Angular vs React : Select Best One For Your App

Overview

React
React is a JavaScript library for front end development. It is supported by Facebook and the open source community. The framework was initially introduced in May 2013.

Angular
Angular is an open-sourced type script framework for web and mobile development. It is managed by Google Team and the Angular Community.  This was launched on September 2016. Angular is a complete rewritten from AngularJS (Angular 1.0), which was introduced in 2010.

Universality

React
React is use for both web and mobile development. Anyhow, to start with mobile development, It’s required Cordova. React Mobile development framework called as React Native.

React can be used to develop both multiple page and single page web applications

Angular
Angular can used to develop both mobile and web applications. however, when comes to mobile app development, you will have to use Native Scripts or Ionic to develop apps via angular. Angular also can use to develop both single page and multiple page web apps.

Self-Sufficiency

React
React is a framework for front-end developments, For applications which written in React will needs additional libraries to be used. For example, React Router, Redux or Helmet to optimize the state management processes. Such functions as Project Generation, Component based routing, Data Binding, Form Validation will require additional installations.

Angular
Angular is a full equipped framework. Functions like Routing, Data Binding, Project Generation, Dependency Injection and Form Validation can be use with the Angular package.

Learning Curve

React
Easy and simple to use. no any classic templates and complicated features. whole framework is quite simple to understand if you are familiar with JavaScript.

Anyhow, it is takes little bit time to grab the things about how to set up a project properly in react. Because there is no defined project structure for that. Also it’s a mandatory thing for you to learn how Redux library works, since it’s used for state management in react applications. Also for framework updates you will have to spend more time as well. Going forward, there are lot of good practices in React, where it’s best for you to learn to do things right.

Angular
Angular is a large library and it’s little bit complex to understand all the functionalities it’s comes with. There are few complicated features embedded in to the angular core. Also when comes to issues there are several ways to solve a problem.

It’s very important for angular developers to stay updated with new version releases.

Community

React
Since React framework getting more and more popular the community support also is rapidly growing.Sometimes, there may be lack of documentation for some problems, but this type of issues can be often resolved with the community support

React is used by companies like Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, The New York Times, Yahoo, Airbnb,Microsoft, Walmart, PayPal and Uber

Angular
Angular is a well established framework and with the time it has gotten much more popular. Also with the Google’s support it’s getting much more credibility for the framework. But most of the times developers used to dismiss the framework since some of the features are more complected than the React.

Google has a good support arm which provide long-term support for the framework and constantly improves it. Also, the documentation is always good and covers almost every area.

Used by companies like Apple, McDonald’s, HBO, AT&T,Adobe , Forbes, Nike, and Microsoft

Performance

React
With the introduction of virtual DOM’s, React’s performance has been greatly improved. Main reason for that is all virtual DOM trees are built on server and very lightweight,
Therefor the load on the browser is reduced. Also, it’s data-binding process is unidirectional, so the bindings are not like assigned watchers which in the Angular. As a result of that, no additional workload is comes to the browser.

Angular
Angular performance is not much satisfied when compares to React, especially when comes to complex and dynamic web apps.

Because of bidirectional data-binding, the performance is negatively effecting to the Angular app. To every binding there is a assigned watcher to track changes, and every loop continues till all the watchers with associated values checked.

Anyhow, the latest angular releases are much more faster than the old ones and trying it’s best to stay in the competition.

Language

React
React you can use as combination of JavaScript ES6+ and JSX script. JSX is a syntax extension,
which can resemble the code written in HTML to JavaScript. It’s makes the code more easier to understand. Also typos are very easy to spot.

Angular
You can use Angular with TypeScript. It’s a superset of JavaScript which developed specifically for bigger projects. TypeScript is more lightweight than JavaScript. Typos are easily spotted and code refactoring also becomes much simpler and faster.

App Structure

React
Flexible component based views. Beside the View Layer, Controller and Model are added with the help of other libraries. Developers has the freedom to choose the best structure and there is no any right structure for a react app.

Angular
Fixed and complex component based MVC architecture(Model, View, Controller). For a component there will be four files. HTML file to implement the view, CSS file to define the custom styles, Logic File to write the processes and a Testing file.

UI Component

React
External Material Libraries & Dependencies will have to use

Angular
Available built in Material Design tool-set

Directives

React
Logic & Templates are explains in a single point at the end of the component. Therefore it’s allows to grasp the meaning of the code quickly even if you don’t know the syntax

Angular
Angular directives are little bit complex and sophisticated which makes it incomprehensible without knowledge of Angular

Depencency Injection

React
React does not fully support for dependency injection

Angular
Supports for dependency injection. therefore unlike in react, you can manage different lifecycles

Data Binding

React
Unidirectional Data is Immutable. Since react works with redux it’s allows you to work with immutable data which makes data flow unidirectional. Since the unidirectional bindings are predictable it’s allows the facility to debug the process

Angular
Bidirectional Data is mutable. It’s easy to work with bidirectional data bindings than the unidirectional approach. But since Angular have a watcher for each binding, bidirectional data binding can be negatively affect for the performance