Who Gets The Final Say For FrontEnd App Development, Angular or React?

Web technologies continue to evolve with more sophistication, ease of use, flexibility and feature set. Mobility is one of the key driving forces behind the emergence of new technologies and design principles for web development. Two technologies in recent times gained a lot of attention from

Angular as a framework has gone from strength to strength and has passed through several updates aka value additions. Not on a similar note, but React also continued to get more fine-tuned as it received overwhelming popularity since the early days of launch. Both of these two technologies made the life of developers much simpler by allowing reusing, refactoring and maintaining of the code through a component-based or modular architecture. Apart from these similarities, they have a lot of differences as well.

Considering both of these similarities and differences, here we are going to provide a detailed comparison between Angular and React and their respective core programming languages.

The Basics

Let’s start with the basics. Angular has been created by Google from AngularJS by introducing the Typescript as the core language instead of the JavaScript of AngularJS. Way back when the learning curve of JavaScript was perceived as very high by most developers, this was a welcome move to fast-paced learning and development. Most of the companies offering

On the other hand, React came as a refreshing change in the world of frontend application development thanks to its unique reliance on virtual DOM to incorporate, update and scale changes in the apps quicker than ever before. React introduced by Facebook quickly took over the web and mobile app development and at present, around 50% of web apps are built with React.

Is the comparison really debatable?

Angular as a framework has gone from strength to strength and has passed through several updates aka value additions. Not on a similar note, but React also continued to get more fine-tuned as it received overwhelming popularity since the early days of launch.

React library is also a JavaScript library but it can be utilized by using JSX language as well. Typescript is a more refined language derived from JavaScript while JSX is also JavaScript but it comes equipped with the extension of XML syntax.

According to many developers, the comparison between Angular and React is itself questionable and akin to the comparison of Mangoes with Oranges. There is a dint of truth in this. Actually, Angular is a framework and React is a library and so the comparison doesn’t leave us too many scopes to differentiate.

When using a library, the learning curve is not too much and moreover, you can blend the same library with another one. But while framework, you need to learn the hard way of adhering to the standards in many aspects. While Angular offers you complete architecture with modelling, viewing and controls, React only provides ‘View’ portion and for managing states and data storage you may use Redux or Flux. So, with React you have more freedom and ease while the learning curve is lower.

Let us now explain the key differences of these two technologies.

• Data Binding

While data binding is common to both of them, Angular only facilitates two-way data binding, in contrast, to React which sticks to one-way data binding. With the Angular, any change made with the mode or view affect one another. With the React, the changes in the model only can affect the view but then it doesn’t happen the other way.

• DOM

Another key difference is how the DOM or the Data Object Model of the respective web app is used. There are basically two provisions of using a normal DOM of the browser or the virtual DOM.

Angular relies on the DOM of the browser and React depends on the virtual DOM. In this respect, React enjoys a more advantageous position as thanks to the virtual DOM any change can be incorporated in real time without rendering the entire browser DOM. Basically, Virtual DOM works as a processing layer to incorporate changes quickly into the browser DOM. With Angular, any change needs to be rendered through the entire browser DOM, making the development process much slower.

• Language

Though both are essentially JavaScript based technologies, their core languages now have important differences. Angular is originally AngularJS which is a JavaScript framework but has been further developed to make use of more user-friendly TypeScript.

React library is also a JavaScript library but it can be utilized by using JSX language as well. Typescript is a more refined language derived from JavaScript while JSX is also JavaScript but it comes equipped with the extension of XML syntax.

• Dependency Injection

In data binding environment often dependency injection is seen as less relevant but its role in decoupling the code for mock-ups and tests make it unavoidable. Angular by supporting dependency injection helps to create life cycles as per the web stores. Though React doesn’t support this feature, disparaging components through a common app state are very much possible with the library.

• Simple and easy to learn code

When it comes to simplicity, React stands out with very easy to understand code structure. But setting up a project in React may take a lot of time. In complete contrast, Angular is a complex framework and requires some time for the developer to get used to it. The complexity gets further aggravated by a lot of third-party libraries and their respective syntax.

React vs Angular: which type of apps suit them?

Based on the above-mentioned attributes, each technology is suitable for some types of apps. Apps with demands for faster rendering and dynamic quality will find React more appropriate while complex and multi-layered apps with demands for enterprise-grade stability may find Angular more appropriate.

React:

Building dynamic apps: When it comes to building dynamic applications, React thanks to its quick-rendering virtual DOM comes as more well-equipped than Angular. The partial and quick rendering capability of the React boosts the performance of the application tremendously. When with React you can just incorporate the small change of a single element without rendering all the elements again, Angular just requires rendering the elements of the entire app on the browser DOM.

Single Page apps: Just because React works great for loading a page faster while incorporating changes, its ideal for single page apps.

Native Mobile apps: React because of its quick-rendering capability and flexibility to work with other libraries for additional features, is often preferred for building native mobile apps.

Angular:

Cross Platform apps: Angular with its modular architecture can really be appropriate for building feature-rich cross-platform mobile apps.

Enterprise apps: Just because Angular boasts of MVC architecture, it takes care of the entire path of building a complex and multi-layered app from within. This typically fits enterprise apps

Progressive Web apps: Progressive apps are a solution to meet the demands of loading speed for complex web apps. These days many developers are in favor of using a combination of Angular 2 and Ionic 2 framework for progressive and hybrid apps.

Sadly, there is not a straightforward formula to choose one technology over the other. These days, because of simplicity and performance React enjoys an edge over most other frameworks and libraries. But even then, you will find development projects where Angular looks more befitting than the rest.