As the blog title shows, here we’re discussing on Angular vs React. This blog will help you choose the best web platform for your web development.
For front-end development, Angular and React are hugely popular technologies. Businesses frequently struggle to decide between the two for their projects because each has its own unique set of wonderful features.
For the application to provide the performance and efficiency we require from it, we must make a well-informed decision based on the differences between Angular and React. This blog will help you analyze which of these two technologies is good for web application development.
Angular
Angular is a front-end JavaScript framework commonly used for web application development. It is an open-source framework that is developed and managed by Google’s Angular team.
Angular was launched in September 2016 and is a totally revamped version of AngularJS. Currently, the industry uses the term “Angular” or “Angular 2+” for all the versions of Angular(Angular 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12). The latest version of Angular is Angular 12 which was released in May 2021.
Some of the top advantages of Angular 12 that are going to be relevant in the Angular vs React discussion are highly efficient in eliminating errors. It enables a smooth migration to various legacy localization IDs and reduced errors during ICU expressions etc.
React
React is also a popular front-end JavaScript library for web application development. It was developed by Facebook in 2013 and has been managed by them. Some of the top advantages of React that are going to be relevant in the Angular vs React discussion are highly composable and declarative, SEO-friendly, and simple to implement and update, to name a few.
React vs Angular: Which is better for web development?
Both Angular and React have their own features that help in web application development more easily. Some of the points to consider for comparison are:
Directives
In the case of directives, Angular has one advantage. It enables us to design our own directives that fit the data into various templates that we desire. Particularly it is great for binding DOM elements. The way these directives are defined in the program has a significant issue. Most of the time each and every object in a directive has up to 10 properties. The Angular framework’s syntax is too complex to understand.
So only developers with some level of Angular experience can fully comprehend the syntax of Angular directives. But when it comes to directives, React does not distinguish between logic and templates.
Backward compatibility
We should select a framework or library that is backward compatible because user experience and software development trends are constantly evolving. Compared to Angular, developing apps using React is significantly simpler because the library supports all of the built-in features.
App and component structure
Angular implements an MVC (Model-View-Controller) architectural pattern. The “Controller” initializes the object that affects the “Model” and the “View” will display the output. This structure is fixed and stable.
The components in Angular are distinctively and cohesively organized. As a result, code in Angular is reusable and maintainable. Contrary to Angular, the structure of React applications is very customizable. It depends on the external libraries we use to build the web application.
Thus, we only get the View layer at the beginning of the project. The rest two (Model and Controller) layers can be known as we add newer libraries to the code. In that sense, the application structure of Angular apps is complex but consistent. On the other hand, the architecture of React applications is dynamic but easy to work with.
Scalability
Angular is a full-fledged front-end framework while React is a library that often needs some help from external libraries for front-end development. Thus, when it comes to scalability, Angular is the best choice with its advanced set of tools and a super-efficient CLI.
However, if we want React to make it work for scalable apps, it is also possible. Server-side rendering in React is very successful in developing scalable and maintainable enterprise applications like Facebook and Instagram.
Flexibility
Flexibility for front-end development is one of the notable differences between Angular and React. Angular developers do not have much choice in developing the UI of web apps. We have to use only the built-in tools of Angular. React provides us with several advantages if we can easily integrate it with third-party libraries. So, React is more flexible compared to Angular.
Development speed and Productivity
Most application development projects are time-sensitive because of the fierce competition. When selecting the technology stack for developing web applications, the speed of development is crucial. The development process of React is a little complex due to its reliance on outside technologies.
To achieve good performance, we must run a number of permutations involving external tools and the required application architecture. In addition to that, any developers who join later must be familiar with the libraries utilized.
When compared to React, Angular offers a significantly faster and more productive development process. Angular is a superior option for web application projects because of the following reasons:
- Effective CLI for automated configuration and setup
- Integral tools, which provide uniformity across all projects
- TypeScript that facilitates real-time debugging
DOM and performance
DOM or Document Object Model is a programming interface that is language-neutral. It enables all the scripts or programming languages to edit the content, style, and structure of the application document.
The major contributing factor to React’s popularity is that it uses virtual DOM. Virtual DOM in React is not browser-specific and also it is lightweight.
Angular on the other hand works with real DOM.
The problem with real DOM is that every small change requires restructuring of the entire DOM tree which becomes very time-consuming most of the time. In the case of virtual DOM, re-rendering the entire application has to happen very rarely.
So, React is a good choice for front-end applications that need regular content updates. With Angular, the integration of real DOM in the framework affects its performance if our app needs frequent updates.
Angular or React, Which one is better?
From the above points, we can understand the major differences between Angular and React. Additionally, we got the idea that there is no one solution that fits all the needs. Thus, choose the right framework depending on the project requirements and the skill set of developers.
When to use React for application development
We should choose React for the application when:
- Huge customization requirement in the application
- The application needs frequent content updates
- Developing a lightweight application
- Porting our web application into a really good mobile application with minimum effort
When to use Angular for application development
Angular is commonly used for:
- Time to market is short and we want to build a consistent application in a shorter duration
- We want predictability in version releases to ensure the stability of our application
- Large-scale applications with complex structures
Both React and Angular are very good for developing Single Page Applications (SPA). We can make the decision based on whether we need a library or a full-fledged framework for our SPA.
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