AngularJS vs Angular: Choose the Best for Your Needs

Know which framework would be the best for you project:

AngularJS and Angular are similar open-source web application frameworks. Both are developed by the same company; however, there are significant differences in implementation and purpose. This article helps you determine which framework is best for your project by comparing their strengths and weaknesses.

What Is Angular?
Angular is an open-source web application framework. It was developed by Google and initially released in 2016. Yet, the real story of Angular is more interesting, and it is understandable how people get confused. Particularly, many people don’t understand what makes the Angular and AngularJS difference.
What Is AngularJS?
As explained in the previous section, AngularJS is the legacy version. It was built on the idea of declarative programming as well as model-view-controller architecture. AngularJS is in long-term support and its end of life is scheduled for December 31, 2021. In fact, the last updated version was released last year.
Key Differences Between Angular and AngularJS.
Architecture.
ANGULAR.
Angular’s architecture is called component-based architecture. This architecture is so-named due to the independence of components. Each component has a unique structure and can be reused separately even though in the codebase, multiple components must interact. This makes a difference in Angular vs AngularJS performance.
ANGULARJS.
AngularJS is built on MVC architecture (model-view-controller), a very early standard for developing web applications. All three terms (model, view, and controller) are considered aspects of a code so that you can organize codebase sections into separate functions. While MVC splits the overall code into sections, Angular’s CBA defines each aspect by components, so that each section of the code, technically, has its own ‘MVC’.
Language.
ANGULAR.
Perhaps the programming language of each framework is the most prominent difference between Angular and AngularJS. The former is based on TypeScript, an object-oriented programming language based on JavaScript. Being the more modern language, you can hire TypeScript developers to handle larger projects more efficiently.
ANGULARJS.
From its name, AngularJS, it is obvious that this is built on legacy JavaScript, which is among the top 3 programming languages even in 2021. JavaScript is a ubiquitous programming language. It works on any browser. Unlike TypeScript, JavaScript code has no need for compilation thus making it easier and faster to deploy apps, although JavaScript can mainly handle small scripts, not large projects.
Structure.
ANGULAR.
Angular is popular for its adoption of two-way data binding. That is, users can automatically display the effects of their code on the application interface in real-time. In Angular, though, as against AngularJS, there is no explicit implementation of two-way data binding. It simply happens with a combination of event binding and property binding.
ANGULARJS.
AngularJS also uses two-way data binding, but its performance is not convincing because of the digest cycle concept. There was no ultimate authority on data binding between the DOM and the model (of the MVC structure). So, without an agreement before both, a loop is triggered which somehow introduced an error code. This was called dirty checking.
When to Choose AngularJS.
How do you choose between AngularJS or Angular? AngularJS is obviously the older version. That’s discouraging enough. More so, it is coming to the end of its life at the close of the year. It is understandable why many developers would not want to use it. However, if the choice of a web development framework comes down to between AngularJS and Angular, must you absolutely choose the latter? Well, it depends.
When Angular is a Better Choice?
The simple answer is that Angular is the better choice, as long as the other option is AngularJS. Whether it is more or less suitable for particular applications is a different matter. Most applications today are built to scale, and so there is a better long-term reward if you overlook the initial inefficiency of Angular in building small apps.
Conclusion.
AngularJS and Angular are two Google web frameworks that offer different solutions to the same problem: building user interfaces. AngularJS enables developers to build powerful and feature-rich websites with a few lines of code. Angular, on the other hand, is an efficient cross-platform software development framework that does without additional dependencies. If you know what your project needs, then there is no real Angular vs AngularJS debate for you; simply use the one best suited for your project.
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