As I was going through my twitter, I came across a tweet that goes like
What should I use React or Angular and Why ?
I therefore considered writing a blog about this issue. When it comes to frontend, the two technologies are like bulls in the developer market. Both have their different fan bases and use cases. These were created by Google and Facebook (I seriously don't know why) to make our work simpler through components and code reusability. Both technologies have great open source communities and projects. Then you'll wonder, What's the difference? We're about to find out.
Understanding
React
React is one of the most popular JS library out there in the developer community. Yes it's a library not a framework. Most people don't know this. If you are a new developer you probably wanna learn React as it is easy to get started with it. You don't need to install anything just
npx create-react-app my-app
and there you go! Most Developers really like React because of its component based approach and virtual DOM implementation which really make your app optimised. The library is light weight, reliable and build upon UI components that helps us create highly active and interactive web applications. With React you will be using third party libraries for adding more functionality in your application.
Angular
Angular is another choice of many developers when it comes to enterprise level applications. It is the second most popular JS framework in the community. If you wanna make an enterprise level application or you have a business you might wanna choose Angular over React. For Angular, you first have to install angular cli in your system as
npm install -g @angular/cli
Then you can make your application with
ng new my-app
Angular is a heavy framework built on top of typescript for building scalable web apps. Angular has a set of pre-defined libraries and features which is built by Google such as Routing, Angular-forums etc. Developers like to work with Angular because of its confined environment and libraries, by considering these features many businesses and companies really like to add Angular in their stack. It's optimised to build large web applications with frequently variable data and progressive web apps.
Use Cases
React is used by most developers as it can be used for small projects as well as for big projects. Newbie developers really like React because of its simplicity, code reusability and performance. While Angular is used widely for big applications having a lot of (complicated code) features.
React is used for small projects, personal projects and also for some enterprise level projects as used with some big third party libraries it becomes even more powerful. For eg - A state management library Redux can be easily used with React for managing state in the application for serving a large number of customers.
Angular is mostly used by large businesses as it is confined into its own workspace of libraries and features. You can also use Angular for your projects but it will be a burden as writing code in angular is bit of a hectic because of its way of organising code and using in files.
Popularity
Both the technologies gained popularity with their first release and become the best players in the industry. But if we look deep into the open source we'll find out that React is more popular in Angular in terms of questions asked on stack overflow throughout the years.
Both started gaining popularity in their early stages but through the years Angular is fading in the fog of non-liking technologies. Both having a fantastic community of developers, however only one is well-liked by most geeks.
Performance
React and Angular both performed very well in early their stages. Both are amazing in performance when it comes to web.
React also in case of performance beats Angular as it uses Virtual DOM instead of Real DOM (used by Angular) which reduces load on browser. Manipulating the virtual DOM is much faster, because nothing gets drawn onscreen. The binding of data is unidirectional in React but bidirectional in Angular which decreases the performance and make it difficult to write (bind) code. In the case of complex web applications, Angular's performance deteriorates because of its bidirectional data binding. However, In the latest release of Angular it reduces its size, even less than React.
Companies
Angular
Microsoft. Yes Microsoft office in specific uses Angular with over 258 million monthly active users with so many functionalities.
Gmail. The only mailing platform handing users over 1.5 billion active users uses Angular as their frontend framework.
Paypal - Another tech giant with over 300 million users from all over the world also use Angular proven to be the most secure money transfer company
React
Bloomberg. A finance company uses React as their frontend library. React is fast, secure and reliable.
Facebook. A social media tech giant, Yes Facebook uses React native in their own mobile application. Its open source and have an amazing community.
Discord. A social club more than a company uses React for its amazing UI/UX features and outstanding functionalities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, developers have their own preferences when deciding between the two technologies, each of which has a specific use case. Angular is effective in some situations, while React often dominates the market. But who are we kidding lets be honest, developers really like to Vue.
Writing is always my passion and I write weekly blogs to share my knowledge and experience.
Thanks for reading.
Follow my socials to get updates of more articles like this Linkedin and Twitter. Read my previous Blogs and share them in your socials.