Like many other "battles" in IT, the industry we will be talking about this time is also by industry veterans. ReactJS, a JavaScript library created and maintained by Facebook, is often compared to Angular, a Google-run programming framework. But is there a clear winner in this fight? Which of these two solutions is better for your company?

We prepared this short guide on ReactJS vs Angular to help you find the answers to those questions. As a group of experts who react to both web development as well as angular-based projects on a daily basis, we know exactly the main pros and cons that need to be considered when choosing the right front-end solution Might be possible.

The Basic Difference

(If you have some knowledge about libraries and design, you can skip this article)

Let's start with the basics. As previously mentioned, ReactJS is a library, while Angular is a framework.

What's the Difference?

A real-life library is a place where books are collected. What is a JavaScript library? A collection of small pieces of code that allows you to add some new functions to your app or website.

How about the framework? Think about the first frame. What is this in real life? It can be, for example, something of a case in which you can put your family photos or a nice painting to hang on a wall. If you have a specific frame and your photo is too big for it, the only thing you can do really quickly is cut out the image - it makes the frame small enough to fit.

In the world of software development, the framework is providing you with a specific standard for your website or application. In other words, it determines the architecture of your project that you simply cannot change. As you cut the photo to fit the frame, you need to make sure that you are coding in a way that determines your framework.

So what does this mean for all of you? This ReactJS gives you more freedom. You can add a function from the ReactJS library to your already existing app or website. On the other hand, if you want to use Angular, then your product should be built with this framework from the beginning.

Getting Deeper

Nevertheless, components are one of the most important things for both ReactJS and Angular. what is that? Sets of pre-written code that allow developers to add new functions to the project if they will try to write all the code by themselves.

What can a component do? For example, it may provide an ABC survey system for your blog or a purchase system for your new shopping platform.

However, there are some obvious differences that we should consider in ReactJS vs Angular Battle.

One of them is the fact that ReactJS - unlike Angular - uses virtual DOMs instead of regular ones. What is DOM (Document Object Model)? An abstract API (application programming interface) presents parts of an HTML document in the form of a tree. Each of these parts of the document (such as the header of a website) has its own dedicated node and object. This is incredibly important as it allows the program to quickly access all the information required from the document to run the application.

Virtual DOM makes the whole process even faster. Unlike the regular DOM, it only updates parts of the document tree where recent changes have occurred. The regular DOM, on the other hand, updates the entire tree every time. This difference makes ReactJS faster than angular in some cases.

We must consider the fact that the present angular is sometimes also called Angular 2. This is because Google has previously been working on a different framework, which was previously built in 2009 by AngularJS.

However, although Angular (or Angular 2, if you prefer) is clearly a continuation of the previous project, it cannot be mistaken with AngularJS. There are several important differences between these two outlines, and there is no easy way to simply move your project from AngularJS to Angular 2. This is the reason why AngularJS is used less and less by developers these days and Google itself announced that the company should stop supporting the framework on 30 June 2021. Because of this, AngularJS is no longer considered as a viable solution for new projects. Instead, all interest is focused on Angular 2.

The Easier, The Better?

JavaScript is also known these days by people who never had any history with coding. Most basic courses on web development focus on the first three basic steps: learning HTML, learning CSS and learning JavaScript. This popularity means that JavaScript developers are relatively easy to find.

Unlike React, Angular is based on a superset of JavaScript, called TypeScript. It is a very new technology, first introduced to the world by Microsoft in 2012. In comparison, JavaScript seems to be an ancient technology introduced back in 1995.

TypeScript is less known than JavaScript and is also commonly referred to as a more difficult programming language to learn. This means that it can be difficult for you to find a TypeScript developer, but if you find one, they will already have some significant and useful experience in coding.

In addition, TypeScript explicitly demands more from the developer writing the code than JavaScript. This can help you when the transition occurs and requires you to pass a project on to other programmers in the team.

For some time, TypeScript has also been praised for real-life code testing, which helps identify common mistakes in the code-writing process. However, in 2014 Facebook began working on a similar solution for JavaScript and React, called Flow. Rather than being a separate programming language, learning to use real-life bug checks would require, Flip is only a static type checker for JavaScript, as Facebook executives say.

The Cornerstones

No structure and no library will be successful without the support of a growing community. At first glance, the battle of React vs. Angular seems relatively close in this case. But is it really?

Let's focus on some numbers.

First, Google Trends data.

Blue is for one reaction, red is for angular. As you can see, Google's framework was doing better than Facebook's library for some time. However, it changed in early 2018 and now React is being searched more in Google.

Let's take a look at some of the more important figures - the list of the most popular repositories on GitHub. There, the reactor ranks 5th, overseeing Angular. The latter also contributes no less. Finally, commits are becoming more frequent in the case of react.

Finally, it may also be useful to have a look at the annual stack overflow survey. As of its 2018 version, Angular is currently used more often by top AngularJs developers than React (36,9% vs. 27,8%). However, React is more preferred (69,4% vs. 54,6%) as well as more desirable (21,3% vs. 14,3%) technology among top react native developers. Finally, what may be particularly interesting for Google is the fact that Angular is one of the most dangerous technologies on the market (45,4% vs. 30,6%). This can be an effect of a few things, including the fact that angular is more complex than angular (especially for newcomers) due to the use of TypeScript.