Angular or React?  Which one should you use? In this article, we will discuss the differences between Angular and React and help you decide which one is right for your project. It’s time to put the debate to rest.

Angular and React: If you’re even remotely familiar with web development, you’ve probably heard of these two giants.

Angular and React are both open-source JavaScript frameworks for building web applications. A lot of new web developers have trouble choosing between Angular and React. These frameworks are both excellent at what they do, but each is unique enough that it can be hard to determine which one to use for any given Application.

This article is your guide to choosing the best framework for your web app.

What is Angular?

Angular is an open-source framework developed by Google, released under the name AngularJS in 2010. The main purpose of the framework is to build dynamic, single-page web applications, and is based on TypeScript. This framework provides developers with everything they need to create larger applications. It is because of this reason that leading companies like Microsoft, Forbes, and BMW all prefer Angular over React.

What is React?

JavaScript’s React library lets you build user interfaces. It was created by the team at Facebook as a front-end JavaScript library for creating user interfaces. The React platform is also used to build native applications, mobile applications and web applications. It popularizes a concept known as component-based architecture. For many years, Facebook and Instagram, Netflix and other technology giants have been using React instead of Angular in production.

React or Angular? Which one is the best?

Here’s a list of the major differences between Angular and React, as well as a few reasons for choosing each one.
Purpose
Angular is a complete framework for software development. Additional libraries are usually not required because the package includes features such as data binding, component-based routing, and form validation. Additionally, it features several built-in libraries that are especially useful for building complex applications.

React is a framework for developing user interfaces. Therefore, it requires the implementation of other libraries. React also gives you more freedom, letting you organize your code however you want. 

Learning curve 

In comparison to React, Angular is a much larger library, and learning it all takes much longer. Angular is difficult to learn, has a ton of syntax, and also difficult to manage components.  Although TypeScript is similar to JavaScript, it takes some time to learn. Due to the constant updating of the framework, software developers will need to undergo regular training. 

React is easier to learn with no dependency injection and no classic templates. Understanding React is very simple if you are familiar with JavaScript. However, because there is no predefined project structure, learning to create a project could be time consuming.  

Performance

Angular’s performance is poor for complex and dynamic web applications. Bidirectional data binding can have a negative impact on the performance of Angular applications.  To track binding changes, a watcher is assigned to every binding, and the loop continues until all watchers are checked and their values are updated. The process becomes more complex if there are more bindings. 

Performance of React has improved significantly with the introduction of virtual DOM. The virtual DOMs reduce the burden on the browser. Moreover, the data binding process is unidirectional, and does not require any additional workload from watchers.

Language

Angular uses TypeScript, a superset of JavaScript. TypeScript is more compact than JavaScript, the code is easier to navigate, and typing errors are easy to spot. The refactoring process has also become easier and faster.

React is based on a combination of JavaScript ES6+ and JSX scripts. JSX is a makes JavaScript code look like HTML. This makes it easier for you to understand the code and identify typing errors instantly. 

Conclusion

Both web frameworks address the same problems, though in different ways. The choice depends on your preferences and the project requirements in terms of functionality and usability.

SBL has extensive experience in managing both Angular and React projects. Please contact our Software division for a detailed discussion.