Angular vs. React – Which One to Choose?

When it comes to choosing a suitable JavaScript solution for application development, front-end developers have a variety of possibilities. Both Angular and React are solid and adaptable frameworks. Check out our comparison.

What is Angular?

AngularJS was first introduced in 2009, which is more than a decade ago. Angular was developed by Google and built on JavaScript. Currently, the primary language of Angular is TypeScript. Angular is an open-source, client-side, full-fledged web framework designed to assist developers in creating web applications, single-page web applications, and hybrid applications.

Angular supports libraries and therefore helps in extending the HTML vocabularies. Routing, forms management, client-server communication, and other aspects are covered by this suite of well-integrated libraries.

Some of the projects built with Angular include Google, Nike, Xbox, Forbes, BMW, and PayPal.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of Angular?

Benefits of Angular

• it is easier for developers to create a customized Document Model Object (DOM) with Angular,
• Angular libraries help create robust template solutions,
• Angular has a built-in dependency injection subsystem,
• build-in routing and eye-catching, easy to use Material Design components,
• allows adding HTML elements with reusable components using directives.

Disadvantages of Angular

• developers may have difficulties with performance as it operates on real DOM,
• with lots of interactive features, Angular can be slow with the pages,
• learning Angular can be challenging and more complex to understand; also, it takes some time to learn TypeScript,
• the developers are having difficulty integrating third-party libraries,
• debugging might be challenging at times,
• when upgrading from an older version to a newer version, there may be some difficulties as you need to install updates one by one.

What is React?

In 2013, Facebook, the social media leader, created React (also known as React.js or ReactJS). It is a front-end Javascript library for building UI. React allows developers to have complete control over the look and feel of the app and how users will interact with it. React may be used to create web apps, native-rendered apps, and even mobile applications (with React Native).

The goal of creating React was to give a better and faster performance and make application development more manageable and more scalable. React includes two fundamental JavaScript features: virtual DOM and JSX, in addition to reusable library code.

When talking about MVC, React is focused on the View layer, and for Model And Controller, it is required to use other libraries such as Redux or ReactRouter.

Some of the projects built with React include Facebook, Instagram, Netflix, Airbnb, Dropbox, Whatsapp, and Uber.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of React?

Benefits of React

• React allows to reuse the code and has a straightforward debugging procedure,
• the components are simple to import, and the architecture is entirely dependent on them,
• React allows migrating between versions quickly,
• with one-way binding and virtual DOM, it is very fast when updating interface elements,
• with server-side rendering, React will enable developers to create isomorphic-style applications (for example, with Express webserver),
• React Native works well on both iOS and Android devices.

Disadvantages of React

• with no predefined project structure, it’s hard to set up a project for beginners,
• with loosely coupled structure there are many ways how to build an application,
• users of React should have a good understanding of how to combine a UI with the MVC pattern,
• JSX (JavaScript XML) syntax might be hard to learn for some developers,
• as a consequence of rapid development, documentation and online resources get outdated and might not be covering the latest updates.

The differences between React and Angular

The main differences between Angular and React are purpose, type, data binding, language preference, UI components, dependency injection, and Document Object Model (DOM).

Angular vs. React: purpose

• Angular gives a strong view of how your application should be developed and a variety of small libraries to help create complicated applications.

• In React, the library focuses exclusively on UI components. Instead of MVC architecture, you should use Redux, but it gives flexibility in structuring your code and what libraries to use.

Angular vs. React: type

• Angular is a full-fledged framework for software development.

• React: is a library for building user interfaces or UI components. Many frameworks are based on React, including Next.js, Gatsby, and Readwood.js, which are full-scale dynamic and static React apps.

Angular vs. React: data binding

• Angular supports one-way data binding and two-way data binding. The latter means that the model state changes automatically when the UI component changes, and also, the UI gets updated as the mode changes.

• One-way data-binding means that a UI element cannot change the state of a component. React has to be combined with a state container like Redux, which allows it to deal with immutable data and makes data flow unidirectional. The debugging process is made more accessible by the predictability of unidirectional binding.

Angular vs. React: language preference

• Angular applications are usually written in TypeScript.

• React components are typically written in JSX. Currently, it is also possible to write React apps in Typescript.

Angular vs. React: UI components

• Angular comes with a set of material design components that make the UI setup simple.

• The React community builds its own UI tools; therefore, the React library has many free and commercial components.

Angular vs. React: dependency injection

• Angular supports dependency injection, allowing various stores to have their life cycles.

• React does not support typical dependency injection, but there are ways to cope with this (e.g. through props or React Context).

Angular vs. React: Document Object Model

• Angular works on real DOM and uses Incremental DOM. Created DOM is compared to the previous one, and the differences are added to the new one.

• React uses Virtual DOM, which helps track and update the alterations without affecting the other sections.

Which to choose: Angular or React?

The most popular front-end technologies used by developers are React and Angular. They both have their advantages but React has shown to be more effective than Angular thus far. It is more widely used, stays very popular, and continues to expand. Furthermore, React has a sizable developer community behind it.

Because React runs virtual DOM and delivers optimizations, it seems to be a better choice than Angular. It’s also simple to switch between React versions. Unlike Angular, you don’t have to install updates one by one. Finally, React provides various options for developers, allowing them to cut development time and errors.

Choosing the proper framework depends mostly on project requirements and needs. At fireup.pro, we prefer to use React over Angular. We believe that React is a better choice for web app development due to isolated debugging and component-driven architecture. React helps to achieve a stable app and lets us reuse components; therefore, in our opinion saves time and money.

Are you interested in web application development? Contact us and describe your idea!