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15

Feb 2023

Angular vs React: Difference between Angular and React

Angular and React are two of the world’s most popular JavaScript frameworks used to design front-end interfaces for some of the world’s biggest mobile and web applications. Both frameworks have a robust community of ardent supporters which can make it hard to pick the right one for your project. This blog will help you declutter all the noise and distil the information you need to make the right choice for your web application. It’ll also show you how to hire React developers and Angular developers for your project with VLink’s support.

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5 minute

About The Author

Nitin Nijhawan, CDO

What is React?

Invented and maintained by Facebook, React is an open-source JavaScript library that allows users to design UIs for single-page applications using isolated components. Its inherent flexibility and utility make it ideal for mobile and web applications while simplifying complex applications by integrating with third-party libraries.

The cohesive modularity of React enables developers to create reusable, self-contained components that are easy to upgrade and maintain.

React.js powers popular platforms like Instagram, Airbnb, and Netflix.

What is Angular?

Angular, launched as AngularJS by Google in 2010, is reportedly one of the most popular front-end frameworks for dynamic web-based applications. A Typescript-based open-source framework, Angular helps developers build on HTML’s syntax to quickly represent application components, making it easy to build and scale applications from single-user to enterprise-grade.

The latest version of Angular, Angular 10, was released in 2020 with better stability and two-way data binding, creating flawless data harmony between the model and the view.

React vs Angular as a frontend framework

While both fares well as front-end frameworks, key differences between the two must be kept in mind.

For instance, Angular is a more complete framework offering tons of built-in tools and features to create more interactive and dynamic web pages. On the other hand, React is better known for its lightweight with fewer features but more flexibility to structure code.

Angular makes development easier with its bag of tools but also forces you to stick to coding conventions for the code to function as expected. React lets developers mold the code according to their specific requirements but offers little pre-built support.

Another difference to look out for is the licensing. Angular comes under the MIT license, and React belongs to the Facebook BSD + patents license.

Popularity growth: Angular vs React

Both frameworks are exceedingly popular amongst developers worldwide. While a popularity comparison can be hard to justify, absolute numbers do suggest that React has the upper hand due to its beginner-friendly learning curve. While as per Statista.com 42.62% of developers chose React, and 20.39% chose Angular as their preferred option. On StackOverflow, more questions are tagged for Angular than React. But this can be attributed to the complexities most developers face while using Angular.

When we get to GitHub, React has 175k stars on its repository, and Angular has 76.5k. This data may suggest a skewed bias towards React amongst active developers, but it’s important to remember that React was launched much before Angular 2.

Why should you choose Angular as your preferred framework?

The best part about working with Angular is that you have everything you need within the same ecosystem. This reduces the coding effort considerably and helps design faster and more intuitive applications. Several key features, such as templating, two-way binding, RESTful API modularization, Ajax handling, and dependency injection, come together to condense the application development process. Here are three of the top reasons why Angular development might be the right choice for you.

Google support – Google has promised long-term support for the Angular ecosystem.
Documentation – To lessen the learning curve, Angular provides extensive documentation and other guides to aid developers.
Lesser coding – TypeScript helps weed out errors earlier in the cycle. Additionally, cleaner code and modularization make it much easier to structure all the application functionalities.

Why should you choose React as your chosen framework?

The one thing that clearly separates React from every other framework is its lightweight. Instead of bogging the React library down with unnecessary elements, Facebook decided to keep it simple with an option to integrate third-party libraries when needed. Here’s why hiring React native app developers might be perfect for you.

Shorter learning curve – React is much easier to learn, requiring only HTML and JavaScript knowledge.
Reduced load times – The react library is SEO friendly with better rendering speeds. The higher loading speed makes it an attractive option for crawlers, users, and developers.
Facebook support – Individual Elite developers, ardent communities, and Facebook work hard to maintain and further develop this framework.

How much does it cost to hire React or Angular developers for your project?

To kickstart a project, you’ll need to hire talent and build a solid team of skilled individuals well-versed in React and Angular. But this is not always possible due to budgetary and logistical constraints. In that case, consider hiring dedicated developers to work on your project. Hiring React native developers will impact your bottom line, and it’s crucial to keep in mind the associated costs. The cost of hiring Reactjs developers varies with location and developer experience. While hiring dedicated developers from India or similar offshore locations can cost as little as $10, the same cost could escalate to $150 in the US. It’s best advised to partner with a reputed agency to help you augment your IT staff and hire dedicated developers within a stipulated budget.

What are the pros and cons of React?

The popularity of React means there’s a thriving community that actively helps each other out when stuck at bottlenecks. The React library is easy to integrate into existing codebases, making it the right choice for projects that already have a lot of work done. Declarative components and unidirectional data binding ensure that building interactive UI becomes faster. It is also easier to learn and get started with.

What are the pros and cons of Angular?

Angular is a complete framework ridding you of the extra effort required to piece together different libraries for a big project. Moreover, the TypeScript language introduces features like static typing, which makes it much easier to handle complex projects. Apart from this, modularization, componentization, two-way data binding, templating, and comprehensive documentation make Angular a good choice.

On the other hand, Angular is much harder to learn and requires seasoned developers to deliver good code. The two-way data binding makes it complicated when multiple views and variable data are involved.

An overview: Differences between Angular and React

Popularity

Currently, React ranks higher on the popularity chart due to its lower learning curve and the rising popularity of single-page web applications. As per Statista.com, 42.62% of developers prefer using React, while 20.39% prefer Angular.

Data binding

Angular uses two-way or bidirectional data binding, and any changes in the data reflect directly in the UI. In React, you’ll have to manually update the UI to account for changes. But the unidirectional data binding makes it ideal for interactive UI with variable data. Moreover, coding and debugging become simpler in React.

Although, with the right state management library, you can get bidirectional data binding in React.

Components

While React was the first to introduce components-based Web development in 2013, Angular soon followed it with its own components model in 2016.

Componentization splits the project into multiple parts, each containing its own logic, making it much easier to reuse, test, secure, deploy, and modify without affecting the entire app.

Even though both frameworks use components, the difference lies in how they achieve Componentization. Components in Angular are decorators, functions that allow a service, directive, or filter to be modified before usage. In React, components are JSX files that can be class-based or pure functions depending on the developer’s requirements.

UI components

Since React is lightweight, complex UI projects will require third-party libraries to supplement the tools and features needed. At the same time, Angular comes with a rich set of pre-built functionalities and requires no third-party assistance.

DOM

React works with a virtual DOM, while Angular manages the DOM directly. The virtual DOM in React saves copies of the existing DOM in its cache memory. This means that any changes you make to the state of a component will only affect that particular object in real DOM.

Tools

Since Angular is an entire framework, as opposed to React being just a library, it comes with several more tools and built-in functionalities. Moreover, Angular has a single tool to test and debug an entire project, but in React, you’ll need to work with multiple tools to handle different testing tasks.

Performance

While many experts will argue that performance shouldn’t be used as a differentiating factor between the two, React has shown a distinct advantage when dealing with site load times. Though the difference is minute, it is primarily visible when loading a page with many views at once, such as image and video galleries found on Instagram and Facebook.

Language

React employs JavaScript, while Angular uses TypeScript. This reduces the learning curve for React significantly because all you need to learn is HTML and JavaScript. Learning to use Angular requires more time and effort because not only is TypeScript a whole new language, but you also need to learn Angular-specific commands and patterns.

React vs Angular: Which framework is more suitable for your project?

Picking the right technology for your project largely depends on the scope, business requirements, release time, and team capabilities. Angular is more comprehensive, making it ideal for large, complex projects with many layers. Applications for companies like PayPal, IBM, Upwork, Samsung, and Forbes are built on Angular. React offers flexibility, lesser loading times, and a shorter learning curve. It has many core advantages, such as virtual DOM and third-party adaptability. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Netflix are built using React.

Only after clearly documenting the required functionalities of your application can you choose the right framework for yourself.

Conclusion

Both applications are immensely popular, with well-rounded objectives, large communities, and rich features. But if you’re still unsure which framework suits your project, VLink’s software development consultancy services can help you. VLink also offers IT staff augmentation and dedicated teams to help you access the right talent required to build your application. With VLink, you can hire React developers as well as Angular developers for your team and fast-track your project.