Learning Curve: Angular is a complete full-blown framework so if somebody wants to make an application or project on Angular they need to learn a lot of things like Typescript in-depth, MVC also there are so many other concepts to learn such as directives, modules, decorators, components, services, dependency injection, pipes, and templates. In advance topic, it requires learning change detection, zones, AOT(Ahead-of-Time) compilation, and Rx.js. Angular provides a lot of stuff “out of the box”. It has strict coding which gives a clear structuring but there are so many things to learn if somebody wants to enter Angular.
On the other hand, ReactJs is just a library and so it has fewer concepts to learn in comparison to Angular. React uses JSX (Javascript XML) which is a way of writing HTML into JavaScript. So we need to know the syntax of JSX, how to write components, manage internal state, props for configuration, routing, state management using Redux. React won’t provide anything “out of the box” functions. React provides flexibility and it gives too many options to developers to do the same task in a different way. In the comparison of Angular, it’s easy to learn quickly.
Components and Size: Angular works on Real DOM and it follows MVC pattern. Angular follows bidirectional data flow also it is large in size(92KB approx, it might change) in comparison to React. React on the other hand works on Virtual DOM which is a lightweight copy of a Real DOM or we can say JS representation of actual DOM. React follows unidirectional data flow and the size(46KB approx, it might change) of React is smaller than Angular.
Migration and Community Support: Angular releases it’s newer version or make updates every six months. So in a year, there are two major releases or updates to make necessary changes. Developers have experienced so many breaking changes since it has been released. Angular is supported by huge and active communities of Google and its current version is 7.0. React is maintained by Facebook and its current version is 16.0. Upgrades in React is easier than in Angular also for facebook stability is a major concern when it comes to releasing it’s newer version because big companies like Twitter and Airbnb uses React. It has also good community support.
Popularity: Below is the open source community involvement and popularity for both of these frameworks.
| |
React |
Angular |
| GitHub Stars |
129K |
48K |
| Contributors |
1296 |
935 |
| Weekly Downloads |
5M |
440K |
Application: Angular is most widely used for large applications like video streaming app or music instrument app because of it’s full-blown framework nature. On the other hand, ReactJS is just a library so it’s good for SPA (Single page application) or where it doesn’t require much formatting.
Angular is used by companies Google, Forbes, Youtube, Wix, telegram and React is used by companies Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Airbnb, Netflix, Paypal, Uber.
Market Trend or Jobs: If we try to search for the jobs on StackOverflow and Upwork for Angular and React we find the results which say :
"React developers are more available than Angular and its demand is high."
Conclusion: Before we come to any conclusion we need to keep in mind that there is no best framework or library. Choosing a framework or library completely depends on your project level, requirements, and your goals. Every framework or library has some pros and cons, same with React and Angular. From the above all factors if you are a beginner or have less coding practice also if you want stability for your project you can go with React because its learning curve is fast and easier also job in the market is higher than Angular. It might be frustrating if you are choosing Angular because after every 6 months you will experience major upgrades for Angular. Another thing is if you want a full-blown framework to build a large scale project and love to follow straight forward coding strategy then go with Angular.