates app-building process and thus, ensures easy testing.

SEO Support

When it comes to SEO, AngularJS does not offer any effective ways to make the applications SEO-friendly.

Angular offers required elements for making web applications easily crawlable for search engines.

Support for Angular Universal

“Angular Universal” support is unavailable in AngularJS.

Angular supports “Angular Universal”.

Difficulty level

It is very easy to learn and use AngularJS.

Learning Angular and using it for front-end development is quite a task as there are several rules that we need to follow. Building full-fledged  applications requires us to build strong expertise in the Angular framework.

Conclusion

Angular vs AngularJS is one of the common comparisons that many JavaScript developers look for. While both are powerful JavaScript frameworks by Google, they have certain differences that we need to know before choosing any one of them for developing a project.

To sum it up, we simply need to consider that Angular is the successor of AngularJS and provides better features and performance. Even Though AngularJS is updated constantly with new enhancements, it simply cannot catch up with the latest features offered by Angular. 

So, as a humble opinion, it’s better to choose Angular over AngularJS, especially if we want to build modern web applications with enhanced functionalities.

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