Angular and React Development

What is React?

In 2011, Facebook’s software engineer Jordan Walke created the React library for frontend UI works. At the time, it was known as FaxJS. Facebook deployed it in its newsfeed in 2011, and it was implemented on Instagram in 2012. The first open-source release of React was in 2013. Also called React.js or Reactjs, React is a Javascript library, but, since it has expansion packages, it can also function as a framework. Using React, you can build rich user interfaces. Unlike Angular, React (or React.js) relies on JavaScript and works under a unidirectional data exchange model that uses components rather than templates. Developers use React for similar purposes as Angular. React has components whose logic is written in JavaScript, and, when the data changes, React updates and renders the right components. React possesses clear formatting style and rich component availability.

In 2015, Facebook released open-source React Native for native development on Android and iOS.

Over 65 thousand respondents of the 2020 Stack Overflow Developer Survey picked Angular and React as the most-wanted frameworks for web development. You need to consider what both powerhouses offer:

Since both frameworks have Open-source MIT licenses, they are free to use, change, and re-sell for personal and commercial use. Both frameworks share key features: components, data binding, and platform-agnostic rendering.

Since Angular and React provide a component-based architecture and an open-world coding environment, developers can swap functions without the need to rebuild the application

Client-side and Server-side rendering are both available, so loading-time optimization is possible regardless of the app’s complexity

Both frameworks have large Communities. There are more than 157 thousand React projects on GitHub, and more than 66 thousand Angular projects.

Differences between the two:

Angular is a framework. React is a library that needs other libraries to behave like a framework. React does not provide anything for dependency injection, routing, HTTP calls, or advanced form handling, so you need additional libraries based on your needs, which can be good or bad, depending on your experience. React updates the virtual DOM. Angular, on the other hand, updates the real “Document Object Model” (DOM), the programming interface for HTML and XML documents. React relies a lot on JavaScript. Angular uses Typescript, a statically compiled language that provides static typing, classes, and interfaces. Typescript allows programmers to create robust,for it helps in identifying common errors and eliminating them. React has a one-directional data flow, so hanging the UI elements is possible only after changing the model state. The data flow in Angular is two-directional. If the UI is changed then the model state changes automatically, and the reverse is also true.

As a framework, Angular contains components, services, and modules. Components are responsible for executing the application logic and rendering the template. Services are classes used by components. And modules are basically containers that put components, services, pipes, and other entities together. Unlike React, Angular relies on Typescript, a new language built on top of Javascript. Developed by Microsoft, TypeScript has been heavily influenced by Java and .NET. With Angular, a developer can also use RxJS, a reactive programming library that allows for more flexible handling of asynchronous operations and events. With RxJS, a developer can treat anything like a continuous stream of values and perform operations such as mapping, filtering, splitting, or merging.

Examples of Angular Use:

• Forbes
• PayPal
• JetBlue
• YouTube TV
• Crunchbase

Examples of React Use:

• Netflix
• Nike
• Airbnb
• Uber
• The New York Times

Should I use React vs Angular

Fortunately we at Obiltech can work with both frameworks. If you have an application in mind, and you cannot decide which one to use, we can help you. Both Angular and React deliver robust performance and user experience. The factors that need to be considered are: time to adapt, deployment speed, and employer/client business requirements.

Angular has the Ionic framework, and you can create hybrid mobile apps with it. But mobile app development with React Native offers a native UI experience. React is a better choice for mobile development.

BuildWith statistics show professional developers often chose the React library, since it’s used for websites over 3M. Since it’s based on JavaScript with HTML, it’s faster to set up. React’s component-based structure eliminates update errors as the Virtual DOM renders partial changes to the code. Because each component has its embedded logic, developers save time by reusing them throughout the app. React has an elegant programming style and patterns, and a rich package ecosystem. React documentation is more up-to-date, but Angular documentation is still evolving.

As of 2020, there are more than 208,149 websites using Angular. Angular has more features than React. Angular is also harder to learn than react, but programmer appreciate the pre-build functionality. Angular’s rules require disciplined programming, but the code produced in TypeScript can be easily scaled-up. Angular has a lot of documentation. An elegant programming style, and it is full featured and very powerful. You can test an Angular project with just one tool like Jasmine. However, you will need to use multiple tools for testing a React project: Jest for testing the JavaScript code, and Enzyme for component testing. Angular has an advantage in this aspect. The CLI of Angular makes it easy to upgrade an app to the latest Angular version, but upgrading a React application takes more effort because of the 3rd party libraries used in front-end development.