Both Angular and React are popular JavaScript Framework/Library used worldwide to create complex web-apps.

Angular is different then AngularJS, which was released in 2009 and uses JavaScript. Angular released in 2016 by Google, was a complete rewrite of AngularJS and is not backward compatible. It uses TypeScript instead of JavaScript as the programming language. TypeScript is a statically TYPED language, which is CONSIDERED as the superset of JavaScript. TypeScript provides developers with Object-oriented background a smooth transition to JavaScript.

React is a JavaScript library released by Facebook in 2013. It was initially developed at Facebook to optimise the ease of development of Component and to speed up Facebook.

Let’s now look at the differences between Angular and React -

Angular is a complete framework, whereas React is a library. React is very lightweight and we generally use other third-party libraries to enhance its capabilities when REQUIRED. On the other hand, you get everything inside the Angular ecosystem only, but sometimes its an overkill.

Angular uses two-way data-binding, whereas React uses one-way data-binding. In React the data flows from parent component to child component only. Sometimes this complicates thing and to solve it we use state management packages like Redux and Flux with it.

Angular comes with complete MVC(Model-View-Controller), whereas React is just the View layer in MVC. In Angular, we write our TypeScript and HTML in different FILES and it separates the logic. Whereas in React, we use a hybrid language called JSX, which is basically writing JavaScript inside HTML code.

React is faster than Angular because it updates the Virtual DOM, whereas Angular updates directly the Real DOM. React only updates the part of DOM which gets updated by the code and behind the scene updates the Real DOM, when its efficient, Angular directly updates Real DOM, like a typical vanilla HTML, JS application. This has a huge impact in complex web-applications which have many complex features and it gives the advantage to React.

React is much easier to learn for a beginner as it’s a library with some basic concept. In comparison, Angular learning curve is more as you have to learn a complete Framework and have many unique concepts. But once you need to implement things like Redux, react-router to React, the complexity grows.