- Introduction
- What is Angular?
- What is AngularJS?
- Difference Between Angular and AngularJS
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Q.1: What is better Angular or AngularJS?
- Q.2: Is Angular front end or backend?
- Q.3: Is Angular outdated?
- Q.4: Is Angular worth learning in 2023?
- Q.5: Is Angular slow?
- Additional Resources
Introduction
For JavaScript developers, one particular thing that they should be aware of is the difference between Angular and AngularJS. It is so because most of them, especially beginners, get confused as to what extent these two frameworks are dissimilar.
Angular vs. AngularJS has been a major topic of discussion for quite some time now and will likely continue for many years to come. While both frameworks have been developed by Google, there are plenty of things that set them apart. The main difference between AngularJS and Angular is that AngularJS is based on JavaScript, while Angular is based on TypeScript. There are several similarities between these two front-end, open-source frameworks that are used to create dynamic web applications and SPAs. However, let’s look at their differences as well.
Through this article, you will get familiar with various aspects of Angular and AngularJS that will help you know both these frameworks better. Also, it would help you to decide which one to learn or use for your upcoming projects.
What is Angular?
Angular is a web framework that is open-source and completely free to use. While it is considered to be a JS-based framework, its primary programming language is TypeScript. Developed by Microsoft, TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript, which simply means that TypeScript has all the capabilities that JS has plus some additional features. Angular is primarily used for developing fully functional web apps.
Developed by the tech giant Google, Angular was first released for public use in September 2016. The base version of Angular is Version 2, and its current edition is Angular 12 or Version 12.
A popular framework is an ideal option for creating powerful web applications having modern design and highly dynamic behavior. Angular is modular in nature, which means that you can divide the whole application into small parts (called modules) that represent a particular functionality. Angular makes it possible to develop high-performance web applications with ease while sticking with the MVC architecture and offering two-way data binding.
Features of Angular
Angular is among the most powerful JavaScript web frameworks out there, all thanks to its wide range of features. The leading JS web framework facilitates the development of modern and high-performance applications and also makes the development process easier. Here are the most notable features of Angular that you should know about:
- Cross-Platform: With Angular, you can not only create stunning UIs for web applications but also for native mobile applications as well as desktop applications. Also, the framework comes in handy if you want to develop applications for Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.
- Makes Use of TypeScript: Angular makes use of TypeScript, which is better than JavaScript due to the fact that it is a statically typed language. It means that there will be fewer errors during the compile time as the types of variables are defined beforehand. Also, any piece of JavaScript code is a valid TypeScript code. Moreover, if you know JavaScript, learning TypeScript would be fairly easy.
- Angular CLI (Command Line Interface): Angular CLI offers a great way to speed up the development process. From setting up the project to adding components and services, there are several tasks that you can do by simply using Angular’s native CLI.
- Data Binding and Dependency Injection: The data binding feature is what allows you to add dynamic behaviour to the web pages developed using Angular. In general, two-way data binding occurs between the model and view components. In simple words, whenever you make some changes in the view or UI elements, the changes will be reflected in the model or domain logic in real time. Also, the vice-versa holds true.
On the other hand, the dependency injection feature makes it possible to create entities that can deal with the dependencies of components. For instance, services in Angular can perform certain tasks like fetching data from the server and applying validation rules to the user input. You can make these tasks available to multiple components, and the process of making a service available to a component is known as dependency injection.
- Advanced Animations: Angular comes with extensive support for complex animations. As a developer, you can easily add various animations to your application and that too without the need to write lengthy code. Its dedicated functional API for animations makes it fairly simple to introduce animations to different sections of the UI.
- Unit Testing Support: With Angular, it becomes possible to perform unit testing with relative ease and thus, ensure that your code has minimal bugs. The web framework utilizes the Karma test runner for quick and easy debugging.
What is AngularJS?
AngularJS is an open-source JavaScript framework suitable for front-end web development. Also developed by Google, the intent of AngularJS is to facilitate the development of single-page applications. [Instead of allowing a web server to load entire new pages, SPAs (single-page applications) interact with the user by dynamically rewriting the data by fetching the same from the web server].
One of the most striking facts about AngularJS is that it is the first-ever version of Angular. To put simply, all the 1.XX versions belong to AngularJS, and it is also known as Angular 1. On the other hand, version 2 and subsequent versions are known as Angular.
Google introduced AngularJS in 2010 and it is created using JavaScript. Unlike Angular 2 and later versions, there’s no use of TypeScript in AngularJS. It is a major point of distinction between Angular and AngularJS.
The framework is widely known for creating dynamic websites and web applications. Its support for writing code in the MVC (Model-View-Controller) architecture makes it possible for developers to add dynamic behaviour to web applications. Also, the architecture comes in handy for easy management of the source code and enables fast development.
Features of AngularJS
Before the release of Angular 2, AngularJS was extensively adopted and used to create performant web applications. The reason is that AngularJS offers a wide variety of features that allow faster development and also ensure better code maintainability. The following are the noteworthy features of AngularJS:
- Use of Plain JavaScript: AngularJS makes use of JavaScript programming language and it has nothing to do with TypeScript. Also, the framework uses plain JavaScript, which means that the models in AngularJS are plain JS objects. This feature makes the code developed with AngularJS easy to test and maintain.
- Controllers and Directives: The directive and controllers in AngularJS give you the authority to decide the functionality and have complete control over the behaviour of an application.
The controllers allow you to define the behaviour of DOM (Document Object Model) elements. You can decide how DOM elements should act under specific circumstances. On the other hand, directives are added directly into the HTML code to integrate specific functionality within the application. It’s important to note that controllers are created separately while the directives are used directly within the (HTML) templates.
- Reusable Components: With AngularJS, you can create reusable components that you can use multiple times within an application. To create these components, you need to make use of directives. A component can represent a particular functionality.
- Routing: Routing is the feature that makes it possible to switch between different views of an application. In simple terms, routing allows users to navigate through different pages of a website or different sections of a web app. Single-page applications created with Angular allow users to switch between different views without the need to reload the whole app or the web page.
Difference Between Angular and AngularJS
It is true that Angular and AngularJS share some common characteristics as the former is the enhanced version of the latter. However, when Angular was launched, it was meant to be a major update of AngularJS with lots of changes and added functionalities. Thus, it was purposely made different from its antecedent.
Below is a detailed comparison table that will help you know the difference between Angular and AngularJS on the basis of several distinct parameters:
| Parameter | Angular | AngularJS |
|---|---|---|
| Developer/Maintained By | Angular Team at Google and a community of corporations and individuals. | Google and a community of individuals and corporations. |
| Supported Languages | Although Angular provides support for JavaScript as well as TypeScript, it prefers using the latter due to the following advantages: 1. Annotations 2. Static typing | AngularJS supports only JavaScript. |
| Mobile Development Support | One of the remarkable characteristics of Angular applications is that they are mobile-friendly. In other words, Angular applications are fully optimized for mobile browsers. | Applications developed using AngularJS are not mobile-friendly. |
| Architecture Support | The architecture of Angular is largely based on Components. Also, the Angular Components are a combination of directives and templates. Any Angular application makes use of one or more Angular Components. | AngularJS provides support for MVC and MVVM architectures, where the former stands for Model-View-Controller and the latter means Model-View-ViewModel. The Model contains the business logic for storing and processing the data while the View displays the data to users. Also, the Controller is responsible for binding Model and View to allow users to interact with the application seamlessly. ViewModel is a value converter, i.e. it converts data objects from the model to make them easy to present and manage. |
| Performance and Speed | Angular applications offer high performance and one key factor for this is its data binding feature. Data binding allows updating of page content in real-time and that too without the need to write a lot of code. Additionally, Angular is capable of server-side rendering, which allows Angular applications to load quickly. | AngularJS also comes with two-way binding that facilitates the creation of dynamic web pages. Thus, AngularJS applications also offer impressive performance. However, the overall performance of AngularJS applications is not what is expected from modern applications. |
| Difficulty Level | Learning Angular and using it for front-end development is quite a task as there are several rules that you need to follow. Building full-fledged applications requires you to build strong expertise in the Angular framework. | As compared to Angular, it is easier to learn and use AngularJS. |
| Ease of Managing Projects | Angular defines a proper structure that you need to follow while developing an application, Thus, projects created with it are easily manageable. | In the case of AngularJS, there’s no need to follow a particular structure. Thus, AngularJS projects are difficult to manage, especially when the projects are large and complex. |
| Dependency Injection | Angular makes use of hierarchical dependency injection to enhance the application performance. | AngularJS does not use dependency injection. Instead, it makes use of directives. |
| Routing | Angular supports routing between multiple views (templates). However, it uses a URL that imitates a directive to get the client’s view. To define routing information in an Angular app, you need to use @Route Config{(…)}. | AngularJS also allows you to define all the routing information. You simply need to use @routeProvider.when() to define routing information in AngularJS. |
| Data Binding | Angular supports two-way binding. It allows you to bind data between view and model using () or []. | AngularJS also enables two-way binding. However, it uses the ng-bind directive for one-way binding and the ng-model directive for two-way binding. |
| CLI | The framework comes with the AngularCLI tool that lets you create and manage components and other project files from the command line. | AngularJS doesn’t come with a CLI tool. |
| Testing | It supports unit tests with Karma, which is a JavaScript test runner. Also, the Angular CLI facilitates the app-building process and thus, ensures easy testing. | AngularJS code can also be tested using unit tests that you can write while developing the application. However, AngularJS relies on third-party tools to build and test applications comprehensively. |
| SEO Support | Angular offers the required elements for making web applications easily crawlable for search engines. | When it comes to SEO, AngularJS doesn’t offer any effective ways to make the applications SEO-friendly. |
| Application Examples | Gmail, Upwork, JetBlue, and Wikiwand. | Netflix, Lego, IStock, and AngularJS official website. |
| Architectural Characteristics | Angular uses components and directives. | An MVC (Model-View-Controller) design is used by Angular.js. |
| Support for Angular Universal | Angular supports Angular Universal. | Angular Universal support is not available in AngularJS. |
Conclusion
Angular vs. AngularJS is one of the most common comparisons that most JavaScript developers search for. While both are powerful JavaScript frameworks developed by Google, they have certain notable differences that you need to know before choosing any one of them for developing a project.
Through this article, we tried our level best to help you understand the clear difference between Angular and AngularJS based on various parameters.
To sum it up, you simply need to keep in mind that Angular is the successor of AngularJS and offers better performance and features. While AngularJS is updated regularly with new enhancements, it simply cannot catch up with the modern features offered by Angular. So, in our humble opinion, it’s better to choose Angular over AngularJS, especially if you want to build modern web applications with enhanced functionalities.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q.1: What is better Angular or AngularJS?
Ans: Angular is the updated version of AngularJS with many major updates and significant changes. Also, Angular is faster compared to AngularJS and offers many advantages such as mobile-friendly applications, cross-platform development, SEO support, and a built-in CLI tool.
Q.2: Is Angular front end or backend?
Ans: Angular is a powerful web framework that allows client-side or front-end development. It is a TypeScript-based framework that developers can use to design the user interface of applications. Also, it handles the interaction between users and applications.
Q.3: Is Angular outdated?
Ans: For AngularJS, Google is ending its support in December 2021. On the other hand, Angular will get updates for enhanced security and functionalities. Thus, you can consider that AngularJS is soon going to be outdated but Angular will continue competing with the modern web frameworks.
Q.4: Is Angular worth learning in 2023?
Ans: Angular is among the most popular JavaScript web development frameworks that support the creation of modern web applications. It has been a popular choice for large tech companies to develop complex, feature-rich applications. As a result, there is a considerable demand for Angular developers in the job market, and hence, learning Angular can be a good decision.
Q.5: Is Angular slow?
Ans: Angular is a high-performance web framework. However, Angular applications are not as fast as the applications developed with other leading JavaScript frameworks, such as React and Vue.js.
