Frontend FrameWorks: Angular vs React vs Vue

In modern web development, frontend frameworks are essential for building dynamic, interactive, and efficient web applications. Among the most popular choices are React, Angular, and Vue. Each of these frameworks provides powerful tools and libraries to streamline development, enhance user experience, and manage complex application states. React, developed by Facebook, is known for its component-based architecture and flexibility. Angular, maintained by Google, is a full-fledged framework that offers a complete solution with a strong focus on scalability and tooling. Vue, a progressive framework, combines the best features of React and Angular, offering simplicity and ease of integration while being highly customizable. In this post, we'll compare these three frameworks and explore their unique strengths and use cases.

History of Angular, React, and Vue

Angular is one of the best frameworks developed by Google. It was released in 2010 and this makes it the oldest framework in comparison with Vue and React.

React is a library which is developed by Facebook. It was developed in the year 2013 and since then it has been used to develop complex applications.

The Vue framework is one of the most popular and younger frameworks in this group. It was developed by Evan You, an ex-Google employee in 2014.

Angular

Launched in 2010, Angular is a cross-platform JavaScript-based framework developed by Google. Written in TypeScript, Angular uses a regular DOM to build applications ranging from SPAs to enterprise applications.

In addition to development and testing, Angular also provides a variety of functionalities for state management, routing, PWA, and so on.

Angular Features

1. Two-Way Data Binding: Modifications made in the Model are reflected in the View in real time and vice versa.
2. MVC Architecture: The Model-View-Controller architecture lets you handle and organize your program effectively.
3. Dependency Injection: It helps promote modular programs and handle dependencies.
4. CLI: This feature is called the Command Line Interface. It helps you manage and scaffold Angular projects.
5. Document Object Model: DOM makes the XML or HTML page a tree-like structure where every single node indicates a particular section of content. Instead of updating the modified HTML tags, Angular updates the entire tree-like structure.
6. TypeScript: Developers can use TypeScript to write understandable JS code.

Angular Advantages

1. Large Ecosystem
2. Increased development efficiency
3. Reduced errors
4. Reusability

Angular Disadvantages

1. Learning Curve: The framework consists of some complex topics that are fundamental for development. The syntax is also complex in comparison to other frameworks. So, Angular has a steep learning curve.
2. Fewer SEO features: Indexing Angular applications in search engines is difficult because, Angular has very limited options in terms of SEO.

ReactJS

Facebook developed a comprehensive UI library based on JavaScript called React. React is an efficient, flexible, and open-source JavaScript framework library that allows developers to create simple, fast, and scalable web applications.

It is a component-based front-end library responsible only for the view layer of an MVC (Model View Controller) architecture. It is an important language for aspiring front-end developers. React is used by top IT companies such as Facebook, Dropbox, Instagram, WhatsApp, Atlassian, and Meta because of its Virtual DOM, Components, State and Props, JSX, Hooks, and Routing.

The process of creating a dynamic UI is complex but it can also be easily streamlined using this frontend framework.

ReactJS Features

1. Component-Based: React comes with a component-based architecture. Components in React are reusable and independent.
2. Virtual DOM: All the changes are first made in the Virtual DOM. Only the necessary changes are updated in the actual DOM.
3. JSX: It is a syntax extension that enables the developers to use both the JavaScript code and HTML code together for app development.
4. One-Way Data Binding: As the name suggests, the data flow in Angular is unidirectional. It’s from top to bottom or from parent components to child components.
5. React Native: Allows you to create native mobile apps with the React framework.

ReactJS Advantages

1. Easy to learn
2. Open-source
3. Flexibility
4. Easy migration

ReactJS Disadvantages

1. Frequent updates: ReactJS is updated frequently which doesn’t leave much time for developers to document an organized approach. Until they do, their approach or functionality itself becomes outdated.
2. Unopinionated: React doesn’t offer specific procedures or guiding principles for developers to follow. This gives them too many options which ends up confusing them and delaying the projects.

Vue JS

Deriving from his experience with Angular at Google, Evan You launched a new framework called Vue in 2014. It retains the best elements of Angular and is still considerably lightweight.

This open-source JavaScript-based framework offers pre-built directives and user-defined directives. In addition to that, it also allows you to extend those directives. Powered with an MVVM architecture design pattern, Vue helps you create high-quality SPAs and engaging UIs for web apps.

VueJS Features

1. Vue Router and Vuex: Vue Router is the official routing library whereas VueX is a state management library from Vue.
2. Virtual DOM: As a digital representation of DOM, it helps create and modify the objects mirroring the original DOM. The final updates of the virtual DOM are then implemented in the actual DOM.
3. Data Binding: It allows smooth sync between the data in the Vue instance and presentation in the HTML markup. This helps improve VueJS app’s responsiveness
4. Components: Components in VueJS are independent elements that come with their own view and logic. Following a modular approach, VueJs enables the developers to create reusable code.
5. Event Management: This feature allows you to effectively manage system events as well as user interactions in your Vue apps.

VueJS Advantages

1. Lightweight
2. Well-documented
3. Adaptability
4. Flexibility

VueJS Disadvantages

1. Learning Curve: Although popular for its simplicity, Vue may be difficult to learn when it comes to building large-scale applications. With the increased project complexities, the code grows to be messy.
2. Limited Ecosystem: Vue lacks the necessary resources. Hence, it has a small ecosystem compared to frameworks like Angular and React. Using Vue, you get very limited support, third-party libraries, and so on.