Which Front End Web Development Tool to Use? AngularJS Vs ReactJS

Choosing the right framework for your upcoming Javascript system is important as it has a direct impact on scalability, maintainability and performance of the future app. With the amount of Javascript tools available in the market, it has become a challenge for the developers to make a right choice. The options available are high in number with two dominating the application development industry- Angular JS and React JS. Both are full fledged frameworks and used widely.

Like any other technology, both have their own pros and cons which cannot be neglected considering the future of the application.

Angular JS:

Angular is an open source javascript framework which was developed by the tech giant Google in the year 2009. It offers a number of out of the box designs and solutions. Mostly single page applications are developed using this framework. As it has been developed by a group of developers at Google itself, it is always kept updated with new supporting features. It is built on MVC which is a famous concept for modern day applications. It splits business logic, data and presentation layers in separate sections. By just adding few snippets of code, you can bind data with the HTML controls. Using Angular, the developers might be amazed of the less quantity of code they are required to write.

Live Examples of the usage of AngularJS:

1. Video Streaming Applications: It is a widely used framework for the development of video streaming apps. The recent most popular example of AngularJS is Netflix.com. For Sony PS3, Youtube’s app is also developed using AngularJS.

2. Tours & Travel Applications: Due to the dynamic features that AngularJS offers, it can be a good match for the development of Travel apps. Eg- JetBlue.

3. Review apps: AngularJS can be a great support for the user review application which are widely used these days because people prefer to check the reviews before buying any product or services nowadays. Eg- GoodFlims.

4. Social Apps: LinkedIn is also built up with using AngularJS. It is said that this framework is one of the best suits for social networking applications.

Apart from above, it is also a good suit for Ecommerce sites and shopping apps, user generated content portals, weather apps and more.

Advantages:

a. There is a great support from angular libraries for the creation of robust template solutions if you use AngularJS.

b. By providing an extension to the HTML syntax, it enables you building reusable components.

c. It has a great MVC. Most of the frameworks require splitting the MVC components and after completion the developer has to write code to bind them while with AngularJS, it comes together automatically. Hence, it reduces the time of development.

d. With this, a customized document model object i.e. DOM can be easily developed due to its two way data binding approach.  

e. It offers single routing UI with data binding.

f. Since it only responds to the API calls and serves static fields, it is a supporter of improved server performance.

g. It allows unit testing and end to end testing due to which testing and debugging are now much simpler than testers could ever imagine.

Reasons to opt AngularJS:

A. Quick to start: It is very easy to start with this framework. You just need to add a few attributes to your HTML and in a time of few minutes, you can have your small Angular app created.

B. Write less code: Angular enables you writing fewer codes which saves your time. If offers data binding and it is also simpler to write data models with AngularJS.

C. Easy data binding: With AngularJS, the data binding is easy and effortless. You can see what you type immediately.

D. Declarative UI expression: UI is structured with AngularJS. The designers can be made learn markup easier than programming. Therefore, declarative expression is UI is an advantage for your team.

Drawbacks:

1. With AngularJS, developers find it tricky to integrate third party modules.

2. For the developers who are not familiar with Model-View-Controller architectural patterns, the implementation of this framework can be time consuming.

3. Scopes are complex entities to handle with this framework as it is quite layered and also hierarically arranged.

4. Some features of AngularJS are difficult to use such as dependency injections and factories.

5. Additional time consumption by the browsers can be a possible reason for the developer not choosing this framework because the browser remains over loaded with other tasks such as DOM manipulation.

ReactJS:

ReachJS has been developed by Facebook in 2013. It is an open source library for building UI especially for single page applications. It allows us to make reusable UI components and handles the view layer of mobile and web apps. It is capable of changing the data without having to reload the page. It was first tried on Facebook Newsfeed and the on Instagram. ReactJS can be used in combination with other frameworks such as AngularJS. There are many more simpler frameworks available in the market but still, ReactJS is making a mark. Why?

Let’s take a look at the live examples.

Live examples of usage of ReactJS:

1. Social networking apps: Facebook and Instagram are making partial use of ReactJS and its versions and a proof of that are various commendable features like Google Maps API, geolocations, search engine accuracy and more.

2. Video streaming applications: Netflix used ReactJS on its platform Gibbon where the ReactJS library has helped it for the runtime performance, startup speed, modularity etc.

3. Mailing systems: Yahoo!’s mail uses React and the engineers working on the platform wanted easy debugging, shorter learning curve and independency on large platform libraries so they went for ReactJS as it has one way reactive data flow and also virtual DOM allows server and client side rendering.  

4. Cloud storage services: Dropbox has shifted to ReactJS for its efficient features which are contributing towards its success.

Advantages:

a. The creation of dynamic web application has become easier with ReactJS. Earlier, it used to be a tricky affair with complicated HTML strings.

b. For the new developers, ReactJS is an easy walk as its features are easy to implement. It has the advantage of access to Javascript GUI library as well.

c. It also allows developers to reuse the components that have been designed earlier for some other application which makes them save time and additional efforts.

d. Isomorphic apps can be developed using ReactJS. It allows you to use the same code for both server side and client side components of application.   

e. Developers used to complain about javascript frameworks not being SEO friendly but ReactJS has emerged out as an exception. It lets developer created user friendly UI which is traceable by search engines.

Reasons to opt ReactJS:

A. Development efficiency: With ReactJS, you can break the project into multiple components which facilitates developers to write clean and modular code.

B. High performance apps: The core features of its library like server side rendering and virtual DOM allow developers to create even complex apps fast.

C. SEO friendly sites: As we have already mentioned, ReactJS is an SEO friendly framework which makes the project better optimized for the search engines.

D. Reliability: ReactJS is reliable as it has been developed by Facebook which is mainiting the library even now along with 1000+ other contributors worldwide. So, it is a reliable framework.

Drawbacks:

1. The new tools keep on increasing and hence it becomes tricky for the developers to understand what the code is.

2. One of the biggest drawbacks of ReactJS is its architecture keeps on changing.

3. Because of its complexity, JSX (JavaScript extension syntax) is not used by every web developer.

Which one should be used for your next project?

Going for AngularJS can be assumed for developing core skeleton for a frontend app whereas reactJS can used to improvise some parts. Both the javascript frameworks are widely used by the developers but it completely depends upon the project requirements regarding which one to choose. ReactJS is not actually a framework but a library. It would always require lesser of coding and would bestow a better performance. But, Angular gets support from a larger community and hence it can a firm point to consider while choosing AngularJS.