React > Angular!
You’ve probably heard the debate over and over. Which is better: “React or Angular?” But really, you can’t compare those two. Here’s why:
Angular Framework
Angular is a framework that provides everything you need to build web applications, including software architecture, dependencies injections, CLI to generate code…
It is battery included:
- comes with typescript
- component rendering
- routing @angular/router
- dependencies injection
- state management with services
- form validation FormControl, ReactiveForm
- HTTP client for making REST API calls
- boiler code command line generator
When starting a project with Angular, you don’t have to make many software architecture choices. Basically you can just go with “the angular flow” follow the documentation, and things shouldn’t go wrong.
React.js component rendering library
On the other hand, React is just a library for rendering UI components. It’s up to you to pick and combine other libraries to build and architecture your application. Such as:
- adding typescript or to stick with javascript,
- react-router, hookrouter, universal-router, …
- state management with context, redux, hookstate, rematch, redux ToolKit, useQuery, …
- form validation with Formik, Final Form, hand made validation, …
- HTTP client with: Axios, Superagent, Fetch api, …
A more appropriate comparison would be between Angular and Next.js, a framework built on top of React.
Angular or React which one to pick ?
As a junior developer, Angular might be a good choice because it can help you avoid making bad architectural choices.
However, with the guidance of an experienced React developer, there’s no reason a junior developer should avoid React.
Personally, I prefer React (with typescript). Mainly because I feel it give me a better workflow. But I have also seen poorly architectured React projects that were costly to refactor…
It’s up to you!
Just be aware that with React not all answer are provided and you will have to take architectural decisions, and to pick up the right library as well.
