When starting a new project, you are faced with a tough choice: what technology to choose in 2021. Moreover, making a choice is a fundamental pillar of any business. However, choosing between cutting-edge and popular technologies like AngularJS, React JS and Vue.js is complicated. The State of Javascript Survey 2020 revealed that React is considered to be the top choice (88% of respondents), Vue has caught up on the second position (85%) while Angular ranked the third one (42%).
[Angular vs React vs Vue Front-end Frameworks 2020 ]
It should be mentioned that each technology can be used interchangeably, but they are not 100% the same. Having that in mind, we are going to compare the features of these three top technologies and help you make an informed decision. Let’s dig deeper in the background of each technology to discover the baseline!
What’s Vue.js?
Introduced in 2014, Vue.js is used as a progressive framework to create animated and interactive user interfaces (UIs) and highly advanced single-page applications (SPAs). Being highly interactive and adaptable, it allows development teams to integrate it into existing projects easily. Not only does it provide built-in state management and a built-in router, but it also supports a great number of libraries and mobile tools. Companies such as Xiaomi, Alibaba, EuroNews, Adobe, Gitlab, Grammarly, WizzAir, Codeship, Behance and Reuters are among those who decided on Vue.js technology.
Key features of Vue.js
Let’s take a closer look at some essential features including:
- Data binding: with this feature, development teams can facilitate the manipulation of the HTML interface and reduce the complexity of keeping user input consistent with the application data model. Moreover, if a v-bind directive is used, you can change the style and update it simultaneously.
- Animation/Transitions: thanks to this feature, you can apply a variety of methods to implement transition effects when the UI elements are updated, inserted or removed from DOM.
- Components: this feature allows development teams to facilitate the extension of HTML elements to provide reusable widgets.
- Reactivity: with this feature, developers can communicate at every layer of the application and update the view base data modification by adjusting to data changes or events in a declarative manner.
- Computed properties: thanks to this feature, the code responds to the changes made on the user interface and then works out the calculations. A computed property is used for any logic that requires multiple expressions.
What are the Pros and Cons of Vue.js technology?
Here we are going to overview some benefits and limitations of Vue.js technology.
| Advantages of Vue.js | Disadvantages of Vue.js |
| It provides high speed and performanceIt is highly flexible and can be integrated into an existing application very easily It is easy to learnIt requires less optimization. | Has a pretty small market shareHas some issues when integrating into huge projectsLess community support |
What’s React?
According to the latest survey, React ranked 2nd among the most loved web frameworks. Coming from the MERN stack, React technology helps development teams to divide the UI elements into a collection of components to simplify and speed up the development process of simple, fast and scalable web applications. Not only does it open up ample opportunities to build sophisticated enterprise applications, but it is also useful if you have tight deadlines and performance and scalability are critical. Netflix, Airbnb, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Intercom, Atlassian, New York Times, Yahoo, Codecademy, Dropbox, Asana, Microsoft, Slack and many other companies opt for React technology.
Key features of React
Here we have presented some essential features of React technology. Don’t hesitate to read!
- JSX: thanks to this feature, front-end developers can easily modify DOM by using HTML-like syntax translated into JavaScript.
- Virtual DOM: this feature allows developers to maintain high app performance and guarantees a better user experience by removing the bottlenecks from code rendering.
- One-way data binding: thanks to this feature, development teams can apply a technique binding data sources from the provider and consumer together and synchronizing them.
- Reusable components: with this feature, front-end developers can dramatically reduce the development time in terms of multiple components utilized as building blocks with their logic and controls and being reused throughout the application.
- Extensions: this feature provides development teams with complete application architecture support. Not only does it offer server-side rendering, but it also sends a fully rendered page to the client automatically. Flux and Redux technologies apply this feature in web application development.
What are the Pros and Cons of React technology?
Here we are going to give an overview of the benefits and drawbacks of React technology.
| Advantages of React.js | Disadvantages of React.js |
| It offers high code stability and responsibility of code componentsIt is SEO-friendlyIt is easy to understandIt provides quick rendering | It moves away from class-based componentsLarge size libraryJSX syntax is not easy to learn |
What’s Angular?
Built by Google in 2009, Angular is used to simplify the front-end development process of the website. Moreover, it allows development teams to develop large enterprise applications with complex infrastructure. Not only does it provide flexibility and scalable infrastructure, but it also allows software engineers to create Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). Popular applications built using Angular are Youtube TV, PayPal, Gmail, Forbes and Google Cloud.
Key features of Angular
Here we are going to give a brief overview of some of the key features of Angular technology. Let’s dive into the details below!
- HTML UI: thanks to this feature, designers can implement different UI elements with ease. Moreover, teams of designers and developers can collaborate on the projects well.
- MVC architecture: this concept allows developers to automatically combine all the elements of the application together. This will help web applications run smoothly and efficiently.
- Command Line Interface (CLI): this feature allows development teams to work with already created applications right out of the box and automate the development workflow.
- Two-way data binding: this feature allows making any change in the model and displaying results in the view model automatically. Not only does it help to minimize the development time, but it also facilitates the flow of data from the UI to the model.
- Dependency injection: thanks to this feature, software engineers can create apps quickly and easily.
What are the Pros and Cons of Angular technology?
Let’s take a closer look at the benefits and drawbacks of Angular technology.
| Advantages of Angular | Disadvantages of Angular |
| It provides detailed documentation and efficient testingIt speeds up the development processIt is easy to maintainIt includes security capabilities and improved server performance | It is hard to learnIt performs relatively slowIt contains different types of structuresIt has limited SEO capabilities |
Comparison between React vs Angular vs Vue
Here we offer a comparison of the most popular technologies
Framework Size
Vue and React are good options for lightweight applications whereas Angular is suitable for complex and heavyweight applications. Typically, the app runtime depends on the size: Angular’s size is approximately 500 Kb, React’s – approximately 100 Kb and Vue’s is approximately 80 Kb.
Learning Curve
If you want to start coding using Angular, you need to learn some basic concepts and syntax. However, thanks to detailed documentation, you can speed up the process. Being familiar with HTML, CSS and JavaScript, you can make one-page applications using Vue technology in terms of its steep learning curve. As for React technology, it requires a less steep curve than Angular.
Performance
React’s utilization of Virtual DOM improves the performance of the application of any size that needs regular content updates. Angular’s Regular DOM may cause potential performance issues and slow down the app performance when translating your project into heavy applications as compared to React and Vue. Vue.js technology delivers high performance thanks to the Virtual DOM feature and wins the battle.
Community Support
Vue technology doesn’t have huge community support and is mainly driven by the open source community while React or Angular have strong community support that helps solve any issue easily through Stackoverflow. In addition to that, React and Angular technologies support tech giants like Google and Facebook.
Migration
Vue technology offers the smartest migration options and 90% of APIs remain the same as well as React technology provides seamless migration from one version to another and gives developers stability. As for Angular, it releases major updates every six months as well as it takes another six months for developers to make necessary changes.
Flexibility
Vue technology is considered to be a highly flexible framework. When using React technology, developers should take into account its component-based structure with a large amount of modularity that requires the support of other libraries for the development. Angular is also very flexible when creating interactive and platform-independent web applications.
Deployment Speed
As for Angular technology, it is the most challenging framework for the overall deployment while React technology makes the tradeoff for flexibility. As compared to Angular and React, Vue technology allows development teams to quickly deploy the application without compromising with the performance.
Here we have provided a React vs Angular vs Vue comparison table. Let’s delve into the details below!
| Angular | React | Vue | |
| Baseline | highly performing framework | library to build excellent UIs | progressive and adaptable framework to create UIs on the web |
| Initial Release | October 20, 2010 | May 29, 2013 | February 2014 |
| Functionality | built to develop native apps, hybrid apps, web apps | built to develop single-page apps and mobile apps | good option for creating advanced single-page apps and native apps |
| Npm weekly downloads | 433 361 | 3 940 035 | 709 943 |
| Size | 500 Kb | 100 Kb | 80 Kb |
| Coding Speed | Slow | Normal | Fast |
| Learning Curve | Deep learning curve | Medium | Steep |
| Architecture | Component-based | Component-based | Component-based |
| Model | MVC/Real DOM | Virtual DOM | Virtual DOM |
| Data Binding | Bi-directional | Uni-directional | Bi-directional |
| Rendering | Client-side | Server-side | Server-side |
| Scalability | Less scalable | More scalable | Less scalable |
| Code reusability | Yes | only CSS | CSS and HTML |
Angular vs React vs Vue: What to choose in 2021?
Choosing which technology – Angular, React, or Vue to use for development in 2021 can make or break your future software solution. There are many deciding factors when selecting what technology is a good fit for your business including ease of use, clean coding, scalability, flexibility and performance. With Angular, development teams can create a complete web application as well as single page applications.
Being a JavaScript library, React allows software engineers to develop reusable UI elements. Vue is a new and very flexible framework in terms of architecture and easy integration with other tools. That’s why the best thing to find an answer is to do your due diligence up-front and pick the best technology for your unique business needs and requirements.