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Angular CLI vs npm: What are the differences?

Introduction

Angular CLI and npm are commonly used in web development, but they serve different purposes and have distinct functionalities. Understanding the key differences between Angular CLI and npm is crucial for web developers to effectively manage their projects.

  1. Angular CLI: Angular CLI (Command Line Interface) is a powerful tool that simplifies the development process for Angular applications. It provides a command line interface to create and manage Angular projects, components, services, modules, and other Angular-related features. Angular CLI comes with pre-configured templates and code generators that make it easier for developers to scaffold the structure of an Angular application.

  2. npm: npm (Node Package Manager) is a package manager for JavaScript and Node.js. It allows developers to manage and install external libraries, frameworks, and dependencies for their projects. npm is primarily used for installing and updating packages, managing project dependencies, and running scripts defined in the package.json file. It also provides a registry where developers can publish their own packages for widespread use.

  3. Installation and Usage: Angular CLI needs to be installed globally on the system using npm. Once installed, developers can create a new Angular project by running the "ng new" command. On the other hand, npm is installed globally by default when Node.js is installed. It can be used directly from the command line to install packages by running the "npm install" command followed by the package name.

  4. Project Configuration: Angular CLI provides a structured project setup with pre-configured files and folders, including the angular.json file for project configuration. It also offers a command line interface to generate components, services, and modules automatically. npm, on the other hand, does not provide any project structure or configuration. It relies on the package.json file to define project dependencies, scripts, and other metadata.

  5. Dependency Management: Angular CLI uses npm as its package manager for managing project dependencies. When creating a new Angular project using Angular CLI, the package.json file is automatically generated with default dependencies. Developers can use the "ng add" command to add additional dependencies to the project. npm, on the other hand, is the actual package manager that handles the installation, updating, and uninstallation of packages. Developers can use npm to install packages by running the "npm install" command followed by the package name.

  6. Command Line Interface: Angular CLI provides a specific set of commands and options for managing Angular projects. It offers commands like "ng serve," "ng build," and "ng test" for running the development server, building the project, and running tests, respectively. npm, on the other hand, provides a wider range of commands and options for general package management, including "npm start," "npm run build," and "npm test" for running scripts defined in the package.json file.

In summary, Angular CLI is a tool specifically designed for creating and managing Angular projects, providing features like project scaffolding, code generation, and a specific set of commands for managing Angular applications. On the other hand, npm is a general-purpose package manager for JavaScript and Node.js, used for installing, updating, and managing project dependencies and running scripts defined in the package.json file.

Advice on Angular CLI and npm
Needs advice
on
npmnpm
and
YarnYarn

From a StackShare Community member: “I’m a freelance web developer (I mostly use Node.js) and for future projects I’m debating between npm or Yarn as my default package manager. I’m a minimalist so I hate installing software if I don’t need to- in this case that would be Yarn. For those who made the switch from npm to Yarn, what benefits have you noticed? For those who stuck with npm, are you happy you with it?"

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Replies (14)
Julian Sanchez
Lead Developer at Chore Champion · | 11 upvotes · 238.7K views
Recommends
on
YarnYarn
at

We use Yarn because it allows us to more simply manage our node_modules. It also simplifies commands and increases speed when installing modules. Our teams module download time was cut in half after switching from NPM to Yarn. We now require all employees to use Yarn (to prevent errors with package-lock.json and yarn.lock).

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Recommends
on
npmnpm

I use npm since new version is pretty fast as well (Yarn may be still faster a bit but the difference isn't huge). No need for other dependency and mainly Yarn sometimes do not work. Sometimes when I want to install project dependencies I got error using Yarn but with npm everything is installed correctly.

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Recommends
on
YarnYarn

p.s.

I am not sure about the performance of the latest version of npm, whether it is different from my understanding of it below. Because I use npm very rarely when I had the following knowledge.

------⏬

I use Yarn because, first, yarn is the first tool to lock the version. Second, although npm also supports the lock version, when you use npm to lock the version, and then use package-lock.json on other systems, package-lock.json Will be modified. You understand what I mean, when you deploy projects based on Git...

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Mark Nelissen
Recommends
on
npmnpmnpmnpm

I use npm because I also mainly use React and TypeScript. Since several typings (from DefinitelyTyped) depend on the React typings, Yarn tends to mess up which leads to duplicate libraries present (different versions of the same type definition), which hinders the Typescript compiler. Npm always resolves to a single version per transitive dependency. At least that's my experience with both.

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Recommends
on
YarnYarn

As far as I know Yarn is a super module of NPM. But it still needs npm to run.

Yarn was developed by Facebook's guys to fix some npm issues and performance.

If you use the last version of npm most of this problem does not exist anymore.

You can choose the option which makes you more confortable. I like using yarn because I'm used to it.

In the end the packages will be the same. Just try both and choose the one you feel more confortable. :)

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tataata
Frontend designer and developer · | 3 upvotes · 224.2K views
Recommends
on
YarnYarn

Yarn made it painless for the team to sync on versions of packages that we use on the project <3

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Shuuji TAKAHASHI
Recommends
on
YarnYarn

I use Yarn because it outputs nice progress messages with cute emoji and installs packages quickly if the package is cached. Also, Yarn creates yarn.lock file which makes the developer use the consistent environment.

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Recommends
on
npmnpm

I use npm because its the official package manager for Node. It's reliability, security and speed has increased over time so the battle is over!

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Izzur Zuhri
Recommends
on
npmnpm

I use npm because it has a lot of community support and the performance difference with alternative tool is not so significant for me.

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Tor Hagemann
Principal Software Engineer at Socotra · | 3 upvotes · 124.4K views
Recommends
on
npmnpmYarnYarn

You should use whichever had the best DX (developer experience) for your team. If you are doing a massive front-end project, consider yarn if not only because it makes it a snap to go from zero to ready. What some people say about npm being more stable or easier for smaller projects is highly true as well. (not to mention, you sometimes have to install yarn) But, note that official NodeJS Docker images ship with both npm and yarn. If you want to use yarn, put package-lock=false and optionally save-exact=true in your project's .npmrc file. Compare whether you prefer the ergonomics of yarn global add over npm install -g or see fewer meaningless warnings for the specific set of dependencies you leverage.

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Denys Slipetskyy
Recommends
on
YarnYarn
at

I use Yarn because it process my dependencies way faster, predictable deps resolution order, upgrade-interactive is very handy + some Yarn specific features (workspaces, Plug’n’Play alternative installation strategy) ...

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Francois Leurent
Recommends
on
npmnpm
at

We tend to stick to npm, yarn is only a fancy alternative, not 10x better. Using a self -hosted private repository (via sinopia/npm-mirror) make package locking (mostly) pointless.

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Recommends
on
YarnYarn

I am a minimalist too. I once had issues with installing Nuxt.js using NPM so I had to install Yarn but I also found that the Dev experience was much better

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Digital All
Recommends
on
npmnpm

I use npm because its packaged with node installation and handles npm tokens in CI/CD tools for private packages/libraries.

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Decisions about Angular CLI and npm
Oleksandr Fedotov
Senior Software Engineer at joyn · | 3 upvotes · 264.3K views

As we have to build the application for many different TV platforms we want to split the application logic from the device/platform specific code. Previously we had different repositories and it was very hard to keep the development process when changes were done in multiple repositories, as we had to synchronize code reviews as well as merging and then updating the dependencies of projects. This issues would be even more critical when building the project from scratch what we did at Joyn. Therefor to keep all code in one place, at the same time keeping in separated in different modules we decided to give a try to monorepo. First we tried out lerna which was fine at the beginning, but later along the way we had issues with adding new dependencies which came out of the blue and were not easy to fix. Next round of evolution was yarn workspaces, we are still using it and are pretty happy with dev experience it provides. And one more advantage we got when switched to yarn workspaces that we also switched from npm to yarn what improved the state of the lock file a lot, because with npm package-lock file was updated every time you run npm install, frequent updates of package-lock file were causing very often merge conflicts. So right now we not just having faster dependencies installation time but also no conflicts coming from lock file.

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Petr Bambušek
Head of Frontend at Mews · | 2 upvotes · 275K views
Chose
YarnYarn
over
npmnpm
at
()

This was no real choice - we switched the moment Yarn was available, and never looked back. Yarn is the only reasonable frontend package manager that's actually being developed. They even aim to heal the node_modules madness with v2! Npm is just copying its ideas on top of introducing massive bugs with every change.

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Pros of Angular CLI
Pros of npm
    Be the first to leave a pro
    • 647
      Best package management system for javascript
    • 382
      Open-source
    • 327
      Great community
    • 148
      More packages than rubygems, pypi, or packagist
    • 112
      Nice people matter
    • 6
      As fast as yarn but really free of facebook
    • 6
      Audit feature
    • 4
      Good following
    • 1
      Super fast
    • 1
      Stability

    Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

    Cons of Angular CLI
    Cons of npm
      Be the first to leave a con
      • 5
        Problems with lockfiles
      • 5
        Bad at package versioning and being deterministic
      • 3
        Node-gyp takes forever
      • 1
        Super slow

      Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

      What is Angular CLI?

      A command-line interface tool that you use to initialize, develop, scaffold, and maintain Angular applications. You can use the tool directly in a command shell, or indirectly through an interactive UI such as Angular Console.

      What is npm?

      npm is the command-line interface to the npm ecosystem. It is battle-tested, surprisingly flexible, and used by hundreds of thousands of JavaScript developers every day.

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

      What companies use Angular CLI?
      What companies use npm?
      See which teams inside your own company are using Angular CLI or npm.
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      What are some alternatives to Angular CLI and npm?
      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.
      Webpack
      A bundler for javascript and friends. Packs many modules into a few bundled assets. Code Splitting allows to load parts for the application on demand. Through "loaders" modules can be CommonJs, AMD, ES6 modules, CSS, Images, JSON, Coffeescript, LESS, ... and your custom stuff.
      Angular
      It is a TypeScript-based open-source web application framework. It is a development platform for building mobile and desktop web applications.
      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.
      gulp
      Build system automating tasks: minification and copying of all JavaScript files, static images. More capable of watching files to automatically rerun the task when a file changes.
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