What is Angular and what are its top alternatives?
Top Alternatives to Angular
- React
Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project. ...
- Polymer
Polymer is a new type of library for the web, designed to leverage the existing browser infrastructure to provide the encapsulation and extendability currently only available in JS libraries. Polymer is based on a set of future technologies, including Shadow DOM, Custom Elements and Model Driven Views. Currently these technologies are implemented as polyfills or shims, but as browsers adopt these features natively, the platform code that drives Polymer evacipates, leaving only the value-adds. ...
- Aurelia
Aurelia is a next generation JavaScript client framework that leverages simple conventions to empower your creativity. ...
- Vue.js
It is a library for building interactive web interfaces. It provides data-reactive components with a simple and flexible API. ...
- Meteor
A Meteor application is a mix of JavaScript that runs inside a client web browser, JavaScript that runs on the Meteor server inside a Node.js container, and all the supporting HTML fragments, CSS rules, and static assets. ...
- Knockout
It is a JavaScript library that helps you to create rich, responsive display and editor user interfaces with a clean underlying data model. Any time you have sections of UI that update dynamically (e.g., changing depending on the user’s actions or when an external data source changes), it can help you implement it more simply and maintainably. ...
- AngularJS
AngularJS lets you write client-side web applications as if you had a smarter browser. It lets you use good old HTML (or HAML, Jade and friends!) as your template language and lets you extend HTML’s syntax to express your application’s components clearly and succinctly. It automatically synchronizes data from your UI (view) with your JavaScript objects (model) through 2-way data binding. ...
- Backbone.js
Backbone supplies structure to JavaScript-heavy applications by providing models key-value binding and custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable functions, views with declarative event handling, and connects it all to your existing application over a RESTful JSON interface. ...
Angular alternatives & related posts
- Components807
- Virtual dom665
- Performance575
- Simplicity501
- Composable442
- Data flow184
- Declarative166
- Isn't an mvc framework127
- Reactive updates118
- Explicit app state113
- JSX46
- Learn once, write everywhere27
- Easy to Use22
- Uni-directional data flow21
- Works great with Flux Architecture17
- Great perfomance11
- Javascript9
- Built by Facebook9
- TypeScript support7
- Speed6
- Easy to start5
- Excellent Documentation5
- Props5
- Functional5
- Easy as Lego5
- Closer to standard JavaScript and HTML than others5
- Cross-platform5
- Server Side Rendering5
- Feels like the 90s5
- Hooks5
- Awesome5
- Scalable5
- Strong Community4
- Super easy4
- Start simple4
- Sdfsdfsdf4
- Server side views4
- Fancy third party tools4
- Scales super well4
- Just the View of MVC3
- Simple, easy to reason about and makes you productive3
- Fast evolving3
- SSR3
- Great migration pathway for older systems3
- Rich ecosystem3
- Simple3
- Has functional components3
- Allows creating single page applications3
- Has arrow functions3
- Very gentle learning curve3
- Beautiful and Neat Component Management3
- Permissively-licensed2
- Sharable2
- Split your UI into components with one true state2
- Every decision architecture wise makes sense2
- Fragments2
- M1
- Recharts1
- Image upload1
- HTML-like1
- Requires discipline to keep architecture organized38
- No predefined way to structure your app27
- Need to be familiar with lots of third party packages26
- JSX10
- Not enterprise friendly8
- One-way binding only6
- State consistency with backend neglected3
- Bad Documentation3
- Paradigms change too fast2
- Error boundary is needed2
related React posts
I am starting to become a full-stack developer, by choosing and learning .NET Core for API Development, Angular CLI / React for UI Development, MongoDB for database, as it a NoSQL DB and Flutter / React Native for Mobile App Development. Using Postman, Markdown and Visual Studio Code for development.
I picked up an idea to develop and it was no brainer I had to go with React for the frontend. I was faced with challenges when it came to what component framework to use. I had worked extensively with Material-UI but I needed something different that would offer me wider range of well customized components (I became pretty slow at styling). I brought in Evergreen after several sampling and reads online but again, after several prototype development against Evergreen—since I was using TypeScript and I had to import custom Type, it felt exhaustive. After I validated Evergreen with the designs of the idea I was developing, I also noticed I might have to do a lot of styling. I later stumbled on Material Kit, the one specifically made for React . It was promising with beautifully crafted components, most of which fits into the designs pages I had on ground.
A major problem of Material Kit for me is it isn't written in TypeScript and there isn't any plans to support its TypeScript version. I rolled up my sleeve and started converting their components to TypeScript and if you'll ask me, I am still on it.
In summary, I used the Create React App with TypeScript support and I am spending some time converting Material Kit to TypeScript before I start developing against it. All of these components are going to be hosted on Bit.
If you feel I am crazy or I have gotten something wrong, I'll be willing to listen to your opinion. Also, if you want to have a share of whatever TypeScript version of Material Kit I end up coming up with, let me know.
Polymer
- Web components52
- Material design30
- HTML14
- Components13
- Open source5
- It uses the platform4
- Designer friendly. HTMLX concepts3
- Like the interesting naming convention for elements1
- Last version is like 2 years ago? that's totally rad1
related Polymer posts
At Beamery we had a large, AngularJS app, built over several years. Our clients were happy, but we were not. We had several problems: Building new features was slow. AngularJS doesn’t scale nicely. Features clash with each other. Isolation doesn’t come as standard, you have to work hard to keep features separate. It takes time to get it right. #Hiring was hard, for all the reasons listed above. The app was slower than it needed to be because AngularJS was never built for speed. We wanted to render half a million contacts, and Angular was fighting us all the way.
As time went by it become harder to find developers who would willingly choose AngularJS over React Angular 2 , Vue.js , Aurelia or Polymer .
So we faced a choice. We could throw it all away and start again, we could upgrade to Angular 5, or the awesome option - we could use micro frontends. We chose the awesome option.
For developing our #frontend applications, we decided to use Vue.js . Being such an easy to learn library, compared to React for example, it made everything so easy. At first we started with Polymer but the existing tooling and small community at the time made us look for alternatives.
Aurelia
- Simple with conventions47
- Modern architecture42
- Makes sense and is mostly javascript not framework39
- Extensible31
- Integrates well with other components28
- Easy to use27
- Dependency Injection25
- Modular22
- Great router20
- Adaptive Data Binding16
- Typescript, ES2015, ES201613
- IoC, Modularity, Simplicity, Full Stack11
- Good binding system9
- Based on ES79
- Testable6
- Convention based6
- Quick to develop5
- Solid Documentation4
- Evolving standards compliance4
- Smooth learning curve4
- Outstanding Support (paid)4
- Reactive binding system1
- TypeScript1
related Aurelia posts
At Beamery we had a large, AngularJS app, built over several years. Our clients were happy, but we were not. We had several problems: Building new features was slow. AngularJS doesn’t scale nicely. Features clash with each other. Isolation doesn’t come as standard, you have to work hard to keep features separate. It takes time to get it right. #Hiring was hard, for all the reasons listed above. The app was slower than it needed to be because AngularJS was never built for speed. We wanted to render half a million contacts, and Angular was fighting us all the way.
As time went by it become harder to find developers who would willingly choose AngularJS over React Angular 2 , Vue.js , Aurelia or Polymer .
So we faced a choice. We could throw it all away and start again, we could upgrade to Angular 5, or the awesome option - we could use micro frontends. We chose the awesome option.
- Simple and easy to start with293
- Good documentation226
- Components195
- Simple the best129
- Simplified AngularJS99
- Reactive91
- Intuitive APIs75
- Javascript54
- Changed my front end coding life49
- Configuration is smooth47
- Easy to learn35
- So much fun to use34
- Progressive24
- Virtual dom21
- Faster than bulldogs on hot tarmac16
- It's magic11
- Component is template, javascript and style in one11
- Best of Both Worlds9
- Perfomance9
- Light Weight9
- Application structure8
- Without misleading licenses8
- Elegant design8
- Intuitive and easy to use7
- Good command line interface6
- Easy to integrate to HTML by inline-templates5
- Logicless templates5
- Like Angular only quicker to get started with5
- Small learning curve5
- Single file components4
- Customer Render ending eg to HTML3
- High performance3
- Component based2
- Vuex2
- Bridge from Web Development to JS Development2
- Concise error messages2
- Supports several template languages2
- One-way data flow2
- Intuitive2
- Lots of documentation2
- GUI1
- Less Common Place9
- YXMLvsHTML Markup5
- Don't support fragments3
- Only support programatically multiple root nodes3
related Vue.js posts
I've used both Vue.js and React and I would stick with React. I know that Vue.js seems easier to write and its much faster to pick up however as you mentioned above React has way more ready made components you can just plugin, and the community for React is very big.
It might be a bit more of a steep learning curve for your friend to learn React over Vue.js but I think in the long run its the better option.
Our whole Node.js backend stack consists of the following tools:
- Lerna as a tool for multi package and multi repository management
- npm as package manager
- NestJS as Node.js framework
- TypeScript as programming language
- ExpressJS as web server
- Swagger UI for visualizing and interacting with the API’s resources
- Postman as a tool for API development
- TypeORM as object relational mapping layer
- JSON Web Token for access token management
The main reason we have chosen Node.js over PHP is related to the following artifacts:
- Made for the web and widely in use: Node.js is a software platform for developing server-side network services. Well-known projects that rely on Node.js include the blogging software Ghost, the project management tool Trello and the operating system WebOS. Node.js requires the JavaScript runtime environment V8, which was specially developed by Google for the popular Chrome browser. This guarantees a very resource-saving architecture, which qualifies Node.js especially for the operation of a web server. Ryan Dahl, the developer of Node.js, released the first stable version on May 27, 2009. He developed Node.js out of dissatisfaction with the possibilities that JavaScript offered at the time. The basic functionality of Node.js has been mapped with JavaScript since the first version, which can be expanded with a large number of different modules. The current package managers (npm or Yarn) for Node.js know more than 1,000,000 of these modules.
- Fast server-side solutions: Node.js adopts the JavaScript "event-loop" to create non-blocking I/O applications that conveniently serve simultaneous events. With the standard available asynchronous processing within JavaScript/TypeScript, highly scalable, server-side solutions can be realized. The efficient use of the CPU and the RAM is maximized and more simultaneous requests can be processed than with conventional multi-thread servers.
- A language along the entire stack: Widely used frameworks such as React or AngularJS or Vue.js, which we prefer, are written in JavaScript/TypeScript. If Node.js is now used on the server side, you can use all the advantages of a uniform script language throughout the entire application development. The same language in the back- and frontend simplifies the maintenance of the application and also the coordination within the development team.
- Flexibility: Node.js sets very few strict dependencies, rules and guidelines and thus grants a high degree of flexibility in application development. There are no strict conventions so that the appropriate architecture, design structures, modules and features can be freely selected for the development.
Meteor
- Real-time252
- Full stack, one language200
- Best app dev platform available today183
- Data synchronization155
- Javascript152
- Focus on your product not the plumbing118
- Hot code pushes107
- Open source106
- Live page updates102
- Latency compensation92
- Ultra-simple development environment39
- Real time awesome29
- Smart Packages29
- Great for beginners23
- Direct Cordova integration22
- Better than Rails16
- Less moving parts15
- It's just amazing13
- Blaze10
- Great community support8
- Plugins for everything8
- One command spits out android and ios ready apps.6
- 0 to Production in no time5
- It just works5
- Easy deployment4
- Coding Speed4
- Is Agile in development hybrid(mobile/web)4
- You can grok it in a day. No ng nonsense4
- One Code => 3 Platforms: Web, Android and IOS2
- AngularJS Integration2
- Easy yet powerful2
- Community2
- Real time1
- Hookie friendly1
- High quality, very few bugs1
- Easy Setup1
- Free1
- Friendly to use1
- Stack available on Codeanywhere1
- Nosql1
- Does not scale well5
- Hard to debug issues on the server-side4
- Heavily CPU bound4
related Meteor posts
Next.js is probably the most enjoyable React framework our team could have picked. The development is an extremely smooth process, the file structure is beautiful and organized, and the speed is no joke. Our work with Next.js comes out much faster than if it was built on pure React or frameworks alike. We were previously developing all of our projects in Meteor before making the switch. We left Meteor due to the slow compiler and website speed. We deploy all of our Next.js projects on Vercel.
Mixmax was originally built using Meteor as a single monolithic app. As more users began to onboard, we started noticing scaling issues, and so we broke out our first microservice: our Compose service, for writing emails and Sequences, was born as a Node.js service. Soon after that, we broke out all recipient searching and storage functionality to another Node.js microservice, our Contacts service. This practice of breaking out microservices in order to help our system more appropriately scale, by being more explicit about each microservice’s responsibilities, continued as we broke out numerous more microservices.
- Data centered application3
- Great for validations2
- Open source1
related Knockout posts
- Quick to develop889
- Great mvc588
- Powerful572
- Restful521
- Backed by google503
- Two-way data binding349
- Javascript343
- Open source328
- Dependency injection306
- Readable197
- Fast75
- Directives64
- Great community63
- Free56
- Extend html vocabulary38
- Components29
- Easy to test26
- Easy to learn24
- Easy to templates23
- Great documentation23
- Easy to start21
- Awesome18
- Light weight17
- Javascript mvw framework14
- Angular 2.014
- Great extensions13
- Efficient13
- Easy to prototype with10
- Coffeescript8
- High performance8
- Mvc7
- Two-way binding7
- Lots of community modules7
- Clean and keeps code readable6
- Easy to e2e6
- One of the best frameworks5
- Easy for small applications5
- Fast development4
- Works great with jquery4
- I do not touch DOM3
- The two-way Data Binding is awesome2
- Typescript2
- Dart2
- Community2
- Hierarchical Data Structure2
- Be a developer, not a plumber.2
- Declarative programming2
- Common Place1
- Great1
- Very very useful and fast framework for development1
- Amazing community support1
- Readable code1
- Linear learning curve1
- Scopes1
- Programming fun again1
- The powerful of binding, routing and controlling routes1
- Consistency with backend architecture if using Nest1
- Fkin awesome1
- Opinionated in the right areas1
- Supports api , easy development1
- Complex10
- Dependency injection3
- Event Listener Overload2
- Learning Curve2
- Hard to learn1
related AngularJS posts
Our whole Node.js backend stack consists of the following tools:
- Lerna as a tool for multi package and multi repository management
- npm as package manager
- NestJS as Node.js framework
- TypeScript as programming language
- ExpressJS as web server
- Swagger UI for visualizing and interacting with the API’s resources
- Postman as a tool for API development
- TypeORM as object relational mapping layer
- JSON Web Token for access token management
The main reason we have chosen Node.js over PHP is related to the following artifacts:
- Made for the web and widely in use: Node.js is a software platform for developing server-side network services. Well-known projects that rely on Node.js include the blogging software Ghost, the project management tool Trello and the operating system WebOS. Node.js requires the JavaScript runtime environment V8, which was specially developed by Google for the popular Chrome browser. This guarantees a very resource-saving architecture, which qualifies Node.js especially for the operation of a web server. Ryan Dahl, the developer of Node.js, released the first stable version on May 27, 2009. He developed Node.js out of dissatisfaction with the possibilities that JavaScript offered at the time. The basic functionality of Node.js has been mapped with JavaScript since the first version, which can be expanded with a large number of different modules. The current package managers (npm or Yarn) for Node.js know more than 1,000,000 of these modules.
- Fast server-side solutions: Node.js adopts the JavaScript "event-loop" to create non-blocking I/O applications that conveniently serve simultaneous events. With the standard available asynchronous processing within JavaScript/TypeScript, highly scalable, server-side solutions can be realized. The efficient use of the CPU and the RAM is maximized and more simultaneous requests can be processed than with conventional multi-thread servers.
- A language along the entire stack: Widely used frameworks such as React or AngularJS or Vue.js, which we prefer, are written in JavaScript/TypeScript. If Node.js is now used on the server side, you can use all the advantages of a uniform script language throughout the entire application development. The same language in the back- and frontend simplifies the maintenance of the application and also the coordination within the development team.
- Flexibility: Node.js sets very few strict dependencies, rules and guidelines and thus grants a high degree of flexibility in application development. There are no strict conventions so that the appropriate architecture, design structures, modules and features can be freely selected for the development.





Our whole Vue.js frontend stack (incl. SSR) consists of the following tools:
- Nuxt.js consisting of Vue CLI, Vue Router, vuex, Webpack and Sass (Bundler for HTML5, CSS 3), Babel (Transpiler for JavaScript),
- Vue Styleguidist as our style guide and pool of developed Vue.js components
- Vuetify as Material Component Framework (for fast app development)
- TypeScript as programming language
- Apollo / GraphQL (incl. GraphiQL) for data access layer (https://apollo.vuejs.org/)
- ESLint, TSLint and Prettier for coding style and code analyzes
- Jest as testing framework
- Google Fonts and Font Awesome for typography and icon toolkit
- NativeScript-Vue for mobile development
The main reason we have chosen Vue.js over React and AngularJS is related to the following artifacts:
- Empowered HTML. Vue.js has many similar approaches with Angular. This helps to optimize HTML blocks handling with the use of different components.
- Detailed documentation. Vue.js has very good documentation which can fasten learning curve for developers.
- Adaptability. It provides a rapid switching period from other frameworks. It has similarities with Angular and React in terms of design and architecture.
- Awesome integration. Vue.js can be used for both building single-page applications and more difficult web interfaces of apps. Smaller interactive parts can be easily integrated into the existing infrastructure with no negative effect on the entire system.
- Large scaling. Vue.js can help to develop pretty large reusable templates.
- Tiny size. Vue.js weights around 20KB keeping its speed and flexibility. It allows reaching much better performance in comparison to other frameworks.
Backbone.js
- Javascript structure135
- Models101
- Simple98
- Restful76
- Easy api59
- Flexible46
- Open source45
- Fast to pick up44
- Events34
- JSON25
- OOP8
- Lightweight2
- Collections1
- Easy customizable1
- Requires underscore.js1
related Backbone.js posts
The front end for Heap begun to grow unwieldy. The original jQuery pieces became difficult to maintain and scale, and a decision was made to introduce Backbone.js, Marionette, and TypeScript. Ultimately this ended up being a “detour” in the search for a scalable and maintainable front-end solution. The system did allow for developers to reuse components efficiently, but adding features was a difficult process, and it eventually became a bottleneck in advancing the product.
Today, the Heap product consists primarily of a customer-facing dashboard powered by React, MobX, and TypeScript on the front end. We wrote our migration to React and MobX in detail last year here.
#JavascriptUiLibraries #Libraries #JavascriptMvcFrameworks #TemplatingLanguagesExtensions
We are in the middle of a change of the stack on the front end. So we used Backbone.js with Marionette. Then we also created our own implementation of a Flux kind of flow. We call it eb-flux. We have worked with Marionette for a long time. Then at some point we start evolving and end up having a kind of Redux.js-style architecture, but with Marionette.
But then maybe one and a half years ago, we started moving into React and that's why we created the Eventbrite design system. It's a really nice project that probably could be open sourced. It's a library of components for our React components.
With the help of that library, we are building our new stack with React and sometimes Redux when it's necessary.