React vs Angular | Which is better - Angular or React

To be honest it's not really fair that we compare apples with oranges. But who told you that world is a fair place? Today we are gonna compare Angular with React. Now there is a very specific thing that you should know before reading this article, this article is not about corporate. I know and I can understand you might be having very specific need very specific benchmarking and performance issues that you really want to solve. But this article is not about corporate, this article is about students.

Because students are in a problem they want to figure out which one is best for them and which one they can get started with, what problems to expect, and what problems not to expect. Also, I do have preferences in this article and you are totally allowed to disagree with my preference that is totally 100% fine. But if you ask me about tea or coffee I have a preference for tea you might be a big coffee fan but Coffee Works for me as well. So I do have a preference keep that in mind. Usually, Sach articles end with "it depends" but this article got some answers for you. So let's talk about React vs Angular.
First and foremost prerequisites.

On the React side, there are not many prerequisites if you know JavaScript and I am not talking about the basics of JavaScript. You should be decent in JavaScript. But there is no apart groundbreaking thing or a new thing that you have to learn. Surely there are new concepts but as a prerequisite, I would say if you know your JavaScript well that's it, that's all you got to need for getting started with React.


Now when we move on to the world of angular you are gonna see that most people write their entire angular code in typescript. Now Typescript is nothing new and you don't need to scare too much about it. If you know your JavaScript well then you can be shifted on to typescript within a week. Don't get scared of working with the typescript it is as easy as moving from A to B, it's really very simple. But surely it gives a bit of mental stress that yes I gotta learn a new thing to get started and I'll give you a fair advantage here that yes there are some syntactical things and some things (like decorators) which is absolutely new and sometimes it takes a little time to understand and learn it. So from the JavaScript side, there are no prerequisites, on the angular side I would say it's not a big deal but still you gotta learn typescript here.

Now here is the most important thing. If you're coming up from the React side you are going to hate the angular and vice-versa. No, it's not just a fun statement we really like to troll each other and both communities are very very well supported but it's a fun thing it's fun on its own and be like to do it quite a lot. I have worked extensively on React for years and recently I got a chance to work on Angular. Now here is the next thing that you really want to know. "Which one is smaller?". Again smaller simply means that concept-wise, every Framework, and every library introduce a whole lot of concepts so how many more concepts I am gonna learn in React, and how many concepts i am gonna learn in angular?

Reminding you again to react is just a small library. Angular is a big gigantic Framework. The concepts in reacting are fairly small. The core fundamental foundational concept of react can be learned within like 15 days for 20 days and that's it.
Because it's just is a small library, there are a lot of things which are missing in the react. Not because it cannot be done, we use a third-party module to achieve those things for example routing.
But in general, if you just want to learn to react as a foundational concept I think a decent programmer can learn it within 15 days or 20 days on the other hand angular is a big gigantic Monster. We are not dependent in angular much on third parties for example routing and much more other things. Everything is built-in and cooked up in angular.

That means you are gonna take some time to learn all the concepts of angular. It's not really possible to understand the angular within 15 or 20 days. It probably gonna take 2 months sometimes, even more, to understand fully how the Framework is architectured, what is the best practice to write the code and what are all the features it offers. So again angular is a big one so it takes time and react is a bit smaller so it takes less time and this is a smaller thing to learn.

The next obvious thing you think you might want to know that "ok which one is easier to learn, which one is tough to learn ??". This is always a relative question, for you lifting up 10 kg is really a big deal but for me, 10 kg is my warm-up set so it all depends. But again I would say from experience in teaching thousands of students, I would say React is much easier to learn for students and angular is a little bit tricky to understand. It's not really that much tough, it just needs a little bit more time, fewer examples to code out to finally understand the angular.
 

I have also noted that when people start to love Angular and try to get a feel of it then they don't really want to get out of it. It's a very comfortable zone in angular because everything is already cooked up and once you get a feel of it you will start liking it.

It is almost like the black coffee taste once you adapt to it you just want it forever. On the other hand, react it's although very easy to learn you gotta learn third-party things as well for example how the router is working, I Would Still say that React is much more beginner-friendly to get started. Also, I want to make this point that it looks like from outside that the concept that you are gonna learn in react is gonna be useful in angular too. But I didn't find it much of the relevant term they have their own architecture and the working style, the working flow, the code style that we write, and the example that we build out is really different. But I won't give any extra advantage to one or the other on this point. React is backed by Facebook and Angular is backed by Google.
On the one side, we have Facebook, which a lot of people hate because they track us and serve the ads, and share the information. On the other hand, there is Google which a lot of people love because that company is not yet got caught for selling advertisements & breaching our personal life. Again it all depends on them. But here is the thing that it should know that both of them are selling advertisements & both of them are companies for profit none of them is doing this internally for the charity. Loving a project just because one company is backing it another company is hacking another. I think that's not a fair advantage both of these companies are notoriously known for shutting down the project because they couldn't make a profit from them or they just wanted to shut it down.

So again backing on this is not really good. Both of the projects are fairly open-source, the reason for saying "fairly open-source" is that there are a lot of versions of these products which are used inside the company and those versions are not being shared with us. Of course for all good reasons they have worked hard on it. The thing that they can make it open and public so that you can modify it on your own and can use it to build another bill

Now doing an NVP on both of the products because of what can suit you best for that, what is going to the performance, what is the benchmark, and which one is providing me with the exact specific feature because my database is dependent on that. I am not doing any specific benchmarking or performance Optimisation which one is better because you needed it for your company probably I'll tell you how to do the NVP in some later articles.

I would say here is my point which I would like to still make that there are a lot of cases & chances where angular is just too big for the project. If you want to build a smaller application and you just want to have it like a Portfolio project I wouldn't bring angular in that because it's too big of a framework to do so. React is a smaller library and I can write more of a modular code in that surely I would like to bring react in that case. It doesn't mean react is for small projects, react is still being used in a whole lot of B2B applications. So both of them are really really a neck-to-neck competition which one to choose in which one not to choose.

Which One To Start ?

So coming onto the question that you have finished off your HTML and CSS basics of JavaScript and you want to try your hands with either one of them which one should I get started and clearing up your confusion I would say that get started with REACT and also in the world, especially in 2020 you are not considered as a front end developer if you just now HTML and CSS the things are changed totally now.

You are expected to have at least one piece of knowledge on either REACT, VUE, ANGULAR, or something like that. Since this comparison is strictly towards react and angular so we are not talking about VUE here. Let's just say I just want to say that start with react and I have a very strong and solid reason for that. When you get started with React introduce some of the new concepts which were not there in the front-end development especially handling API, managing the states, and writing the optimized codes so that your code doesn't really refresh again and again.

These are the concept that you learn more easily in React. These concepts are there in angular too but they are much easier to learn in the world of reaction. Another reason for saying that you should get started with react is because react is smaller and I am not saying that because it is smaller get started with that. I am saying it because you get introduced to so many of the third-party libraries that you get exposure to so much of the writing style of code. One library does the routing in X way others do the same routing thing in Y way. So you get exposure to writing a variety of styles of code and you learn how to read the documentation through a variety of sections.

Conclusion

This is good for you as a developer so that's why I recommend in the beginning that you should get started with REACT. But that's not the whole story react is one of the favourites for all the startups and people who are trying to build a new product. But you are going to also notice that people who do NVP especially that are having their back on being designed in technology are related to the job or anything big they actually tend to love an angular bit more. So chances are high that a lot of you who are working already incorporate are now being told that you have to move in angular. So instead of doing it at that phase of life, it's better that you get a fresh taste of angular beforehand so that you can quickly move in either of the technology very quickly. And as I mentioned that angular is something that is like black coffee, once you adapt to the taste it's really hard to get away from that.

All I'm saying is that this is your student life. Start with react finish it within one or two months or 3 months or let's just say a semester and then the next one try your hands with angular as well. It's not that bad as it gets its reputation from all the YouTube videos and Blog Posts. It's a decent Framework, it's a good one surely a little bit bulky, and takes some time to learn but it's worth it.


I would recommend that go ahead and get started with React spend some time with it and at least also learn angular after that. It's your student life this is the time when we call ourselves a student which means we want to learn as much as possible. At the end of the day when you get a job your boss will say that "Hey!! We gotta dive into this technology", then we got to do it we will end up doing the deep of one technology on one day or the other. This is student time, explore it as much as possible - this is your path start with React and move to Angular. Right now I think you got your answer. But if you have any other different opinions for me, I would like to know them in the comment section please help out other students so that they can get started without wasting too much time on which one is the best for me.