Front-End Development’s Big Three: ReactJS VS VueJS VS Angular

Using Front-End Development

Having sites and applications look and feel professional is crucial. How it performs says a lot about you, your company, and the quality of your products and services. Thankfully, developers have tons of options to choose from when creating them – the most common programming languages for front-end development being ReactJS, VueJS, and Angular (a rewrite of AngularJS).

At first glance, they may seem similar. After all, they’re written using the same programming language, JavaScript. However, these three are more different than you think – with each one of them having their own edge.

ReactJS: The Straightforward

First open sourced in 2013, Jordan Walke, one of the software engineers at Facebook, created ReactJS (commonly shortened to React). It is a JavaScript library that controls a website’s Document Object Model (DOM). The DOM is an Application Programming Interface (API) which represents a page so that programs can change its design and content. Using the DOM API has always been a challenge, but it is less so now that developers can choose React for front-end development.

React is mainly a tool or front-end development programming language for building user interfaces – the display a user views, understands, and interacts with. Think of it like your device’s touchscreen wherein certain taps translate into commands that our devices follow to perform certain tasks. Furthermore, it is where feedback is shown after the machine executes our orders.

Being declarative is one of React’s main characteristics. This means that it focuses more on what we want and less on our way of doing it. Once we declare statements in its language, it translates them into the User Interface we desire. It’s simple, efficient, and direct to the point.

Consequently, learning React paves the way to developing with React Native – which can essentially be a foundation for your native applications on both Android and iOS. You can also write your own Native Module in React’s language and add it to the React Native library.

VueJS: The Versatile

Although VueJS (pronounced “view”) likewise manipulates the DOM using JavaScript, it is not a library but a progressive framework. Simply put, this front-end development frameworks are libraries gathered together to build templates for repeating features on sites or applications.

Released in 2014, Vue’s creator and former Google Creative Technologist Evan You originally called it a library that uses Model-View-Viewmodel (MVVM) data bindings to create interfaces. As a simple explanation, the Model is the true data, the View is the data’s presentation and its related behaviors, and the Viewmodel is their middleman, responsible for making them work together while keeping their individual features apart.

Vue is a lightweight, flexible, and easy to set-up front-end development programming language. Add that to its gentle learning curve and that basically makes it most accessible to developers of varying skill levels. Due to it running on simple code, it lets you start your development earlier – therefore allowing you to receive feedback much sooner. This ultimately allows you to debug and improve your output faster.

Vue comes with Vue CLI. A Command Line Interface (CLI) is a user interface that text. Moreover, its components’ centralized store (Vuex), its official router (Vue Router), and testing utilities (Vue Test Utils) assist it.

Angular: The Full Featured

AngularJS is otherwise known as Angular 1. and was made available in 2010. Like Vue, Google employees (Miško Hevery and Jules Kremer) and utilizes MVVM data bindings originally created it.

Angular, the rewrite of AngularJS, is a component-based framework built on TypeScript – which is an extended form of Javascript. Components, by definition, are the elements visible on-screen.

As this front-end development programming language serves as a reference, non-developers can quickly pinpoint which components to reuse. This technique allows them to focus on more unique aspects of the project instead of spending valuable time drafting a new interface. Thus, ultimately making the design process more efficient.

Angular is a full-featured – making it much better for heavier and more complex projects involving multiple components and deliverables. Plus, its framework enables applications to function in different environments through Angular CLI. When you work with Angular, the possibilities for front-end development are endless. For example, it expands your scope to the creation of games too and doesn’t limit to form-based applications.

In addition to all of that,  a growing amount of developers, guides, and community-made tutorials and other contributions support Angular. As a bonus, these developers who grow to become more experienced with Angular are on their way to achieving more powerful results with less code.

The Best One?

In summary, while these three undoubtedly dominate the front-end development language scene, they are best under different circumstances. React wins if you’re looking for simplicity. On the other hand, Vue’s biggest advantage is its ability to adjust to its user’s skill level. Nonetheless, Angular proves that there are strength and beauty in its complexity. However, should you need assistance and expert advice on which is the most appropriate front-end development scene, we have the best web developers in the Philippines who can provide expert advice on which front-end development scene is the perfect match for your site or application.

About Adam Tan

Adam is a charming geek who loves his family's Siberian Husky, enjoys the occasional night out with friends and, most of all, lives and breathes new trends and updates about the web and its technicalities. If you want to stay updated with changes or new trends on the web or learn about the technicalities that are involved, he's your guy. He's capable of writing cheesy stuff as well, but he'd rather stick with the manly stuff.

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