Angular vs Vue: Which Framework to Choose in 2024?
Summary: Over the last ten years, frontend frameworks have improved a lot and some have become very important in the field. CTOs often wonder which frontend technology they should use for their projects. This post compares two popular JavaScript frameworks, Angular and Vue, for frontend development.
Since the launch of jQuery in 2006, which helps make web apps interactive, there’s been a fast evolution of JavaScript frameworks. This has led to the rise of organized frontend frameworks. Thanks to this progress, we now have Single-Page Applications (SPAs), which can change parts of a web page without reloading the whole thing.
As single-page applications (SPAs) became popular, a new kind of web framework called Angular emerged in 2016. It was a big improvement over Angularjs from 2010. Angular came with everything you needed for the front-end, and it was fast and reliable.
Then, in 2014, Evan You, who used to work on the Angular team at Google, came up with Vue. It’s another framework for making fancy user interfaces. Vue is known for being flexible and easy to use.
Today, in this blog, we’re going to discuss two different frontend JavaScript frameworks. They both have a lot of cool features. Hopefully, this discussion will make it easier for you to choose which JavaScript framework to use.
In this article, David talks about picking the best framework and shares key points to help you make the right choice. If you need a team of skilled developers to create a web app using any of these frameworks, check out Simform’s web application development services.
Comparison of Frameworks – Angular versus Vue
What is Angular? – An overview
Angular is a tool that helps businesses make big websites. It’s made with TypeScript, a type of JavaScript. Angular is good because it has tools already built-in, so it doesn’t make the website slow or too big. You can use Angular to make websites for different platforms like computers, phones, and tablets. It’s easy to use the same code again for different types of devices.
Angular was first made in 2016. Before that, there was a different version called AngularJS from 2010. Angular was made by Misko Hevery and a team at Google. They’re still working on it now, along with other people who help make it better.
What is Vue? – An overview
Vue is a simple and flexible tool for making cool websites and apps. It helps developers create modern-looking single-page applications (SPAs) and websites with fancy front-ends. Vue is special because it lets developers change parts of their app without messing up the main features. This means you can make your website look cooler over time without starting from scratch. Vue also lets you add extra features and cool stuff to your website easily.
Comparison of how often Angular and Vue are used in the market.
Angular Statistics
Out of all the JavaScript tools we know, Angular is used by a small fraction, just over 0.4% of all websites. However, even though fewer websites use Angular, it’s mostly used by websites that get lots of visitors.
On GitHub, Angular has around 93.3 thousand “stars,” 25.1 thousand “forks,” and there are about 1,817 people who have contributed to it. Also, there’s a community of 2.2 million users on GitHub who use Angular.
Around 22.96% of developers worldwide use Angular.
Vue Statistics
Right now, over 1.5 million websites are using Vue worldwide. About 95% of these websites prefer Vue version 2. Vue holds less than 1% of the overall market share. The Vue community has around 206,000 stars and 34,700 forked projects.
Pros and Cons of Angular and Vue
Let’s compare Angular and Vue to identify their best features and limitations.
Advantages of Angular:
- TypeScript Benefits: TypeScript, a boosted version of JavaScript, offers better navigation, refactoring services, and autocomplete. It helps in reducing errors in code while building big applications.
- Google’s Support: Angular gets long-term support from Google, which means detailed documentation and chances of getting better features for development.
- High Performance: Angular ensures high performance for developers by using features like hierarchical dependency injection, Ivy renderer, AOT compiler, differential loading, and Angular Universal support.
- Update Recommendations: Angular’s command-line interface gives timely suggestions for dependencies, loaders, and plugins, making it easier for developers to keep their projects up-to-date.
- Third-party Integration: It allows easy integration of third-party applications, offering more flexibility and tools for development.
- Customization: Angular lets developers integrate elements and modules from other frameworks easily. They can also customize them according to their needs. Reusing and managing Angular HTML elements is possible by wrapping them as a DOM element.
Disadvantages of Angular:
- Complexity: Despite its component-based structure, managing components and repetitive tasks can make Angular verbose for developers.
- Angular Versions: Switching from AngularJS to Angular can be challenging, especially for large applications. Learning about each version also adds to the difficulty, reducing its popularity.
- Heavy Framework: Simple applications might become bloated due to Angular’s requirements of boilerplate code, abstractions, and bundled features.
Advantages of Vue
- Easy Transition: You can smoothly introduce Vue into your code while you’re still developing components, without wasting time.
- Simplified Coding: Vue doesn’t make it harder to write standard code. It provides built-in solutions for managing components and animations, making the whole development process faster.
- Lightweight: Every new version of Vue is lighter and faster. This means developers can focus more on adding features rather than fixing bugs or adjusting code.
- Additional Functionality: Vue offers extra features that are function-based, allowing developers to easily compose component logic, making applications more readable and adaptable.
- Ready for the Future: Vue is reliable in production environments, so you don’t need to constantly update or check for bugs. It simplifies the update process.
Disadvantages of Vue
- Language Barrier: The Vue community is mainly Chinese-speaking, which makes it challenging for English-speaking developers to learn and share resources.
- Data Reactivity: Vue’s two-way binding feature helps synchronize components across an application but can sometimes lead to rendering issues.
- Limited Support: Since Vue is still relatively new and has a small community, it might be challenging to find support for large-scale projects, especially for less experienced developers.
- Over-flexibility: While having customization options is good, Vue’s excessive flexibility can complicate projects and lead to errors.
- Resource Constraints: Vue’s ecosystem lacks compatibility with common plugins and tools, as well as support for various external resources and frameworks.
Angular vs. Vue: Different Uses
Angular Use Cases:
- Video streaming apps
- Online stores
- Apps with real-time data
- Websites where users create content
- Websites with lots of content
- Web apps that load progressively
- Apps for smartphones
- Web apps with just one page
- Games on the web
- Apps that work on the cloud
Vue Use Cases:
- Web apps that load progressively
- Web apps with just one page
- Small projects
- Big company apps
- Adding onto existing designs
- Adding onto existing functions
Popular Apps Made with Angular:
- Mixer – A site for live video game streaming
- Gmail – Email that works in one place
- PayPal – Paying for things online
- Forbes – Online magazine for news
- Weather.com – Website for checking the weather
- Microsoft Office – Software for making documents
Here are simplified versions of the content you provided:
Popular Vue Apps:
- Grammarly: Uses Vue’s tools to make an easy-to-use online editor with a simple design.
- Laravel Spark: Uses Vue to control its front-end, making it easy to manage SaaS applications.
- Behance: Uses Vue to keep its code organized and standardize new visual features.
- Gitlab: Uses Vue to add advanced features for the community without much effort.
- Adobe Portfolio: Uses Vue to upgrade its tools and let users create modern websites.
Performance of Angular vs Vue:
Angular is known for its high performance because it uses Ivy renderer, which makes apps fast and compact. It also reduces development time with pre-compiled components.
Vue also performs well, but adding new features can slow it down. However, Vue has tools like virtual DOM and lazy loading to improve performance. It manages third-party libraries efficiently to speed up loading times.
How does Angular perform so well?
Angular stands out for its fast performance. It uses something called Ivy renderer, which is like the engine that runs Angular. Ivy makes apps quick and small, saving time when developing them.
Angular also has smart ways to notice when things change, so it doesn’t have to update the page too often. It also prepares parts of the app before you even see them. This makes Angular a top choice for building fast apps.
Application architecture – Angular vs. Vue
What kind of structure does Angular use?
Angular uses something called Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture. This means it separates the logic of the app from how it looks, making it easier to manage and develop. It also combines MVC with two-way data binding, which makes handling data between the user interface and the app logic smoother.
How about Vue’s architecture?
Vue mainly follows the ViewModel approach, which is similar to MVC but puts more emphasis on the View and Model connection. It connects the View and Model using two-way binding. In Vue, there are three main parts:
What type of structure does Vue use?
Vue mainly uses the ViewModel approach, which is like MVVM, especially for big apps. It connects the View (what you see) with the Model (data) in a way that changes in one affect the other.
Here’s what M, V, VM mean in Vue:
- Model: It’s like a data object in JavaScript. When data goes into the Model, it turns into reactive elements, which means changes can be tracked easily.
- View: This is what you see on the screen. Vue manages the parts of the web page using templates, creating elements in the browser that correspond with the data.
- ViewModel: This handles syncing between the Model and the View. It’s where developers interact with the code most.
Ease of testing – Angular vs. Vue
How easier is it to test an Angular app?
Vue’s structure is divided into Filters and Directives, which help manipulate the DOM (the web page). Unlike other frameworks, Vue is more flexible because it focuses on the View layer, making it easier for developers to work with.
Testing an Angular app is made easier because it’s built with testing in mind. Every piece of code in Angular needs to pass through tests. This makes it convenient to create and test different parts of the project.
Angular’s dependency injection feature helps manage scopes and controllers. With unit testing in Angular, we can inject fake data into controllers to see how they behave. We then check the results to ensure everything works as expected. Additionally, Angular provides mock HTTP providers to simulate responses from servers during testing.
How easy is it to test Vuejs apps?
Testing Vuejs apps is quite straightforward. While Vue is still gaining popularity, its testing tools are simple yet effective. It doesn’t have extravagant tools, but it also doesn’t compromise on the quality of testing. Vuejs testing is similar to other frameworks and usually involves using tools like Jest, Mocha, or Chai. Vue officially recommends libraries like Vue Testing Library and Vue Test Utils. These libraries make it easy to access the application and user-specific features, making it simple to debug and refactor code. Vue also supports continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD), along with hot reloading, allowing for faster feedback loops during development.
Scalability – Angular vs. Vue
Is Angular scalable?
Angular is a helpful tool supported by big companies like Google. It’s great for making big programs for businesses. It can handle a lot of work because it has a strong command-line tool and good features.
To make big programs easier to manage, you can organize your files and modules by what they do. This helps keep everything neat and tidy. As your program grows, you might need to split big parts into smaller ones. One way to handle this is by using typescript interfaces for your data and putting all your create, read, update, and delete operations into one file.
Is Vue js scalable?
Because Vue is a simple framework, people usually choose it for making small apps rather than big ones. Even though Vue can add extra features to an app and make it more flexible, it’s not always seen as good for big apps. But surprisingly, Vue can still be used for bigger projects if you split the app into smaller parts and manage them separately. This way, you can scale up the app when needed. Vue offers tools like web packs and Mixin elements that help in making the app more scalable, even though its architecture might not seem very flexible at first.
Suitability for building complex applications
Is Angular suitable for building complex apps?
Angular is a top choice for making big and complicated apps on the internet. Famous sites like Gmail, Forbes, and PayPal use it. Angular helps make apps that can grow really big without any issues. It also lets developers reuse code for different platforms, making things easier. And it’s super fast, making users happy with speedy performance. So no matter how fancy the app looks, Angular can make it great for users.
Can you make fancy apps using Vue?
When you’re making really tricky apps, it can be tough. This is when coding gets serious. Making these kinds of apps needs code that can connect different parts together, and Vue makes it a bit tricky to organize these parts in a clear way. But with Vuex, you can make complex apps without making your code messy. Vuex is a special tool for Vue that helps manage the state of your app, making complicated tasks easier by using Vue’s powerful features.
Security – Angular vs. Vue
How is security handled in Angular?
Websites where users create content need to be really safe and well managed. One big problem they face is called cross-site scripting. This is when attackers try to put harmful code onto the website. Luckily, there are ways to stop this.
Angular, the platform these websites use, has some built-in protections. It treats all the content from users as potentially dangerous. It uses something called inner HTML to show what users write, and it has a tool called DomSanitizer to make sure it’s safe.
There are other ways to keep the website safe too, like keeping everything updated and using a special tool called AOT when making the website. So, by using good practices and the built-in tools, Angular helps keep websites secure.
How security is handled in Vue?
The person who made Vue, Evan, once said that adding a built-in sanitizer would make the software heavier for something that doesn’t happen often. So, Vue doesn’t automatically protect against attacks like XSS or other vulnerabilities. But you can still defend against these issues by using external tools or cleaning up the HTML code before putting it in the app’s database. Vue can also add important code to keep the app safe automatically, both before and after showing it on the screen.
User experience – Angular vs. Vue
Angular makes websites and web applications work really well and give users a great experience.
Angular is a big tool for making the part of a website you see and interact with. It’s good at keeping things organized, like splitting them into different parts for easier understanding. This tool helps show information to users and respond quickly when they do something.
It also makes sure that when you change something in the website, you see the change right away without any delay. This is because it’s smart about updating the page instantly.
Vue makes sure users have the best experience.
To make a cool and engaging web app design, Vue could be a great option because of the tools it provides. With Vue, when you make changes in the app, they don’t show up right away, giving you more freedom to experiment with design. The way Vue connects data to the app makes it easy to change things without messing up the code. You can customize templates, animations, and transitions using tools like Cron generator and Chakra-ui-Vue.
Rapid Development – Angular vs. Vue
How does Angular help make apps quickly?
Developers love using Angular because it helps them build apps without stressing about big file sizes. It saves time and effort by letting them reuse code and making development smoother. With Angular, teams can do more with less code, which speeds up work on similar projects.
Angular is great for coding because it’s easy to understand and work with. Even beginners can start using it and tweak their projects easily. Plus, Angular can handle complex web apps with lots of features and parts really well.