Angular, Vue, and React are three prominent leaders of JavaScript frameworks in 2024. While they work almost as perfect alternatives for each other, they all have unique philosophies, strengths, and weaknesses.
It can be not easy to navigate between the three and choose the right library for your project. Hence, we aim to provide a detailed analysis between Angular, Vue, and React to assist you in your ideal frontend
library selection process.
Angular vs Vue vs React -- Origins and Brief History
Let's start by learning a little about the origins of these popular JavaScript frameworks -
Angular Overview & History
Angular was developed by Google back in 2009 but was officially released in 2010. It was one of the pioneer modern JavaScript frameworks to challenge the traditional frontend frameworks like Ember, Backbone, and Knockout. This newly launched framework was named AngularJS or Angular 1. It gained massive popularity for its two-way data binding and use of MVC architecture. However, the early adopters soon realized a big flaw with Angular 1: it took a lot of work to scale for large applications.
To overcome this, the Angular team went all out in 2016 to do a complete rewrite of AngularJS and changed their focus on scalability and performance. They called this -- Angular 2 or simply Angular. All the
current versions of Angular are based on this version of Angular and provide backward compatibility till Angular 2. Google and a large and active open-source community of dedicated Angular developers still
maintain Angular.
React Overview & History
React was developed by Meta (formerly Facebook) back in 2013. What differs the most in React compared to Angular and Vue is that it focuses heavily on the 'View' layer. This new approach made React easy to
integrate with other popular frameworks and platforms. It also pioneered the idea of Virtual DOM for optimizing updates and re-rendering. Since Meta built it, React has been popularly used on Facebook and Instagram, which shows its ability to scale. Facebook and community contributors maintain it.
Vue Overview & History
Vue was developed by Evan You, an independent software developer, in 2014. He designed it to be a progressive framework that would be approachable for new developers but at the same time be capable of
scaling the requirements of complex applications. Being the newest kid in the modern JavaScript frameworks, Vue took ideas from AngularJS and React to provide an intuitive API. It quickly rose to the standards of
Angular and React in popularity and is one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks today. It is also maintained by an open-source community but still led by Evan You.
Angular vs Vue vs React -- Popularity
Let's compare Angular, Vue, and React in terms of popularity. All three frontend libraries are significantly popular, but comparing their usage and popularity helps give a better idea about their relevance.
Angular vs Vue vs React Google Trends
As you can see, React has outperformed Angular and Vue by a significant margin in holding interest over time regarding queries on Google Trends.
Angular vs Vue vs React -- Stack Overflow Trends Comparison
Yet again, React.js has reigned its supremacy regarding questions asked on Stack Overflow Trends, with Angular taking second place and Vue.js taking the third.
Angular vs Vue vs React -- Stack Overflow 2023 Survey
According to the Stack Overflow Survey conducted in 2023, React ranked #2^nd^ in web frameworks and technologies with 40.58% votes, Angular ranked #5^th^ with 17.46%, and Vue.js closed in on #8^th^ with 16.38%.
Angular vs Vue vs React -- Architecture Comparison
The next thing to compare is the architecture. Each of these technologies offers unique architectural approaches and features, making them suitable for different project types, complexity, and preferences.
Let's understand the core architecture concepts of Angular, Vue, and React --
Angular Architecture
Angular is a complete framework that follows the MVC architecture pattern. It has modules, components, services, directives, pipes, and other elements. This provides proper structure to Angular apps right out of the box. However, since Angular defines how things are supposed to work, it can feel a little restrictive at times. Angular also makes use of TypeScript, which compiles JavaScript.
Vue Architecture
Vue is a better release from Angular's restrictive nature, providing flexibility. Vue's core library focuses on the view layer. Hence, it is easier to integrate Vue with other libraries and ongoing projects. Vue is ideal for an incremental approach or a complete framework replacement, too, by adding Vue Router and Vuex.
React Architecture
React solely focuses on UI with its isolated and reusable components. It is often combined with other state management libraries like Redux, MobX, and others for state management, React Router for routing, and other libraries for other purposes. React apps work on JSX
-- an XML-like syntax that works well with React components.
Angular vs Vue vs React -- Performance
Performance is yet another important benchmark to compare Angular, Vue, and React on. Better performance translates to better user experience. Each framework has its strengths and weaknesses when it comes to performance. Here is how Angular, Vue, and React attempt to achieve maximum performance --
Rendering Efficiency --
React uses Virtual DOM for rendering requirements, which makes it the top performer for rendering updates. React excels in handling dynamic, complex UIs and minimizing unnecessary repaints/reflows.
Vue also adapts a Virtual DOM that matches React's rendering efficiency well. It also has a fine-grained reactivity system that helps optimize re-rendering.
Angular uses real DOM and a change detection mechanism for identifying changes in the application's data model. It follows a unidirectional data flow method, ensuring data changes propagate through the component tree from top to bottom. This method increases DOM updates, which can impact the performance negatively. However, Angular provides strategies to overcome such challenges. Apart from that, there are many Angular development best practices you can follow to improve Angular performance.
Bundle Size --
The bundle size of a web application affects performance, page loading times, and overall user experience. The bundle size will vary from one programming library to another depending on their constituents, methods, and approaches. Smaller bundle sizes would lead to faster initial page loading times, improved SEO, and better optimization of network resources. Large bundle sizes would lead to sluggish performance, especially for users with poor internet connections or mobile devices.
React and Vue have smaller bundle sizes than Angular, resulting in better performance in terms of initial loading speed and on slower networks.
Angular applications are larger due to their feature-rich ecosystem, leading to initial load times. However, Angular has provisions like tree-shakability and module system, which can help reduce the bundle size to some extent.
State Management Comparison --
State Management is a fundamental concept in web development that deals with data management and synchronization within a web application. It plays an important role in maintaining the app's behavior, handling user interactions, and ensuring consistent user experience. Many popular JavaScript frameworks and libraries like Redux, MobX, and VueX offer different state management solutions with different use cases. Let's understand how Angular, Vue, and React handle state management --
React doesn't dictate or impose a state management solution, which gives React developers the freedom to choose libraries like Redux, MobX, or Context API. The performance of the state management library would
depend on the chosen approach, implementation, and developers' experience.
Vue provides a built-in state management solution called Vuex. It offers optimal state management and state updates to help maintain optimal performance in large applications.
Angular has its state management system known as RxJS, which is robust but can be difficult to use. It offers fine-grained control over state updates and can be highly performant if configured correctly.
Angular vs Vue vs React Learning Curve
The learning curve refers to the ease of learning a programming language and available documentation and guides to refer to in your learning journey. Having a gentle learning curve can help train more developers
in technology. It also makes it easier to find and hire frontend developers who have expertise in a programming language.
Angular's Learning Curve
Angular has a steeper learning curve since it introduces many new concepts like TpyeScript, component directives, dependency injection, services, and more. While Angular's strict philosophy does provide a structure to your project, it also comes with the requirement of learning many abstractions.
Vue's Learning Curve
Vue, in comparison, is way easier to learn. With a straightforward API, it is easier to adopt Vue.js incrementally. Vue has similar core concepts like React -- components, props, and reactivity, which are easier to understand. However, Vue state management and integration with other popular tools can complicate the project.
React's Learning Curve
React is surprisingly easy to start, but you must constantly improve your skills to get the most out of React development services. It revolves around components, props, state, and Virtual DOM. Since the community is very active, it can take time to stay updated about the latest React development trends and changes. Hence, you should hire React.js developers who keep up with the latest React.js development trends and best practices.
Angular vs Vue vs React Release Stability
Release Stability ensures your project is reliable with a consistent user experience and uptime. It should contribute to customer satisfaction and trust by preventing data loss or corruption, reducing ongoing maintenance costs, and minimizing legal and compliance risks, amongst other critical factors. Let's see how Angular, Vue, and React compare to each other in terms of Release Stability.
Angular Release Stability
Google publishes new versions of Angular every year. This ensures the developer community gets a nice stream of new features. However, it also demands the developers be prepared to revamp their Angular app as
per the upcoming changes, which can take a lot of development effort due to deprecations and breaking changes.
Vue Release Stability
Vue rolls out stable releases with infrequent breaking changes. It rolls out minor versions every 2-3 months with new features. Vue has a great RFC process that provides a consistent and controlled path for new features to enter the framework.
React Release Stability
React pioneers in semantic versioning break changing are introduced only 1 or 2 times a year, which has helped React stay majorly stable throughout the years and versions. However, since React does depend a lot on third-party libraries and dependencies, their stability or lack thereof can impact your React project's stability.
Final Words
All three JavaScript libraries -- Angular, React, and Vue are capable of handling almost all types of projects in terms of complexity and even industry. However, there are still areas where one outshines the other two, and so on.
As a general guidance, where is when you should choose --
Angular for -- Enterprise Applications, Data-Intensive Applications, Cross-Platform Development
React for -- Component Libraries, Single Page Applications, Server-Side Rendering
Vue for -- Progressive Web Apps, Prototyping and Rapid Development, Integration with existing projects