Angular and React are two widely popular JS frameworks used by Software Professionals across the globe for creating rich content and interactive web application development particularly the front end. The two frameworks are used in the context of developing what users actually see and visualize. For example, giants like Facebook, Amazon, and Google have already widely using these frameworks to add their popularity.
Angular was formally known as Angular.js dominated front-end development landscape as developers could now create single page applications which let developers create single-page applications using MVC design pattern. Its inception is in the year 2010. As Angular is created by Google, It was well adapted by a large developer community. Angular was rated over 11% higher in relation to the Most Popular Technologies.
2013, Facebook released React which challenged the way that developers thought about how Front-End applications should be built. During this time, Angular used an MVC pattern and was a strongly opinionated framework, meaning that if the developer wanted to use Angular, they had to do things “the Angular way”.
React, which gave developers the flexibility to build applications using a centralized immutable state approach (all of the data in the application is in one place, remaining unchanged as opposed to MVC) such as Redux, whilst having the freedom to use any other libraries alongside this lightweight, but the powerful centrepiece of the application. Facebook then became a major contributor to the Front-End Developer community.
According to Stack Overflow 2018 Developer survey, (containing data from over 100,000 respondents), Angular was rated over 11% higher in relation to the Most Popular Technologies. The previous year’s survey rated Angular.JS as over 20% more popular than React in this category, however much has changed since then with React gaining favor with the developer community at a rapid rate. The survey concluded “Node.js and AngularJS continue to be the most commonly used technologies in this category, with React and .Net Core also important to many developers”.
As previously discussed, React coupled with Redux changed the way that developers built web applications. However, developers have now started to use Redux with Angular instead of MVC! This could further cement Angular as the preferred framework of choice; although, for many, it still remains far too opinionated which prevents many developers from upgrading their legacy Angular.JS applications to Angular.
Will Angular overtake React this year?
Looking at the numbers, it could be argued that Angular has indeed never been overtaken by React, however, it is a well-known fact in the developer community, that despite these numbers, the underlying perception of the React versus Angular debate remains fierce with React winning many of these recent battles. The truth of the matter will unfold as the year progresses and more developers upgrade their legacy applications to either React or Angular. It’s an exciting time for Software Engineers.
At Krify, we have experienced Web developers with Angular and React skill sets to work for your projects and to be an integral part of your projects.
