Angular vs React vs Vue – Navigating the Best Fit for You

Introduction

The pace of technological change is accelerating at an alarming rate. Over the years, a lot of new tools and methodologies have been introduced into the business world, though not all of them remain for the long run. This programming language, JavaScript, has successfully established its roots across all the industry verticals and has become one of the leading programming languages.

In a recent survey by Statista, 65.36% of developers cited JavaScript as a key reason for their love of the language. In the last few years, JavaScript has been developing desktop and mobile applications for both the client-side and the server-side programming language.

When it comes to choosing the right framework out of the wide variety of frameworks available, JavaScript developers usually get confused because there are so many options. Although there are multiple frameworks to choose from JavaScript, three are the most popular: Angular.js, React.js, and Vue.js. 

Angular js, React js, and Vue js are among the top JavaScript frameworks that keep developing at an accelerated pace. Check out Google Trends in the figure below, the blue, red, and yellow lines represent Angular js, React js, and Vue.js, popularity respectively.

There is however a very difficult decision to make between these three and to help you out of this dilemma, you should read the article below. Here we will be comparing different aspects of Angular vs React vs Vue.

What is a Framework?

A framework is a reusable and standardized set of concepts, practices, and code libraries that provide a foundational structure for developing applications or solving problems within a specific domain or context. It serves as a blueprint or a skeleton, offering pre-built components, tools, and conventions that developers can leverage to build upon, extend, and customize according to their specific requirements. Frameworks aim to promote consistency, code reuse, and best practices, thereby facilitating efficient and organized development processes.

A Quick Comparison of Angular vs. React vs. Vue

After doing a thorough analysis of Angular vs React vs Vue we tried to sum up all in the comparison table for you to understand it in a better and easy way.

Parameter ANGULAR PNGreact icon vuejs
Developed byGoogleFacebookCommunity
Framework Size143k43k23k
Initial ReleaseOctober 20, 2010May 29, 2013February 2014
Programming languageTypescriptJavaScriptJavaScript
UI componentIn-built material tech stackReact UI toolsComponent Libraries
SyntaxReal DOMVirtual DOMVirtual DOM
Prevalent ArchitectureMVCFluxFlux
Learning curveSteepModerateModerate
ScalabilityModular development structureComponent-based approachTemplate-based approach
MigrationsAPI upgradeReact code mod scriptMigration helper tool
Code reusabilityYesNO, CSS onlyYes, HTML and CSS
DocumentationYes, simple and point to point documentationYes, official documentation is somehow limited and not be the best suites for a newbieYes, quality documentation is available
Component-basedYesYesYes
CLIAngular-CLI is available that is loved by Angular developersNo official CLI, but in general, https://github.com/ Facebook/create-react-app is usedVue-CLI is proficient and it enables you to set up your project using the desired template such as webpack or browser 

Coding speedSlowNormalFast
Data bindingBi-directionalUni-directionalBi-directional
RenderingClient-sideServer-sideServer-side

Detailed Comparison Between Angular vs React vs Vue

Angular JS

AngularJS was first released by Google in 2010 as a framework for building web applications. The Angular 2 framework appeared in 2016, which is a total rewrite of the original AngularJS framework. There have been several new versions since then. The most recent is currently Angular 13.

A lot of single-page applications are created using this JS framework, which is open-source and free. As it is based on the MVW architecture, it has become a very popular choice for building cross-platform apps. It offers both client-side MVC and MVVM architecture, which makes the development of JavaScript applications easier for developers. A lot of businesses are using the advantages of outsourcing their development to the AngularJs development company.

Big Brands that Use Angular JS

React JS

In 2013, Facebook released React as a tool to combat the problems triggered by high volumes of traffic that were generated by its Facebook ads. However, it also resolved issues related to coding and maintenance. In short, it is a popular framework for JS developers who want to develop single-page websites as well as mobile applications. The Js framework is open-source, accessible to everyone, and contains features that will help you create iPhone and Android applications. Nowadays, large businesses are using React to build their web apps. In addition, it is also well known for its ability to render top-notch support for the development of interactive user interfaces. As of October 2020, the latest stable version of the application came out 17. X.

It is actually a JavaScript library used to build UIs for web and mobile applications. The technology is now supported by both Facebook and Instagram (Now Meta) and has developed into an essential part of the endless feed functionality in these applications. In terms of React’s sphere of use, it is a JS library with a limited range of applications, however, when combined with other libraries, it becomes a powerful solution, making it a competitive tool against Angular. 

Big Brands that Use React JS

Vue Js

Evan You, a former employee of Google who worked on Angular when he was a Googler, created the Vue framework. Vue.JS is a lightweight, powerful, open-source framework that can handle all kinds of web applications and be released in the year 2014. In terms of the development of single-page applications, the application of component composition technique is in high demand, particularly for the user interface. As a result of the combination of React.js and AngularJS, developers can develop beautiful, engaging, and high-quality web applications with Vue js.

Vue.js is generally defined as a web framework for developing user interfaces in a progressive manner. Vue was built so that users could adopt the framework incrementally, as opposed to Angular.

Vue 3 introduces some exciting new features and updates to Vue.js. Among the new features are the accurate production of standalone reactive objects, async error handling, the introduction of Slots, and more.

Vue JS has been getting a lot of attention lately as one of the hottest topics to discuss when it comes to the framework. 

Big Brands that Use Vue JS

Popularity

Angular JS

Google is the creator of Angular, but it’s surprising that it’s not included in its flagship products such as Google Search or YouTube. According to BuiltWith’s data, Angular Js powers more than 4,124,306 websites. Moreover, it is often used in enterprise projects.

The framework has 68k stars on GitHub, the least number of stars of the three. When switching from Angular 1 to Angular 2, the developers instead created an entirely new repository instead of continuing the original AngularJS project, which has also been endorsed 59K times.

React JS

As one of the most popular JavaScript projects on GitHub, React has 160k stars, making it one of the most popular projects. Facebook is the company that developed and maintains this application, and many of its internal projects make use of this framework. Moreover, it is used by more than 10,499,785 websites, as evidenced by BuiltWith’s usage statistics.

Vue JS

There are now 181k stars for Vue on GitHub, which makes it the most popular web framework out of the three. The project is regarded by the Open-Source community to be a very strong, independent undertaking, and it is used by over 3,225,891 websites according to BuiltWith.

Performance

Angular JS

Since Angular uses the real DOM instead of a Virtual DOM, it renders the web application a lot slower than React and Vue as a result of its Real DOM implementation. This means that whenever an object is changed by Angular, it updates the entire tree structure of the DOM.

React JS

Performance is one of the greatest advantages of using React. This library offers a number of features that make it possible, including:

  • In order to maximize efficiency, a virtual DOM is used which only re-renders nodes as required.
  • In order to minimize user resource consumption, there is support for bundling and tree-shaking.
  • There is also server-side rendering (SSR) support to improve performance, search engine visibility, and social sharing of content.

Vue JS

As far as performance is concerned, Vue is an incredibly fast tool to use. The size of this technology, 22.9KB after gzipping, makes it likely that it will have a long future.

The manageable size of Vue, along with the ability for part of its technology to be implemented incrementally, makes this tool an excellent choice.

Moreover, because Vue js is an easy framework to learn, unlike other frameworks like Angular, it is a great framework for both beginners and professionals alike. Vue’s documentation has been consistent in its updates and it is easy to integrate into projects, so developers can start using it right away.

Important Features

Angular JS

With Angular’s MVC structure, it is possible to divide a page into logical chunks, resulting in a faster loading time of a web page. In addition to separating concerns, the MVC model also allows views to be allocated to the client and therefore drastically reduces the number of queries occurring on the background side. Also, the tool communicates asynchronously, which means fewer server calls are needed in order to communicate with it.

Data-binding – Thanks to this amazing feature, developers no longer have to write long lines of code. By connecting the model and view components together, data is synchronized with the model.

Templates – HTML data parsed directly into the DOM by the browser.

Dependency Injection – It aids in natural development, analysis, and evaluation.

Directives – By using this feature, you can create your own HTML tags that serve as the new custom widgets.

React JS

You can make web and mobile apps using React, a front-end library developed by Facebook. It is typically referred to as a library because, in an MVC architecture, the view layer is the only part of the system and not the whole thing.

One of the advantages of React is that it is a very flexible framework and it is able to connect with several packages that have been designed for it, which makes it easier to put together a complete application.

MVC Architecture

Components – React is a JavaScript framework that enables declarative and component-based development. In other words, UIs are created by breaking down web pages into smaller components. Components are a useful tool when you have to maintain your code while you are working on large projects.

JSX – This javascript extension informs developers that the code needs to be processed and converted to javascript. By simplifying the syntax, JSX makes coding easier. You can use React with Angular and Backbone very easily.

In contrast to other libraries and frameworks, React does not impose an architecture pattern. Components in React are essentially simple structuration units like labels and buttons or a bit complex like user profiles or registration forms. You can use it as a user interface for your web app.

Vue JS

In practice, it can be described as a progressive framework with a variety of features that can be used to build user interfaces, such as Virtual DOM, Two-way data binding, CSS transition and automation, template, computed properties, and many more important features.

Learning Curve

Angular JS

Out of the three, Angular is the most complex, and since it’s a full-blown front-end framework, it relies on a larger set of concepts. Apart from components, Angular provides support modules and services. When scaling your project, you are expected to write and design your codebase in a particular way that will help to make your project more maintainable.

The use of TypeScript makes the learning curve of Angular steepest among these three frameworks. Also, the components, syntax, and modules look different than you used to before. Although, its powerful features of it help Angular developers to build applications following certain coding patterns.

For an average developer, I believe Angular is the most difficult to learn since it relies heavily on TypeScript.

React JS

For developers, the learning curve for React is simpler than other languages for they don’t have to spend a lot of time relearning the programming language. As a result, React is built on top of what developers are already familiar with- JavaScript. With its simple design, JSX (an HTML-like syntax), and highly detailed documentation, the React library is one of the best for developers who want to make web design easier to implement and iterate.  

You can get started with React with the Getting Started guide, which should help you set up React in a matter of minutes. Stack Overflow provides comprehensive documentation with solutions to common issues. Despite its popularity, React does not offer a complete framework and a number of advanced features need to be implemented by third-party libraries.

Vue JS

As a result, Vue provides a higher level of customizability than Angular or React, which makes it easier to learn. The other benefit of Vue is that it overlaps with other web frameworks like Angular and React in terms of their functionality like how components are used. In light of this, it should be easy to transition from either of these two platforms to Vue. The simplicity and flexibility of Vue, however, is a double-edged sword – it allows developers to write poor code, complicating the debugging process.

Scripting Language

Angular JS

In Angular, TypeScript is used. As a statically typed programming language, TypeScript requires you to declare the type of each variable (string, character, number, array, etc.). The idea is to make TypeScript more friendly to developers that come from an object-oriented programming background.

// JavaScript
function getEmp(name,age) {
return name + age;
}
// TypeScript
function getEmp(name:string,age:number) {
return name + age;
}

React JS

It is a framework that combines UI templates and JavaScript logic, which is a concept that has never been implemented before by any other framework. The resulting style is called the JSX. The way that reacts works is that it uses a component, which contains both the code and the markup in one file. In order to use react, you must understand JavaScript framework.

Vue JS

There are three different parts to the Framework: HTML, Js, and CSS. It is straightforward for new developers to adapt to the template-based approach of VueJS, and these developers can easily adapt to the programming style promoted by VueJS.

Community Support

Angular JS

It is also worth noting that Angular has a fairly large following on GitHub with more than 556K repositories, 1 million commits, and 570K issues in the codebase. Some of the Github repositories for Angular are angular.js, angular-CLI, and angular-seed.

React JS

It is true that a large number of individual React developers are contributing to making React a better frontend framework on a daily basis. In terms of numbers, React JS has achieved more than 1 lakh stars on Github, and there are more than 1,300 regular contributors.

There are also a few experts that upload free tutorial videos on YouTube regarding React every now and then, as well as writing detailed tutorial articles and blogs about React on the internet. Google, for example, returns 10,00,00,000+ hits for simple “React tutorial”.

On top of that, React experts answer questions on popular QA sites such as Quora and Stack Overflow, regularly. Therefore, it means that if you get stuck at any point while trying to use React, you can always get reliable solutions given by experts.

Vue JS

The Vue JS development team is backed up by a large number of high-end developers that can assist you with any questions you have.

Since it has Chinese roots, most of the related materials are in Chinese. Nevertheless, there is no need to worry about this as more and more official documentation and support are now available in English. The community is expanding westward.

Vue has a total of approximately 308k repositories, 812K commits, and over 302K issues available on GitHub. In the past year, Vue GitHub repositories like vue-awesome-swiper, vuejs.org, and vue-Apollo have achieved a great deal of recognition.

In contrast to Angular and React, Vue is not developed by a major corporation. You might think that this has led to a significant decline in its popularity. This is not the case at all. The fact that the project is open source has resulted in a tremendous increase in its popularity.

Future Growth

Angular JS

There has been an introduction to the Ivy Compiler recently by Angular. As a result, build times are reduced, assets are optimized, testing times are sped up, and the developer experience is generally improved.

The Angular team generally releases major updates to its framework multiple times a year. During these updates, new features and browser updates are added. A regular schedule of versions, releases, and depreciation periods is announced by the Angular team.

Since last year, Angular’s weekly downloads have grown gradually.

React JS

React JS will not disappear. Globally, it is ranked as the number one web framework by Stack Overflow. Therefore, React is far ahead of its competitors such as jQuery or Vue in the competition, as compared to them.

Even in developing countries such as India, this trend is visible not only in developed countries such as the US. The number of open positions for React JS developers increased by 184% post-COVID, according to a recent report. We can therefore conclude that React will continue to dominate on a global scale for many years to come.

Aside from that, React is still alive and kicking. The Facebook team is responsible for making sure that the tool is constantly updated to offer the best features and capabilities. It is also interesting to note the interest being shown in React JS. There is an increasing amount of investment being made in order to advance the framework and ancillary resources. There was an investment of $40 million placed by a tech company in December to work on developing a React framework. As a result, React will continue to be available in the future. With every passing year, there will also be an increased need for front-end React developers.

Nevertheless, developers should concentrate their skills on improving their JavaScript skills in order to become quality programmers. Do not limit your skillset to only React JS, as it will hinder your employability. Try to broaden your skillset and knowledge in order to be able to undertake a wider range of positions.

Vue JS

In September 2020, Vue 3 was released, and it resolved many serious problems that Vue 2 had with large projects. There have been some changes in the composition API. It was inspired by React Hooks and enables reusing logic between components.

In addition, the project was rewritten entirely in TypeScript, so that new Vue projects will be able to take advantage of TypeScript support while making the project more maintainable at the same time.

The latest release of Vue 3 is a much-needed upgrade and makes Vue a more suitable tool for large-scale projects.

It is, in fact, the fastest-growing framework in terms of relative growth, which has seen Vue’s downloads grow by 87 percent since last year. I am confident that if Vue is able to keep up this growth rate, then it will surely surpass Angular soon.

Framework Size

Angular JS

In the context of development frameworks, size matters, because it is directly related to the application performance. Both the JS framework and the app itself need to be downloaded before the application becomes functional. Angular is the heaviest of all with 143k. If you are looking to build a large-scale feature application for your next project, then Angular is the platform for you.

React JS

The reason React is a good choice for modern web development is that when you use it, you are not burdened by a huge list of libraries. The Size of React is around 43k. There are a variety of features that can be used in React JS development to enable developers to create templates for testing utilities.

Vue JS

Vue is the cleanest in comparison to these three web frameworks. It helps you keep your code efficient with the perfect balance of internal dependencies and flexibility. Vue.js is the most lightweight – its size is only 23k. It is a very simple, straightforward, and easy-to-use JavaScript framework that aims to simplify web development.

Advantages

Angular JS

  • Effective Cross-Platform Development
  • High Quality of the Application
  • Improved Speed and Performance
  • Faster Development Process
  • Readable and Testable Code
  • More Lightweight Web Applications
  • Efficient Problem-Solving Patterns
  • Excellent Material Design Library

ReactJS

  • Makes JavaScript coding easier
  • Extremely competent
  • Excellent cross-platform support
  • Handles dependencies
  • Template designing made easy
  • Provides amazing developer tools
  • UI focused designs
  • Easy to adopt

Vue JS

  • Ease of Learning
  • Memory Consumption
  • Speed of Download
  • Readability
  • Server-Side Rendering
  • Scope of Integration

Disadvantages

Angular JS

  • Javascript support mandatory
  • Inexperience with MVC
  • Possible time consumption
  • Difficult in learning

ReactJS

  • Lack of Proper Documentation
  • Development Speed
  • Dynamic technology
  • Problems with SEO

Vue JS

  • Lack of resources.
  • Risk of over flexibility
  • Chinese background. 
  • Lack of Support for Large Projects
  • Language Barriers
  • Lack of Plugins

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Angular vs React vs Vue – Over to You!

The long-term relevance of frameworks cannot be predicted, but each web framework has a dedicated community and is constantly evolving.

Angular vs React vs Vue: Who wins? Analyzing your goals and project complexity is the only way you can answer this question. But let me share my opinion based on my experience and expertise working with these JavaScript frameworks.

  • Angular is the most mature framework among React and Vue. If your company has a large team and uses TypeScript, Angular might be a good solution.
  • React framework makes dynamic websites work seamlessly. React is an excellent choice for those just starting out with front-end JavaScript frameworks development and developers looking for more flexibility.
  • Vue – even though it has just started – seems to be increasing significantly in the web development field by combining best features of Angular and React. If you’re looking for simplicity and flexibility, Vue is the right choice for you.

Your business needs and the vision you have for your web app will determine what kind of framework or library you require. It would be best to hire a front-end development services company and explain in detail what you need from the app, they will help you to find the best possible solutions for you.

Since WPWeb Infotech has been advancing in the field of Full-Stack JavaScript Development services for some time, we can be your reliable development partner. For any doubt, query or confusion, do not hesitate to reach out to us for a quick discussion on which framework would suit your business the best. Get a 30-minutes free consultation from our expert.

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author
Jigar Shah is the Founder of WPWeb Infotech - a leading Web Development Company in India, USA. Being the founder of the company, he takes care of business development activities and handles the execution of the projects. He is Enthusiastic about producing quality content on challenging technical subjects.

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