Vue vs Angular: Which Technology is Better for Your Project?
There are three leaders among a large number of JavaScript frameworks: Angular, React, and Vue. As these technologies share a lot of similarities, there are still differences that may influence the output of your project. Angular.js vs Vue.js are JavaScript frameworks developers use for the front-end development of web interfaces. The major difference is that Angular is a TypeScript structured framework, while Vue is a progressive lightweight framework. What does it mean for you, and why does it matter for an angular app development company? Read our article to find out the answer and hire vue developer.
What is Vue?
According to the survey by StackOverflow, 15.2 percent of professional developers use Vue.js, which makes it hold 6th place among other technologies. Also, Vue.js keeps holding its position and grows each year, with incredible growth in the previous year by 229 percent, which is a big difference compared to React, which grew by just 34 percent. Moreover, Vue.js has over 4,4 million monthly downloads on NPM, which proves the efficiency of this technology and its popularity on the market.
So, what is Vue.js, and should you choose Vue or Angular? Vue.js is a progressive JavaScript framework for building web interfaces and one-page applications. When combined with the Electron framework, Vue.js can be used not just for web interfaces but also for desktop and mobile app development. Such companies use Vue.js as Adobe, Behance, Alibaba, Gitlab, and Xiaomi, proving that this technology suits well for enterprise projects projected to scale.
The framework’s name sounds the same phonetically in English as “view”, and its core library focuses on the view layer only and can be easily combined with other libraries or existing projects. One of the Vue.js benefits is a fully adaptable ecosystem that can be scaled between a library and a full-featured framework.
The main benefits of Vue.js technology are the following:
- This technology is very easy to learn, especially if you already have experience with JavaScript, HTML/CSS
- Vue.js projects have great performance and speed because of their compactness with the size of 18-21 KB, so that users can download this framework in a blink of an eye
- There is no need for any external tools to integrate Vue.js with other technologies, so developers can keep their applications up-to-date and update them with new integrations and third-party frameworks
- Comprehensive documentation
- Huge supportive community with professional Angular developers
- Model-view-view-model architecture, so any updates in your UI will be reflected back to the data and vice versa.
Now when you know the basics of Vue.js, let’s describe Angular in the same way.
What is Angular?
Angular is a development platform built on TypeScript — a strongly typed programming language that adds additional syntax to JavaScript to support a tighter integration with the desired editor.
Angular includes the following elements:
- A component-based framework that is great for creating scalable web applications
- A variety of well-integrated libraries with a large number of diverse features, such as routing, forms management, client-server communication, etc
- A suite of developer tools for developing, building, testing, and updating your code
With Angular, you get the possibility to grow from a single-developer project to an enterprise-level application. Its other benefits include:
- Angular provides you with all the functionality you need out of the box. You don’t have to use any third-party libraries to develop basic features for your application
- As we have already mentioned, Angular is built with TypeScript, which helps to see any errors as you type and simplify the process of debugging
- Code maintainability and consistent updates of all Angular-related packages, as well as all the components, are easily decoupled and replaced with improved and upgraded implementations
- Angular includes a collection of ready-to-use UI components and modules that align with Google’s Material Design principles, save developers’ time, and improve their workflow, as they can add new elements to the applications with almost no impact on performance.
While Angular is more popular than Vue.js, the latter technology doesn’t lag behind and slowly gains a place under the sun. But what should you do now, and which technology is better for your project? Let’s find it out.
Angular vs Vue: A full comparison
Angularjs vs vuejs, how to choose? We have decided to review the most important aspects of both technologies and compare their performance in each of them. Let’s see which technology performs better in data binding, variable declaration syntax, integration, complexity level, performance, flexibility, scalability, loading time, and syntax.
Data Binding
AngularJS uses two-way binding between scopes and supports asynchronous services that make incorporating 3d party elements much easier.
Vue.js, in its turn, incorporates a one-way data flow between components; that’s why the data flow is easier in non-trivial applications.
So what’s the difference between one-way and two-way binding? Data binding incorporates connecting the data to the view or UI, so the data inside the component is attached to the HTML template. In one-way data-binding, the data flows in a single direction, so any changes in a component are updated in the view.
In two-way data binding, data flows in both directions, so any changes in the view update the data, and any changes in the data update the view correspondingly.
Variable Declaration Syntax in Vue.js
TypeScript standard is in the core of vue.js; that’s why all Angular variable types use the syntax (a colon). To create singular variables, objects, arrays, and arrays of objects, you need to bring the variable into the UI using double curly braces. For two-way data binding, ngModel in Angular is used, whereas, in Vue.js, V-model is incorporated.
Integration
First things first, the deployment of Angular js is not an easy task, and many professional developers find it complicated. However, angular.js has a version called Angular CLI, which simplifies everything from project creation to code optimization, and you can integrate the app with other tools or deploy an app to the static host in one command.
Vue.Js also provides CLI that generates a pre-configured robust set-up for faster and easier app development. With Vue.Js, you get optimized projects, running on a built-in command and deploying Vue.Js projects on any static host, turning on server-side rendering, and integrating with third-party projects is also easy.
Complexity Level
When it comes to design and API, Angular is more complex than Vue.js, and app development with Angular is more resource-intensive and time-consuming.
Angular is also more complex and difficult in terms of documentation, and developers should spend a lot of time studying the core concepts of this technology. That’s why building an application with Angular is more difficult for new developers who have just started their careers.
Vue.js is easier to manage and maintain in terms of design and API level. Just imagine that you can create a single-page application in less than a day using Vue if you already have some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Performance
When it comes to performance, Vue.js takes a leading position. Applications built with Angular are usually slower, as this technology consists of massive codes while Vue.js is lighter and more flexible.
Also, Vue.js doesn’t use dirty checking; that’s why it has better performance and is easier to optimize. AngularJS can perform slowly because of the watchers, and because of the changes in the scope, all these watchers need to be re-evaluated. Also, sometimes the digest cycle may run multiple times to “stabilize” in case the watcher triggers the updates.
Vue uses a transparent dependency-tracking observation system with async queueing, so all changes trigger independently unless they have explicit dependency relationships.
Flexibility
While flexibility in a technology matters, developers often call Vue.js excessively flexible, which sometimes results in irregularities in the codebase. Because of this, Vue.js might have issues while integrating into huge projects.
Angular, in its turn, provides only one right way to build the application and is more well-structured and less opinionated compared to Vue.js.
Scalability
Angular is a leader when it comes to scalability. That’s because of its modular development structure; while Vue uses template-based syntax and in large applications, templates are more difficult to reuse than JavaScript components.
Loading Time
You should consider the size of the library before choosing a JavaScript framework, as it directly influences the run time. Here is the library size of Angular and Vue.js:
Angular: 500+ KB
Vue: 80 KB
As you can see, Angular is bulkier in size because it consists of a wide range of features. While it may be good for web applications, Vue.js is lighter and has better performance when it comes to mobile app development languages.
In addition, before being downloaded and run in the browser, the code written with Angular is fully rendered to the server-side, which makes it slower at the beginning. So, Vue.js is overall faster, but Angular provides better results in DOM manipulation.
Angular is better for building enterprise-based applications because of its extensive built-in functionalities and community support. Vue is a great framework for building user interfaces and solving complex problems in startups when the speed and load time matter the most.
Syntax
Angular uses more complex syntax and is more difficult to learn, while Vue is easy to learn because of its simple syntax. Sometimes, you need to invest a lot of time to make simple things in Angular, which may lead to confusion.
What is Better for Front End Development?
There is no one answer to this question, as everything depends on what you create. So, to conclude everything we have discussed above, let’s see in what cases these technologies work best.
So, choose Vue.js when:
- Progressive web apps
- Single-page apps
- Small project applications
- Large scale enterprise apps
- Existing application design extension
- Existing application functionality extension
Angular works better for:
- Video streaming apps
- eCommerce applications
- Real-time data application
- User-generated content portals
- Content-based websites
- Progressive web applications
- Native mobile applications
- Single page web applications
- Gaming applications
- Cloud-based applications
Vue works better for creating small-time applications as it’s not scalable by default. Angular is often used for complex and large enterprise applications, and you can expand by reusing code on multiple platforms, as well as boosting performance.
Are you looking for web developers?
To make the right choice of technology, you need to know the main purpose of your application and the demands of your target audience. Based on this knowledge, choose between Vue vs Angular only when you know which role technology will play in the product and whether you will scale it in the future. JavaScript Developers, armed with this understanding, can navigate the complexities and nuances of these frameworks to craft exceptional digital experiences.
If you need help developing an app with Vue.js or Angular, just contact us at Cyber Craft, and we’ll discuss how we can develop your project.
Conclusion
Now you know the difference between Vue and Angular. However, ReactJS and VueJS share some similar features:
1) Use a virtual DOM
2) Include reactive & compose-able view components.
3) Focus on the core library with like routing and global state management
However, the main Vue and Angular difference is that Vue is better for small projects, and Angular works best for enterprises. If you choose between these two technologies, think forward and determine how and when you will scale your project.
