React.js vs Angular.js: Choosing the Right Frontend Tool

At some point in a frontend developer's journey, you'll have to choose which tool to learn, React or Angular. The first thing to know is that while Angular is an open-source JavaScript framework, React is an open-source JavaScript library. If you are like me as at when I started that you don't really understand what this open source means I'll tell you. Open source means free to view, modify and share. Use your PC's operating system (O.S) for instance. Back in the days O.S was not open source and so when some of the companies that owned the O.S went out of business the users of the software were left with an outdated O.S and they were forced to buy a different O.S. Fast forward to the birth of Linux (which is open source) which allowed its users to view, modify and distribute as they wished.

Back to our discussion now, React allows you to create dynamic and interactive applications and improve user interface (UI) design i.e. for a website you can create components like header, footer and so on which makes your code reusable, and also interact with certain parts of your website without refreshing the whole page. Don't forget you also need to learn frameworks like Next.js to join these components together, Angular on the other hand is mostly used for developing Single Page Applications (SPA's) and unlike React data binding is performed without the need to write any separate code which is the right choice between React and Angular

Many developers would tell you that one is better than the other, but I disagree. While one might be ahead of the other, updates are being released and they are being drawn to equal footing. The learning curves for the tools are different and the difficulty may vary depending on the individual. I'll advice you to learn both but the order in which to learn them rests entirely on you. There are many videos, tutors, and documentation to use when learning but i recommend Brocode for React (285) React Full Course for free ⚛️ (2024) - YouTube and Net ninja for Angular if you are just starting out.

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