The Key Differences Between Angular,React and Vue JS

Popularity and History

Many programming languages have come and gone throughout the history of web and mobile development, but JavaScript has remained in the foreground for the longest. For this reason, we have many frameworks for faster development using JavaScript.

Out of these, three stand out the most- Angular, react and Vue.

At a glance,

Angular

Angular is a development platform for building large complex mobile and web applications. It comprises a component based framework, integrated libraries as well as developer tools. Released by Google in 2016, Angular has been used to build a majority of Google applications.

React

React is a JavaScript library well-known for its ability to construct rich UI elements. React also supports web and mobile. React is a product by Facebook (now Meta) released in 2013 and has been used to develop platforms such as Instagram and Uber.

Vue

Vue is a progressive JavaScript framework for developing single-page applications without compromising scalability. It’s easy to use and layer with other frameworks and libraries. Vue was released in 2016 by an ex-Google Employee and has been used to build popular applications for Alibaba and Git.

Angular vs React vs Vue- A Comparative Study

Angular, React and Vue, though at the end of the day, used to develop the front end of applications, differ from each other in many vital aspects. We will discuss some of those aspects here.

Structure

Angular

Angular has a rigid structure and offers many features. It fastens development since there is no need to define structures and borrow from external libraries.

Hence, it makes using Angular tedious when developing smaller-scale applications.

Angular constitutes components, modules, and services. Components in Angular are called directives. The UI aspect of a component is represented by an HTML tag, while JavaScript handles the behavioural part.

React

React is popular for its flexibility. React can offer this flexibility due to the absence of a clear structure. It can be advantageous because there’s a lot of freedom in development but at the same time, coordinating while using React within a team can be tricky.

A React element is the building block of the applications. React treats the UI and behavioural aspects of components as one. The code to describe a feature’s appearance also dictates its behaviour.

Vue

Vue’s core layer, by default, focuses on the ‘view’ or UI of the application. Hence, a specific structure must be followed while using Vue, but it is more forgiving than using Angular.

When it comes to components, Vue is similar to React. UI and behaviour go hand in hand in a component. Vue components are highly customizable, making it easier to change the appearance while conserving the behaviour of a component.

Architecture

 Angular

Angular uses Model-View-Viewmodel) architecture embedded with Model-View-Controller (MVC).  Therefore, Angular can support MVC architectural components. The prime benefit is that the MVVM model supports two-way binding between the View and ViewModel.

React

As mentioned before, React is flexible because it does not impose any particular architecture. In its essence, React is a UI library. Hence it’s up to the developer to choose which type of architecture to follow while implementing an application using React.

Vue

Vue directs its attention to the ViewModel of the MVVM architecture.

Vue supports two-way data binding between the View and the Model. In this case, it draws similarities with Angular.

Type of Development 

Angular

Angular is a typescript-based framework used mainly for writing Single Page Applications. Angular is the go-to framework for developers when building  Enterprise level applications.

React

React is JavaScript-based and uses JSX. It is preferred for building interactive user interfaces and cross-platform mobile applications. React enables you to easily add new features to an existing application without altering the codebase too much.

Vue

Vue, like Angular, is popular for developing SPAs, especially those that use many images. Vue is steadily increasing in popularity with its ability to layer and integrate with any other framework seamlessly.

Performance

 Angular

Angular has the highest load time for applications compared to the other two frameworks, whether booting or completely rendering a page for the user.

React

React falls in between Vue and Angular in terms of performance. It makes complete sense since the library is used to develop mid-size applications. Hence, applications take less time to render compared to Angular while having to load a codebase larger than Vue.

 Vue

Applications developed by Vue tend to be the most lightweight, with a good deal of Vue apps loading less than 1MB of JS.

Learning Curve

 Angular

Angular has a relatively complex structure; mastering it relies on understanding concepts related to Typescript and its architecture. It definitively has the steepest learning curve out of the three.

React

React does not follow a rigid structure. Hence it is more forgiving than Angular. However, since React is not a complete framework, you need to have knowledge of external libraries to add certain functionality per your application’s requirements.

Vue

Vue is the most recommended framework for beginner developers out of the three. The prerequisite to learning Vue is knowing HTML and JavaScript, aka the basics of web development. It has a very intuitive syntax and an immaculate architecture.

Angular vs React vs Vue- Side-by-Side Comparison

Now that we have discussed key aspects of the three frameworks, let’s take a look at a side-by-side comparison:

Angular vs React vs Vue- Who wins?

To the burning question of whether there is a clear winner for Angular vs React vs Vue, the correct answer is no. It is, of course, anticlimactic, but establishing a superior network when there are too many varying factors is impossible. But as we have assessed so far, you can easily weigh which framework would aid you the best based on your requirements and skill level.