According to the 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey, most people who learn to code learn React.
Learners Market
Not too bad, many jo...
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I have been a lead engineer of both angular and react projects.
Personally, I love react, and use it exclusively on all my personal projects.
Having joined projects with code written by junior devs in both angular and react, I can see why large enterprise companies prefer angular, and if I had to start a new enterprise product, but knew that we were hiring engineers with diverse skill levels, I would chose angular every time, even though I like react better.
The difference is poorly written angular code is still easy to navigate through, fix, and understand. Sometimes engineers can get "creative" and make a mess, but it isn't too difficult to untangle even the worst angular codebase.
A poorly written react codebase though is an absolute nightmare. It gives you maximal flexibility, and you can devote that to shooting yourself in the foot.
React is a more powerful, more expressive framework, but with great power comes great responsibility.
Now coming back to the article, a lot of people choose React to learn. Partly because it is more popular, and I think partly because there is less to learn to be an effective React developer. Angular has more to learn, and I think that makes it less attractive to those who are starting out. Ironically, the very people that Angular is more suited for (those who need guard rails) are those who get turned off by the learning requirements.
Great reply! I second everything you said!
Same experience and same conclusions.
I know Angular has a few new tutorials but I didn't try them myself.
Leaving them here for the readers: angular.dev/tutorials
I can feel you. I'm stuck in such React nightmare as well. But Angular is not the right solution, it just introduces more of a mental burden. Your Junior devs should solve real business problems and not juggle weird framework concepts. Make it simple(r).
Yes, Angular learning curve used to be steeper than React.
However, you get many benefits later e.g. standard routing lib, standard state management, etc. across Angular projects, even in different companies.
With React it's a given you might use a different routing lib or state management solution if you change company. That requires some learning.
I'm actuall not arguing in favor of React, which is even worse in my opinion. But there are other options that don't have the learning curve, are closer to what a browser actually renders, and have a batteries-included approach ... like Svelte, for example.
Angular is here to stay, much like modern-day Java. Large enterprises have heavily invested in building their ecosystems around Angular, which continues to excel in powering production-grade applications.
More importantly, not all applications demand extreme performance; many prioritize a scalable, robust architecture—something Angular delivers seamlessly through its foundational design
Yes. Enterprises are still into the Java-Side-Of-Things. That's a sad truth. But for your own sanity you shouldn't support it. If they don't find the devs to support that stuff, they need to pivot to something else (something more enjoyable to work with).
That’s not how the job market works unfortunately
Maybe you could argue, that the companies currently using Angular will shift to something else (soonish), because they don't get the devs, they need. Chicken/Egg problem. So starting Angular now might put you in a situation not so favourable down the road. Just learn what you like most, get good at it, and you will fit somewhere.
Interesting - I just wonder what kind of jobs these are - my hunch is that the kind of jobs requiring Angular are heavily biased towards "in house enterprise" type jobs ...
I'm an (online/remote) freelancer and I'm not really targeting the corporate/enterprise market (it would be pretty hard to break into, even if I wanted to).
As such, I think Angular would for me not be a great choice ...
(and what a pity that Vue is so underrated - I feel that between React and Angular, Vue sort of offers the best of both worlds)
Interesting perspective!
It also depends on the market where you operate!
That's what I meant :-)
But apart from that I think you made a good point :)
And thanks for adding this perspective!
I don't think we hear enough from software freelancers!
Thanks!
You're welcome ... I was an employee at various companies before I became a freelancer - best decision I ever took haha! The freedom ... :-)
You should write something about that:)
Pros and cons, of course.
But also freedom vs security, if that's the trade-off. Onsite/remote?
What about the relationship with colleagues?
Probably it's great to learn more also!
Nice idea, I agree that would be interesting - I'll keep it in mind !
This may apply now, but what about in 5 years?
The Google team has officially said it plans to work on Angular for the next 10 years. This was stated in the Angular 18 release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK8M-ZFjaMw&t=5s I think this shows that Angular is here to stay.
Thanks for the reply! Honestly, I didn't know what to say.
5 years in tech is forever. Anything can happen!
I'll do my bet. In 5 years React to Angular will be as php to java now. Laravel (or any php framework) to Spring.
Nobody knows the future. Perhaps another framework will take over. You may not be alive in 5 years. SQLite will be the new hawt database of choice for production. Who knows!
I started with Angular as well a little over 4 years ago. It may not be the crowd favorite choice, but it's a fine framework that will serve you well if you dedicate time to learning it properly.
Yes, Angular is superb and better than React (or any other framework) of landing you a frontend job. It's always best not to compete in a field that is saturated with younger (cheaper) workers.
As an Angular developer of 9 years, going back to AngularJS 1.3, I must warn you that companies are still cutting down on hiring for Angular developers. Most of the roles are turning into Full Stack positions where they want an Angular frontend expert and somebody who can do C#/.NET or Java backend work + DevOps. Angular has been phenomenal for my family and me regarding work and income. Unfortunately, the current economy and tightening of organizational purses will not guarantee you a job in the field as quickly as they did before.
Very good points there!
Thanks for the insight!
I think the fullstack trend is visible across frameworks.
If angular takes over I'm done.
Why?
Also, I don't think any framework/library will get an overwhelming market share soon.
For me Angular is a pain in the ass, too. I don't like all the abstractions they are enforcing. After all we are creating stupid simple websites, just stick with HTML, CSS and JavaScript and add a little sugar where it's needed. I like Svelte and HTMX (if the UI needs to be more backend driven).
Maybe only React is worse, than Angular. And I truly don't understand why their stupid concept ever got any traction. I don't want to write HTML inside my JS files ... this is just wrong.
I used to think so too. "HTML inside JS: what is wrong with you?"
But then I started using React, and - it's been my favourite way of building websites ever since.
Angular lost their top position when they failed to modernize their architecture. We see just this month that stand-alone apps are the default after a 5 year lag of getting rid of ng-modules which eventually clashed with ECMA. I feel that angular team needs new leadership; however it's pretty hard to compete against React's excellent design.
They have realized the bad decision and are striving hard to fix it. There are many changes coming to the framework.
Pretty strong words considering what they have done in the last few years, imo.
LOL
Why?
Hysterical FOMO 🤣