Should I use angular or react, and which is a better framework for an app development project? This is the most obvious question among developers.
But it is difficult and not appropriate to determine which is better because both these frameworks are hot today and have their own advantages and disadvantages. So rather than comparing them, it is better to look inside what they offer – what they can be used for, who can use them, their features and tools created around them that help uses the frameworks.
To have a better understanding of these frameworks, we will be discussing everything about them in terms of the following points:
- maturity: how mature they are
- features they offer developers
- architecture, paradigms, and patterns
- and tools helpful in using the frameworks
In addition we will try to get into who can learn them and how, what types of project they can best be used for, and what kind of experience needed to use these.
So let us proceed step by step to give you a clear and better understand of these frameworks…
How mature are they?
A good developer needs to maintain a balance between the time old proven tools and the latest approaches. A tool might not be mature due to the reasons such as:
- The tool may be buggy and unstable.
- It might be unexpectedly abandoned by the vendor.
- There might not be a large knowledge base or community available in case you need help
Both React and Angular comes from renowned families, so developers show confidence in them when it comes to maturity.
React
This is a Facebook product and so is used across all its products including the Facebook and WhatsApp. The framework is five year old and one of the most popular products on the GitHub, with nearly 119,000 stars in the begging of this year.
Angular
It is a bit less old than the former but it is not a quite new kid on the block. Maintained by Google, it is used across 600 Google products including Firebase Console, Google Analytics, Google Express, and Google Cloud Platform
What are the features?
Compared to React, Angular has more features out of the box. However, React has also many great features that Angular lacks. Also there are some common features both frameworks have such as
- components,
- data binding, and
- platform-agnostic rendering.
Let us delve deep and look at each of the features, considering their applications.
Angular
Angular offers a bevy of the features which are crucial for a modern web application out of the box. Some of them include:
- Dependency injection
- Templates, based on an extended version of HTML
- Routing, provided by @angular/router
- Ajax requests using @angular/common/http
- @angular/forms for building forms
- Component CSS encapsulation
- XSS protection
- Utilities for unit-testing components.
Note that some features are built-in and are an essential part of the core framework. You do not have a choice to not use them. One such feature is dependency injection which is used to build a small application. Others include HTTP client or forms which are completely optional and can be added on an as-needed basis.
React
As we told earlier that React has a relatively less features, here are some of the features the framework offers.
- No dependency injection
- Instead of classic templates, it has JSX, an XML-like language built on top of JavaScript
- State management using setState and the Context API.
- XSS protection
- Utilities for unit-testing components.
Tools
The best thing about open source frameworks is that you have several tools creating around them. Sometimes, these tools are more helpful than the framework itself. So it is important to have look at these tools and how they help developers.
Angular
- Angular CLI: this helps you bootstrap your project without having to configure the build yourself. It allows you to generate and run a project with just a couple of commands. You can also use it to generate new code during the development.
- Iconic Framework: It is used for developing hybrid mobile applications. Its Cordova container easily integrates with Angular and material library.
- Angular Material: If you are looking for material design then this tool will be of great help. With this, you can get a wide range of ready to use components thereby saving your time on creating those components.
- Angular Universal: In fact, this is a bunch of various tools that enable server-side rendering for Angular applications. It can be integrated with Angular CLI and supports several Node.js frameworks, such as express and hapi, etc.
- Augury: This is an extension compatible for both Chrome and Firefox and is used to debug Angular applications. It also helps explore component tree, monitor change detection and optimize performances.
React
- Create React App: It is a CLI utility for React and is used to quickly set up new projects. It also allows you to create new projects, run the app in development mode.
- React Native: It is Facebook product used to develop native mobile apps using the React framework. React Native offers a bevy of standard React component as well as allows you to build your own and bind them with native code.
- React 360: It is library which helps create virtual reality applications. It provides declarative React API built on top the WebGL and WebVR browser APIs, which makes it easy to create 360 VR experience.
In addition there are many other tools for React such as Gatsby, React Developer Tools, Next.js, and Material UI.
Adoption, Learning Curve and Development Experience
The ease of learning is a vital criterion for choosing a new technology. But how easy a tool can be to learn depends on several factors including your prior skills level and how quick you are to learn new things. It also depends on your familiarity with the related concepts and patterns. Lets us see what you need to in order to learn how to use these frameworks.
For Angular:
To learn it you should be comfortable with TypeScript, meaning you should have a good understanding of TypeScrip. Also, a hands on languages like Java and .NET would give you an edge, and you will learn faster with ease.
For React:
JSX might seem to be difficult for many developers to write but is crucial part of learning React. You’ll also need to learn how to write components, use props for configuration and manage internal state. As this is just a plan Java Scrip, you do not need to learn new logical structures.
To Sum Up
Looking at their features, tools available for them and who can learn and what you need to learn them, it seems they both have their own advantages and drawbacks. So it is not good to say which is better. They should be used based on the needs and type of project.