Angular vs React vs Vue: Which one is the Best?

Let’s understand what is Framework

Frameworks are tools that software developers use to build applications. Frameworks reduce complexity and development time. Rather than making the applications from scratch, applications can be designed quickly and efficiently with the help of front-end frameworks. 

Recent times have seen a surge in front-end frameworks. Some of the most popular front-end frameworks include Angular, React, and Vue. So let’s understand what these frameworks are and how they compete against each other by doing an Angular - React - Vue comparison.

AngularJS

Overview

Angular is a popular JavaScript framework founded by Google in 2009. It is one of the most popular and valuable Java frameworks worldwide. AngularJS is primarily used to build interactive web applications. Angular leverages HTML as the template language, which makes it easy to command. Angular allows easy modification of different elements of the webpage.

Benefits

• Use of Typescript that provides excellent support for type checking
• Backed by Google, it makes Angular highly reliable. The availability of detailed documents and a robust community make it even more popular.
• Uses Restful APIs as an HTTPS interface to interact with servers which makes it highly secure
• Provision of single sign-on for seamless access management
• Two-way data binding to speed up the development of the responsive website
• Has dependency injection to test every component in isolation
• MVC approach that aligns with object-oriented design to save development time and efforts
• MVVM - Model View-View Model - that allows developers to work on the same section of the app parallelly.

Drawback

• The use of different types of structures makes it a little complex tolearn. If you compare the learning curves of Angular v/s Vue or Angular v/s React, Angular is difficult since it deals with modules, injectables, pipes, etc., while the others deal with “components.”
• Different benchmarks show Angular as a bit slow in performance. 

ReactJS

Overview

A JavaScript library that Facebook backs since 2013. React is primarily used for building single-page applications of considerable size and scalability. React is mainly used for developing mobile and web-based interfaces. It is based on MVC (Model View Controller’s) aspect.

Benefits

• Uses JSX - HTML like syntax - which makes it extremely easy to learn
• Reacts virtual DOM implementation makes it extremely fast
• Super support for server-side rendering making it apt for content-tailored applications
• Easy to test and highly reusable code
• One easy data flow to provide excellent code facility
• Build SPAs with third-party packages like React Router that render without refreshing the browser

Drawbacks

• React moves away from class-based components, which may cause hurdles for developers that prefer object-oriented programming (OOP).
• JSX causes template mixing with logic which may confuse developers
• Though React offers a lot of flexibility to developers, this also augments confusion and lack of directions since React is not much opinionated.

Vue

Overview

Vue.js is the youngest amongst the three front-end frameworks. It was developed in 2014 by a Google employee. It fits for building great single-page applications and adaptable user interfaces. 

Benefits

• A lightweight framework that takes less download time and boosts hassle-free development
• It offers excellent flexibility and merges effortlessly with inbuilt technologies and other frameworks. You can easily integrate its smaller interactive parts into the existing infrastructure.
• Simple and easy to learn. A basic understanding of HTML and JS is enough to command Vue.
• Offers significant scalability by assisting in the development of large reusable templates.

Drawback

• If we compare Angular v/s Vue or Vue v/s React, Vue offers the shortest community support since it is still naive.
• Integrating into an extensive infrastructure can sometimes be problematic; solutions are yet to arrive.

So, who wins the battle?

There is no clear-cut winner as each of the three frameworks is good in their own respective. We can best compare them based on certain factors. Let’s have a look at those.

1.    Popularity

In the battle of Angular v/s React v/s Vue, React seems to be the most popular. React is exceptionally famous in the US market and React developers land on to high-end paying jobs. However, the market trends and popularity may vary according to different regions.

2.    Syntax

Different people are comfortable with varying choices of syntax. Some love to work with JSX. Others prefer typescript with Angler’s opinionated structure. Some other may choose Vue v/s Angular since Vue goes with JavaScript, which is very simple to learn. Developers should explore frameworks and libraries to discover what suits them the most.

3.    Performance

All of the three frameworks are good when measured by their performance. One point to note here is that Angular apps are more extensive than React or Vue, but that’s not a problem while working with small applications.

4.    Learning Curve

Vue is the simplest as it demands basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript. The difference between Angular and React is that you will have to learn typescript and JSX, respectively,

which will take a bit more time and effort.

Final Thoughts

These front-end frameworks have brought a renaissance in the front-end development of mobile and web applications. They have tremendously cut development complexity and efforts. Angular v/s React v/s Vue will always be a hot topic. Whichever framework you choose, it will speed up your development and relax you from the complex coding processes.