Why Do Companies Choose React over Angular?

Web development is rapidly advancing with the growth of technology. Angular and React are often the first frameworks that come to mind when considering front-end development using JavaScript. However, it can take time to determine which one is the best choice for a specific project and if you should hire ReactJS developers or not. In this article, we will compare the popularity, key differences, learning curves, and overall enjoyment of using Angular versus React based on our experience with both open-source technologies. This comparison helps clarify why companies are leaning towards React for web and app development.

Table of Content
Popularity of both the frameworks
Differences between React and Angular
For Mobile App Development
These companies uses React
Why Reactjs is winning here, or not?
Summing it up

In The Battle Of Angular vs React: Which One Is Popular?

It is advisable to consider the popularity of a framework before choosing which one to use. A large, active community can provide quick solutions to any problems that may arise during development. According to data gathered at the time of writing, React, and Angular have different levels of popularity over time. On GitHub, React’s repository has 164k stars, while Angular’s repositories (including AngularJS and Angular2) have 130k stars. Both frameworks have a significant following, as they are among the most starred repositories. In terms of npm (Node Package Manager) downloads, the 2020 Stack Overflow survey shows that 35.9% of developers prefer React, while 25.1% use Angular. While one of the most popular web frameworks, Angular is also the most despised. Angular has more questions labeled than React, in actuality.

There are several aspects at play here to make React’s popularity grow exponentially, including:

• As React became older, developers took over as the primary users of this technology.
• React is less complicated than Angular; it ramps up faster. 
• With React, it is possible to develop tech solutions in less time, which is more suitable for startups.

Differences Between Angular And React

Even though both frameworks use component-based architecture and have a few features in common, they also have numerous dissimilarities.

Purpose

A complete software development framework is what makes up Angular. With Angular, you don’t need other libraries because it includes data binding, component-based routing, form validation, and dependency injection. Also, Angular seems to have solid views about how the app should be structured. It offers many integrated tiny libraries that can be extremely helpful for developing advanced apps.

React, on the contrary, is famous for building exceptional UI. So, React-based projects need the integration of additional libraries. As a result, React allows for more flexibility in how the code is organized. Flux is required to implement the MVC architecture, which it primarily focuses on.

Language

TypeScript, a superset of JavaScript, is a statically typed language that Angular supports. Typos are easier to locate and navigation of code is simple in TypeScript. React code is written in JavaScript ES6+ paired with JSX scripts, which extend JavaScript syntax to become HTML-like. Code translation tools (such as Babel) can be added to React to compile JSX code in a browser, there are many React developer tools that come in handy for ReactJS development. Additionally, TypeScript can also be used with React, but it is not included by default.

UI Components

Angular delivers numerous material design components, including different layouts, buttons, pop-ups, and other features. This enables quick and easy UI configuration.

Installing the Material-UI library and dependencies is required for React to use the available material design components. These community-developed UI tools provide a vast selection of UI components (with free and paid options).

Data Binding

Data synchronization between the Model and View is called data binding. Angular supports dynamic data and a bidirectional data-binding method. This means that when changes to the UI’s input take place, the model state will also change and vice versa.

React, on the other hand, employs a unidirectional (or one-way) data-binding method. As a result, changing a UI element does not alter a component’s state, which can ease debugging.

DOM (Document Object Model)

In simple terms, In a browser, the DOM represents the current view that the user is looking at. Although DOM modifications by web developers can alter what visitors view, they come with a performance penalty. Because of this, both frameworks attempt to reduce the expense of these operations. They do this by improving how the DOM re-renders the view following an update. Both these technologies make use of DOM. React employs a virtual DOM, whereas Angular uses a real DOM. The entire tree structure is updated when an adjustment is performed in Angular. And it makes up for its flaw by employing change detection to find components that need to be changed.

React may change a single element without updating the entire tree structure since it uses a virtual DOM.

Dependency Injection

When classes receive references to other classes (dependencies), a programming technique called dependency injection is employed. Because Angular provides dependency injection, it can have different life cycles for various stores, unlike React. 

React, on the other hand, does not fully enable dependency injection because all of its components share a global state, violating functional programming principles and data authenticity.

Performance

Due to the Virtual DOM trees created on the server and being relatively lightweight, React has an advantage over Angular in runtime performance. React’s data-binding process is unidirectional, which means that bindings are not given watchers, reducing workload.

With Angular, this is not the case. Since the data binding process is bidirectional, each binding needs a watcher to monitor changes, and each loop continues until all watchers (and associated values) are confirmed. As a result, the bidirectional data binding procedure may harm Angular’s performance.

Tools

Angular and React have different functionalities. Additionally, React depends more on a state management library. Thus, state management procedures, API interaction, and routing may all be optimized using libraries like Helmet, Redux, and React Router. In contrast, Angular includes many features (such as data binding, project generation, and component-based routing) without needing other libraries. To enhance its features, it can, if desired, make use of state management libraries (like NgRx and RxJS).

Angular Vs React: In Terms Of Mobile App Development

The smartphone industry took off in the 2010s. As a result, web apps need to be designed responsively so they can be viewed on small screens. This is a hurdle for those technologies because they must enable mobile integration while enabling developers to use a tech stack to which they are currently accustomed. React, and Angular make it easier to reuse code for web and mobile apps, and they can provide excellent runtime performance that rivals native programs. 

Development of cross-platform mobile apps is possible with both Angular and React. Angular, however, does not officially support mobile app development. For developing mobile apps using Angular, Ionic and NativeScript are the most popular platforms, while React is supported by Facebook with React Native. This is where React Native steals the show. Besides its performance is close to native apps, it is also the most popular platform for mobile app development.

Which Companies Use React?

• Airbnb
• Atlassian
• Dropbox
• Facebook
• Netflix
• Pinterest
• Uber
• Zendesk

Why is React Winning the Hearts of Developers & Companies?

Declarative Nature: React’s declarative nature means that when you write a component, all you need to do is tell the system how you want it to appear. You don’t need to worry about its various states or the other website parts. React will take care of that. This eases the development process for developers and saves companies time. However, it is important to keep in mind a few factors before hiring developers.

Simple Learning curve: React is really just simple JavaScript with a few extra functions. React is significantly easier to grasp than Angular, which requires learning an entire framework. However, it comes at the expense of having to study numerous outside libraries. But with the vast community support of React, Developers can gain the necessary knowledge to go ahead in no time.

React is incredibly straightforward: React is a precise library concentrating on only one thing: creating user interfaces. Companies who want to develop complex UI can leverage ReactJS development.

Summing it up

Choosing the best framework might be challenging when so many options are available, each with unique characteristics. When selecting between Angular and React, We believe that the decision comes down to the project’s requirements because both technologies solve the same challenges in somewhat different ways. The decision-making process must consider that while Angular offers more built-in functionality, React has a lower learning curve and faster development. Choosing React for development can enrich, simplify, and accelerate growth. If you still have questions about the hows and whys of React Development, get in touch with us right away and our experts will put an end to all queries and will start materializing your vision.