Angular vs React: Which One is the best choose for you
To save you some time, let me tell you something up front: I want you to know that there is no best choose….I can’t tell you that, because the answer depends on a wide range of factors which make a particular technology more or less suitable for your environment and use case. both of these technologies are good. Each technologies has a lot to offer and it’s not easy to choose between them. both of them have a Pros and Cons. in this article we wanna talk about their Pros and Cons, so you can choose which one is the best choose for you.
Framework or Library
first of all you probably know that reactjs is a Library and angular is a Framework.
if you don’t know The Difference Between a Framework and a Library, that’s OK but if you like to know the difference, i highly recommend these resources:
1. The Difference Between a Framework and a Library (freecodecamp)
2. What is the difference between a framework and a library? (Stack overflow)
Brief Overview
React
React is an open-source, front end, JavaScript library for building user interfaces or UI components. It is maintained by Facebook and a community of individual developers and companies. React can be used as a base in the development of single-page or mobile applications. However, React is only concerned with state management and rendering that state to the DOM, so creating React applications usually requires the use of additional libraries for routing, as well as certain client-side functionality.(Wikipedia)
Angular
Angular is a TypeScript-based open-source web application framework led by the Angular Team at Google and by a community of individuals and corporations. Angular is a complete rewrite from the same team that built AngularJS.(Wikipedia)
Popularity
A React vs. Angular comparison is still a popular topic in 2020. React and Angular are both advanced, widely adopted JavaScript (JS) technologies that we use to create interactive single-page applications (SPAs). The number of JS tools for fast single-page application development is constantly growing, making the choice of which technology to rely on more challenging for us as web developers.
Both React and Angular are currently used by many business, news, and travel companies in the USA, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Australia, and other countries.
Self-Sufficiency
React
React is a library for UI development, so apps written with React need additional libraries to be used. For instance, Redux, React Router, or Helmet optimize the processes of state management, routing, and interaction with the API. Such functions as data binding, component-based routing, project generation, form validation, or dependency injection require additional modules or libraries to be installed.
Angular
Angular is a full-fledged framework for software development, which usually does not require additional libraries. All the above-mentioned functions — data binding, component-based routing, project generation, form validation, and dependency injection — can be implemented with the means of Angular package.
Community
React
React is one of the most popular JS library worldwide, and the community supporting and developing it is huge.
Working with React, you have to be a continuous learner since the library is often updated. While the community tries to go forward with the latest documentation as swiftly as possible, keeping up with all the changes is not that easy. Sometimes, there may be a lack of documentation, but the issue is often solved by the community support on thematic forums.
React is actively used by such companies as: Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Airbnb, PayPal, The New York Times, Yahoo, Walmart, Uber, and Microsoft.
Angular
Angular is less admired than React and faces a lot of skepticism, partially because of the unpopularity of Angular 1.0. Developers used to dismiss the framework as an overly complicated one as it required a lot of time to be spent learning. However, this framework has been developed by Google, which works in favor of Angular’s credibility. Google provides the long-term support of the framework and constantly improves it. However, the updates are so fast that the documentation often falls behind.
Angular is used by such companies as: McDonald’s, AT&T, HBO, Apple, Forbes, Adobe, Nike, and Microsoft as well.
UI Components
React
UI tools for React are developed by the community. There are a lot of free and paid UI components on the React portal. To use material design components in React, you would have to install an additional library — Material-UI Library & Dependencies.
Angular
Angular has a built-in Material tool set, and it offers a variety of pre-built material design components. There are various layouts, buttons, indicators, form, and pop-ups controls. Because of this, UI configuration becomes simpler and faster.
Directives and Templates
React
React doesn’t offer division into templates and directives or template logic. The template logic should be written in the template itself. To see what this looks like, open an example from GitHub. You will notice that React’s component app. TodoItem is created with a standard React.createClass() method. We pass an object with properties to this function. Such properties as componentDidUpdate, shouldComponentUpdate, handleKeyDown, or handleSubmit represent the logic — what will happen with our template. In the end of the component, we usually define the render property, which is a template to be rendered in the browser. Everything is located in one place, and the JSX syntax in the template is easy to understand even if you don’t know how to write in JSX. It’s clear what is going to happen with our template, how it should be rendered and what information will be presented for it by properties.
Such an approach of defining template and logic in one place is better as we spend less time initially on understanding what is happening.
Angular
Directives in Angular are a way to organize our work/code around the DOM. If working with Angular, we access the DOM only through directives. For example, Angular has many standard directives, such as ng-bind or ng-app, but we can create own directives as well. And we should. This is a powerful way to work with the DOM. On the other hand, the syntax for making private Angular directives is rather difficult to understand.
We make our own directives in Angular to insert data into templates. The template must have an element with our directive written as an attribute. It’s as simple as that. But Angular directives, if defined fully, are sophisticated. The object with settings, which we return in the directive, contains around ten properties. Such properties as templateUrl or template are easy to understand. But it’s not so clear how (and why) to define priority, terminal, scope, and other properties. Mastering the syntax of Angular directives may be a real challenge.
In summary, in order to bind DOM elements with Angular applications, we use directives, both standard and specific.
Final thoughts
Both Angular and React are great for writing single-page applications. But they are completely different instruments. Some programmers may say that React is better than AngularJS or vice versa. What’s really best for a given project, however, depends on how you use these instruments.
Working with React may seem a bit easier starting out, because you write old-school JavaScript and build your HTML around it. But there are many additional tools you’ll have to grasp, such as Flux. In turn, AngularJS implements a different approach organized around HTML. That’s why we may see unusual syntax and solutions that seem questionable at first sight. But once you get used to AngularJS, you will certainly benefit from its features.
