4 min read

Angular vs. React: Which One Works Best for Web Development

Alicia Baggins

May 11, 2022

In the world of web development, both novices and experts seek the best ways to implement their solutions. The right framework as a bundle of libraries and tools boosts performance and efficiency, allows for resources and expenses optimization, and saves weeks of productive time. As the best front-end JavaScript frameworks, Angular and React immediately come to mind.

Angular and React: Just to Be Clear

Angular: Strengths and Limitations

First introduced in 2009, it has improved from its original version to meet the growing needs of the web. Its benefits leverage each other and are time- and cost-effective for business. Here are just a few:

Off-the-shelf functionality. Angular's unique libraries with fully prepared components for different use cases, satisfy the need to build the primary app functionality without third-party libraries' involvement. It also includes routing tools to retrieve the required data presented in the application. Additionally, it has a preconfigured environment that facilitates testing.

Modular architecture. Everything in Angular can be organized into simple, reusable, and independent modules that can be integrated where necessary. They simplify the application functionality organization, enable effective work allocation among project team members while preserving clean and well-organized code, and improve productivity.

Improved efficiency with high consistency. Its CLI tool makes it simple to develop repeatable code blocks, re-utilize them as desired, and expand an app with diverse features. A strongly typed TypeScript results in clean, secure, and intuitive code. Its special template syntax, routers, and IDE’s: VS Code and WebStorm enable the HTML vocabulary extension, catching any potential bugs earlier, quick loading of the application, and making further support easier. Once it is clear how to write a component, others can be simply coded on the basis of similar generalized guidelines and code structure.

Despite its seemingly all-embracing power, Angular still features some limitations.

Learning curve. Its complex and versatile nature requires any developer’s time to master coding. The ability to complete a task in more than one way may lead to confusion among project team members. However, Angular’s stunning support through well-established documentation and online tutorials set things straight.

SEO constraints. Search engines can not render JS as it provides client-side rendering. This leads to poor SEO accessibility and performance. Angular Universal, when applied, improves SEO capabilities ensuring server-side rendering but has some other drawbacks.

React: the Good and the Bad

Introduced as a library for fronted UI development in 2009, it now has expansion packages and is treated as a framework. Its main advantages that businesses may benefit from include:

Cost-effectiveness. It features lots of ready-made components with their own logic, code reusability, myriads of box solutions, and libraries. They support the development of an application that consists of small and simple blocks in a short time. Additionally, once written, it can be shared cross-platform without needing to develop a new separate solution.

Great user experience. High app loading speed and performance are key to a successful user experience. This is provided by virtual DOM, rendering optimizations, updating only those elements that the moment requires, and other features.

Improved performance. App performance is highly influenced by its structure, which should be carefully considered for apps with intensive user interaction and data updates. React enhances performance due to virtual DOM where it does not generate all HTML files every time but looks for differences between the old and current files and updates the last one accordingly.

However, its Achilles’ heel is:

Poor and fragmented documentation. Constant releases of new tools making up the React ecosystem, impede framework documentation maintenance. This makes developers write guides on their own, based on the tools used in their current projects.

High development pace. The constantly evolving React environment requires from developers the ability to relearn common aspects in new ways and keep their skills updated, on the one hand. But on the other, this facilitates more stability of React's core API.

Frontend Development to Enable Self-Service Checkout Kiosks for a Global QSR Chain

Excellence in web page coding under high time pressure

Angular-powered Online Recruitment Platform Development

Project rescue to facilitate supply and demand for life-changing career opportunities in Asia

CRM System Development to Automate Cell Tower Maintenance

Reducing manual work for managing wireless facilities maintenance & enabling data analytics

All-in-one SaaS CRM Platform for B2B Sales Workflows Optimization

Nailing lead generation with an elegant & intuitive business tool

Why Do They Generate Lots of Buzz?

User engagement and high retention depend on your website interactivity which JavaScript affects a lot. Almost 95% of websites are built by using this programming language. It is actively used in mobile iOS and Android gadgets, smart TV, Windows, Linux, etc. Both React and Angular have been keeping their heads above water since 2009, and as the StackOverflow survey shows, they still remain strong for web and mobile development.

Our Choice

Our company has good knowledge of both frameworks. Our experts say that Angular’s structure and architecture are specially created for large-scaled projects. Additionally, its MVVM (Model-View-View-Model) allows the dev team to work separately on the same app section by using the same data array. It is perfectly suited for development of interactive web apps and long-term projects. React’s superpower – virtual DOM makes it fast, smart in concept, and simple. An app developed in a flash of an eye with making money right from the start is a piece of cake for React. Use it for the development of modern SPAs of any size and scale. Additionally, front-end developers can craft a mobile app UI just through React Native without needing to involve a separate mobile dev team.

Final Thoughts

Forbes, PayPal, and YouTube TV have voted for Angular, whereas Netflix, Uber, and Instagram have settled on React. Both highly-performing, with their own peculiarities, Angular and React serve the IT industry best. It is like a ready-made mixture with a client needed to add only one ingredient — a highly qualified team.

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