React vs Angular – Which is the Best Choice for your Mobile App Development plans?

 As the development of more and more Programming technologies and tools is gaining large momentum in Today’s world. The need to cope up with these technologies is also growing. Apart from Programming languages like Python, Ruby, R etc, several Js Front-End frameworks are also being getting wide-spread popularity because of there great demand in the industry.

The several dynamic Web-applications and interactive UI/UXinterfaces of the most applications are created using these Front-End frameworks which indeed work upon JavaScript as its base language. In Today’s time, a lot of frameworks are available on the market, but the most popular ones are React Native and Angular. Both these are very strong competitors in their field since last few years.

 

 But still, with gradual advancements and further developments, these frameworks are still providing their users every feature beneficial for increasing productivity with ease. Also making it harder for them to regard any one as the best upon the other. In this article we are going to unveil, what makes these frameworks so popular amongst developers and What is the best framework for Mobile App Development.

History of React

React was released in 2013 and is currently managed by Facebook. It is an open-source JavaScript library, which enables developers to create robust mobile applications and dynamic user-interfaces. Even Facebook itself uses React components on several pages.

As discussed above React works upon JavaScript, but in addition with JSX. This combination is very much helpful for producing re-usable HTML elements, which can be used in UI Development. Big companies like WhatsApp, Facebook, Netflix, Uber Instagram etc. use React for development processes.

History of Angular

Angular is a Type-Script based open-source web application framework lead by Google. It is mainly used for creating dynamic and interactive applications for different platforms. Combining the advanced features like dependency injections, end-to-end tooling and other integrated best practices makes it even easier for creating web application, thus solving most of the challenges faced by developers. This is the main reason why Angular is used by companies like Google, HBO, Forbes, Nike, Sony etc.

Why React is so popular?

The answer to this question lies in the features of the framework itself. Let’s briefly unveil each of them one by one.

·       React is Virtual DOM based which results in building a highly dynamic UI with the exquisite user experience.

·       Re-usability of the various React components make it worth Time Saving.

·       Uni-directional Data Binding meaning that if the model state is updated, then it renders change in the UI element itself. But the vice-versa would not be true.

·       It provides XSS Protection.

·       Utilities for unit-testing protection at a faster pace.

Why Angular is so popular?

The below mentioned features are the main cause of its wide-spread popularity.

·       Use of TypeScript enables the developers to write cleaner and error-free High-quality codes.

·       High performance due to the hierarchical dependency injection.

·       Pre-built Material Design Components.

·       Model-view-controller(MVC)architecture implementation; making it possible to isolate the app logic from the UI layer and support separation of concerns.

·       Better error-handling procedures.

·       Seam-less updates using Angular CLI making it possible to update components having Third-party dependency.

Which framework is better - React or Angular?

The answer to this most searched question can only be computed after comparing the Pros and Cons of both the frameworks.

·      Self-sufficiency

As we know that Angular is a full-fledged MVC framework, whereas React is merely a JavaScript library. Due to this fact, React needs inclusion of several other libraries for developing application. On the other hand, Angular being a complete software doesn’t need any such external library to work. 

·      Regular DOM vs Virtual DOM

React’s use of Virtual DOM is one of its features that makes it blazingly fast than Angular, because Angular uses Real DOM, which is considered a bit slower than Virtual DOM. It also enables the Developers to monitor and update the changes without affecting the other parts of the code.

·      Architecture of React Vs Angular

Both the frameworks have Component-based architecture, but still Angular is having an Edge over React as it uses TypeScript for Web-Development, which is a more compact language than JavaScript which is used in React.

·      Readability and Simplicity

Angular being a full-fledged MVC framework comes with a very complex and extremely fixed structure. Whereas, React on the other hand, uses a very simple way of developing component trees, where the component definitions are declarative and logically structured. Thus, increasing readability and flexible coding.

·      Effective State Handling

Each application uses different states at different instances, so that the changes we made in the code, become visible by re-rendering them in the form of complete UI component, ensuring Data-updation. For this cause, React uses Redux to manage states whereas no such thing is there in Angular.

·      TypeScript Vs JavaScript

Angular mainly uses TypeScript, which is a very compact language and provides highly productive development tools. Also, it helps in creating error-free high-quality code. Whereas JavaScript, used in React is a subset of TypeScript, thus providing lesser features.

·      UI Component Support

React’s components are developed by its community itself some of which are paid or free, which can be imported whenever needed. Whereas Angular has its in-built Material techStack, making the UI configurations agile and straightforward.

·      User-directives

React provides more clear and understandable authorized instructions for how to use the components and explaining the working of the code properly. This enables the developers to understand what the code means without even having any prior knowledge about the syntax. Whereas the directives in Angular are quite complex and sophisticated, making the task of understanding tougher for nascent developers.

·      Code Testing and Debugging Scenario

For testing/debugging an Application made with React, it requires a large tool-set for different components, whereas, Angular Applications can be tested using one tool only, whether it may be Karma, Jasmine or Protractor. So in this case, Angular proves to be better player, despite the fact that, while creation both uses different tools for project set-up or Server-side Rendering.

·      World-wide Admiration

According to reports and analysis, React has more number of searches on the internet, whereas on the hand, the number of Angular Developers is also quite high. Making it difficult to say, which one is more popular.

·      Learning Curve

Developers have been concluding so far that, learning React development is quite easier than Angular because of its multiple useful resources and use of JavaScipt. Whereas, Angular is a constantly developing framework, so its still lacking in some ways to provide their developers ways or resources to understand the new concepts of the framework better.

·      Privileges and Flexibility

React framework contains a large number of libraries, tools and architecture for development processes. Thus providing freedom to developers to choose from them to create highly customizable applications. Whereas in Angular, the freedom and flexibility provided is very limited.

·      Data-binding Techniques

React uses One-way Data Binding, in which data flows in only one-direction, i.e the elements shown on the interface can only be changed, after changing the model state. Thus, one-way binding binds the data from model to view only.

Whereas Angular uses two-way Data binding, where the UI elements lead to change in model state. Thus, data binding here is from model to view as well as view to model. Thus, creating implicit links in your codebase in case of larger apps, whereas React provides more streamlined data overview in such conditions.

·      Mobile Development

React provides truly native UI experience that helps you to create your own components and bind them to native codes written in Java, C, Kotlin etc. Whereas Angular provides an engaging UI component library and a Cordova container, which makes it look like a web inside a native web app container. Also, it provides limited SEO solutions and poor accessibility for Search Engine Crawlers.

·      Documentation and community support

React documentations are always up to-date providing insights from the earliest version. Whereas, due to the ongoing development process in Angular, the documentations are somewhat outdated and useless for the developers.

Where both the frameworks, have large community base over the internet.

·      Ease of update

Since both the frameworks can be easily updated to latest versions using their respective CLIs, but still React lags behind Angular because React heavily implies on external libraries, which makes it difficult to manage a version of library which is compatible with current React version.

Conclusion

Keeping in mind the Pros and Cons of each framework, It is still a difficult task to decide which framework is better. And now the answer relies on the needs of the developer itself, meaning, if your team has expertise in HTML, CSS and JAVASCRIPT, or if you require a highly customized application, you should go for React. As its components can also be shared across multiple applications as the project expands.

Whereas if you have expertise in Java, C# and previous versions of Angular. Also, if you embrace ready-to-use solutions and need higher productivity, you should for Angular. It can help you create a large-scale feature-rich application with a regulated size. Also, both these frameworks would also be going to be tough competitors in the coming years also. The latest update specs reveal major progressions and advancements in their interfaces and services.