Updated March 14, 2023
Introduction to the AngularJS Alternatives
Before understanding the AngularJS alternatives, we must go through what AngularJS is and why developers in the market are looking for its alternatives? With the rapid increase of Startups, numerous innovations in the IT sector, the whole process of development of web applications has been revolutionized. Now the companies want rapid development of their applications. With this, new technologies have come up in the market providing exceptional features to developers and Angular JS is one of them.
AngularJS is a structural, open source framework that is used to create dynamic applications. It was initially introduced by Google by 2012. It is the first framework designed on the MVC design pattern. AngularJS became so popular in the market because of its extraordinary features like data binding that meant automatic updates of view and the idea of reinventing your own html tags (also called directives), dependency injection, etc. AngularJS allows developers to create Single Page Applications (SPA) and that very rapidly.
But it has some disadvantages also for which developers are looking for more options in the market like one must have a good knowledge of working with MVC frameworks to start with AngularJS and sometimes if some client computers do not support javascript then they won’t be able to access website written in AngularJS.
List of Best AngularJS Alternatives
Let’s see in detail the importance of the individual Alternatives of AngularJS
1. Vue.js
Vue is normally pronounced as View. It is a progressive framework which means it adapts to the needs of the developer. It is used to create Javascript frontend applications. It was developed by Evan You taking the advantages of React, Knockout and Angular. It is comparatively lighter than Angular. Vue.js provides both built-in and user-defined directives. Vue implements an important feature of Virtual DOM but implements it in some other sort of automatic dependency management. Vue is flexible because the core team has maintained two different packages that are very important for any web-app (routing and state management) which makes it less fragmented than other frameworks. It starts with a simple script tag and grows according to developer needs. Vue is easier to learn, fast and composable than other frameworks. It is perfectly capable of creating SPA when used in combination with modern libraries and modern tools.
2. Ember.js
Ember is an open-source, comprehensive javascript frontend framework that provides everything one needs to design and develop modern-day applications. It was developed by Yehuda Katz and its first version got a release in 2011. It is not only used to create reusable and maintainable SPA but can create desktop and mobile apps too. Apple Music is one of the best examples of an application that is developed in Ember. It is based on MVVM (Model – view- viewModel) pattern. Ember provides special Command Line Interface (CLI) utility that is robust, central to the technology stack and integrates Ember patterns into the development process. It has also some special features like Ember Inspector, Templating Engine, Data Binding, Glimmer, etc.
3. React
React is a javascript library that is used to create user interfaces of web applications. It efficiently updates and renders the right components when the data changes. React is maintained by Facebook and the community of individuals. We can develop new features in reacting without rewriting the existing code. React has an official Chrome extension which is used as a developing and debugging tool. It has an amazing feature of one – way data binding which means it is quite easy to see where UI is updated and where the developer needs to make changes. Apart from this, React supports server-side rendering, template engine independent, easy template mechanism and easy to write test cases.
4. Polymer
Polymer.js is an open-source JavaScript library that is used to create web applications. It allows developers to create cross-browser compatible applications. It was developed by Google and its first version got released in 2005. The polymer is used by a large number of Google services and websites, including the big brand like Netflix, Coca-Cola, IBM, etc. With Polymer.js, we can create our own HTML elements according to the requirements of the application. It allows developers to create cross-browser compatible applications. Polymer provides its own command-line interface for managing its own projects.
5. Riot
Riot.js is a JavaScript library, aimed to enhance the process of UI(User Interface) development for a JS developer. It was first released on November 2013. Riot is developed keeping in mind the benefits of both React.JS and Polymer. It is very easy to learn and understand. It also supports server-side rendering and uses DOM operations at its minimum. Riot is fun to work for both experienced and freshers. Almost all the browsers including Safari, Firefox, Chrome, IE9+ support Riot. It also follows concepts of Routing and Event handlers.
6. Backbone
BackboneJS is a lightweight JavaScript library that allows to develop and structure the client-side applications that run in a web browser. It was developed by Jeremy Ashkenas. Backbone.js gives structure to web applications by providing models with key-value binding and custom events. Backbone.js, a JavaScript library is based on the Model–view–presenter (MVP) application design model. Backbone.js is highly flexible and it does not have model binding unlike many if the javascript frameworks. Collection in Backbone.js is highly integrated with the javascript library, Underscore.js allowing developers to call its methods directly on Backbone objects.
7. Aurelia
Aurelia is also an open source framework of Javascript that allows the developers to create both mobile and web applications using the clean code. It is one of the known modern frameworks of Javascript. It allows the effortless coding and focuses only on the code and business logic. It was created by Rob Eisenberg, known as the creator of Durandal Inc. and Caliburn. Aurelia is one of the advanced and developer-friendly frameworks today. It is considered as more standard-compliant as it is case insensitive when it comes to HTML tags, unlike Angular. Aurelia’s unobtrusive approach makes it different from other frameworks that allow it to build and test components using vanilla Javascript or Typescript.
Comparison Table for AngularJS Alternatives
Here is a comparison table of the features for all the frameworks mentioned above.
| Features | Angular JS | Vue.js | Ember.j s | React | Polymer | Riot | Backbone | Aurelia |
| Pricing | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Architecture | Follows MVC | Follows MVVM | Follows MVVM | Follows MVVM | – | Follows MVP | Follows MVP | Follows Simple MV |
| Ease of Learnability | Difficult | Simple | Difficult | Simple | Simple | Very Simple | Very Simple | Very Simple |
| Performance | Comparatively slow | Fast | Fast | Fast | Fast | Fast | Much Faster | Fastest among all |
| Supports Data binding | Offers two-way data binding | Offers two-way data binding | Offers two-way data binding | Offers one-way data binding | Offers data binding | Offers one-way data binding | No data binding | No data binding process |
| Supports Server-side rendering | Yes (Updated version does) | Yes | No (Supports
client-side rendering) |
Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lightweight | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Discussion Forum | Large Mature community | Large community
Support backend by Laravel, Alibaba |
Smaller community support in comparison to others | Large community
Support from Facebook and Instagram |
Small
community support |
Small
community support |
Medium community
Support (only Documents on underscore template) |
Large
Community support |
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