In the space of software development, there is a reasonable amount of debate going on since long time; whether AngularJS or ReactJS is a better choice for front-end development.

According to the recent stateofjs.com framework comparison React is used on a daily basis by 65%, while 19% plan to learn it. While 24% use Angular and 34% are determined to learn it. ReactJS and AngularJS are powerful software development technologies.

They are built on Javascript that leads to progress and customization to develop advanced web applications.

Only React and Angular are able to find a place in the list of Top 15 JS Frameworks for 2019

Let us look into the basics of React and Angular:-

React and Angular: A Brief Overview

FactorReactAngularRelease date20132016Support fromFacebookGoogleProgramming LanguageJavascriptTypescriptLatest Stable VersionReact 16.7.0Angular 7.2.0Learning CurveModerateSteepArchitectureComponent BasedComponent BasedApp SizeRelatively SmallRelatively SmallDOMVirtual DOMReal DOMRenderingClient/Server SideClient/Server SideTemplateJSX+JS (ES5 and Beyond)HTML+TypescriptData BindingUnidirectionalBidirectionalAbstractionMediumStrong

Some major apps created on ReactJS and Angular

Advantages of ReactJS

Great User Experience

React uses Virtual DOM unlike other JavaScript frameworks, — the hypothetical form of Real DOM. With all this the React app developers can easily update changes performed by the users in the application without altering the other parts of the interface.

This results in creating a highly dynamic UI with the magnificent user experience.

Time-Saving

In the case of ReactJS, the app development companies can again use the code components at definite levels whenever they want. Moreover, the components are remote to each other and changes in one does not affect the other, which makes it easier to manage the updates.

Due to this the React app development becomes simple, time-saving, logical and systematic for developers.

Fast Development

React developers can reuse the existing code and apply hot reloading into the process. The result: app performance is improved and development speed is increased.

Faster Testing

React uses Redux which cut down the difficulty of storing and managing component states in huge and complex applications with vast dynamic elements.

It also helps the developers to add application state in a single object and empower every component of the app to access the application state without involving child components or using callback. This makes it simple to test the application and log data changes, along with the use of hot reloading and other such tools.

Code Stability with One-directional data binding

Developers work directly with the components and employ downward data binding to guarantee that the parent entities do not get affected by the changes of child entities. This results in making code stable which supports the idea of development in the future.

Advantages of Angular

Cleaner Code

Angular uses TypeScript programming language, which is a superset of JavaScript. It arranges JavaScript, while typing the code it makes the process easy of searching and removing the common errors.

This helps the developers in writing cleaner and error-free codes with high code quality.

Higher Performance

In Angular, classes are not dependent on each other like ReactJS. Angular has a hierarchical dependency injection unlike AngularJS. Instead they turn towards the external sources, which lends enhanced performance to the Angular mobile applications.

Smooth material design-like Interface

Angular provides already built material design components over navigation elements, form controls, layouts, pop ups and data tables. This helps the mobile app developers to overcome the Google Material Design’s impact on Mobile app design and design a digital product that users need in the long run.

Better Error Handling

The latest version of Angular, i.e. Angular 7 offers features like an upgraded error handling process for @Output in the scenarios where a property is not initialized.

Some of the factors to consider while choosing the framework

Popularity:

According to Google Trends, React has more searches than Angular and is quite popular among developers.

Architecture:

Angular and React have component-based architecture, which means they have cohesive, modular and reusable components. However, when it comes to technology stack, a significant difference pops-up.

React goes JavaScript while Angular uses Typescript which is more tight and free of errors.

Development Speed and Productivity:

Angular has better development experience — thanks to its CLI that empowers creating a workspace and design functioning applications swiftly and producing components and services with one-line commands, built-in process to solve comprehensive problems and clean coding feature of TypeScript.

While in React, the development speed and productivity gets affected due to the involvement of third-party libraries. The ReactJS developers have to decide the precise architecture along with the machine tools.

In terms speed and productivity Angular is better than React..

Flexibility and Freedom:

React is flexible and provides with lots of freedom to choose whichever the tools, libraries, and architecture for developing an app.

While Angular offers a limited amount of freedom and flexibility
React provides better flexibility and freedom in comparison to Angular.

DOM:

Angular uses Real DOM while Virtual DOM is engaged in ReactJS.
Virtual DOM is considered faster than real DOM, therefore React wins over Angular in this context.

Data binding:

React uses one-way data binding in which the UI elements can be altered only after changing the model state.

While, Angular uses the two-way binding approach. This approach, ensures that model state changes automatically when any change in the UI element is made, and vice-versa.

Angular’s approach seems easier and effective, React’s way offers a better and more streamlined data overview in the case of larger app project. Thus, React wins over Angular.

User Experience and App performance

React uses Virtual DOM and Fiber to develop applications that make it lead to AngularJS. Nevertheless, the newer versions of AngularJS, like Angular 7 has come up with features and elements like ShadowAPI that has made the competition more powerful, both gets one one point in terms of user experience and app performance

Mobile Solutions

Angular offers Ionic framework for mobile app development, which comes with an engaging UI component library. So, the built application, when viewed on any device, appears like a web inside a native web app container.

In case of React it offers a truly native UI experience that enables you to make your own components and bind them to native code written in Java, Kotlin, Objective-C, and Kotlin.

So, React wins this battle here.

Ease of Update:

With Angular, you can easily upgrade the app to the latest Angular version. This makes Angular app development simple, because most of the updating process is automated. However, React makes sure that there is smooth transitions between two versions. But here, the front-end development library relies heavily on the external libraries which make it possible to update and migrate the third-party components.
This shows that both frameworks are working towards making transitions from version to version seamless, Angular beats React in ease of update.

What lies in the future for React and Angular?

First of all, none of the two frameworks will go out of the picture by at least by the year 2025. React has come up with lots of major changes enabling the React developers to provide feedback on new features, JavaScript syntax improvements, and experimental APIs.

While Angular has already been watching a growth in the usage rate — which will increase particularly when Angular 8 comes out of beta version.

Conclusion

The most suitable framework to develop your app comes down to your app requirements, complexity, involvement and the experience of the hired app development company. Both these technologies are the best in their own way. We recommend opt for ReactJS if your content is dynamic content that needs constant updates in your app project. Similarly, opt for Angular, if you are in the inception phase of development and looking for a robust and well-maintained framework regardless of project size.

This article is contributed by Sonal Mehta, Content Lead at SoluLab, a leading Enterprise Blockchain, Enterprise Mobile Apps and Web development company.

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