Standalone Components in Angular – A Complete Guide

Angular has always been known for its powerful architecture and modularity. However, with great power often comes complexity. To simplify Angular application development and improve performance and maintainability, Angular introduced a game-changing feature called Standalone Components in Angular v14 (June 2022).

In this blog, we'll explore what standalone components are, why they were introduced, their benefits and drawbacks, and when you should consider using them in your Angular projects.

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What Are Standalone Components?

Traditionally, Angular components needed to be declared in an NgModule. Standalone components break away from this pattern. A standalone component is a component that can exist without being part of any NgModule.

With standalone components:

• Components, directives, and pipes can directly manage their own dependencies.

• You no longer need to wrap everything inside @NgModule.

Basic Example:

import { Component } from '@angular/core';
import { CommonModule } from '@angular/common';

@Component({
  standalone: true,
  selector: 'app-hello',
  template: `<h1>Hello, Standalone!</h1>`,
  imports: [CommonModule]
})
export class HelloComponent {}

Notice the standalone: true flag — that’s what makes it standalone.

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Purpose of Introducing Standalone Components

Angular’s development team introduced standalone components with a few key goals:

1. Simplify Angular’s Learning Curve
   Reduce the boilerplate of NgModules, making Angular easier for newcomers.

2. Boost Developer Productivity
   Allow for faster development by removing unnecessary indirection.

3. Enable Better Tree-Shaking
   Improve performance by making components more self-contained and tree-shakable.

4. Pave the Way for Better Integration
   Help Angular work better with modern tooling and micro-frontend architectures.

5. Facilitate Easier Testing
   Test standalone components in isolation without needing a module.

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Benefits of Standalone Components

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Drawbacks of Standalone Components

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Use Cases and Best Practices

Standalone components are ideal for:

• Small to medium-sized apps

• Micro frontends or modular designs

• Lazy-loaded feature modules

• Libraries of reusable components

• Rapid prototyping

Best Practices:

• Use standalone components for new features/modules

• Combine them with provideRouter() and bootstrapApplication() for fully standalone apps (NgModules-free)

• Use importProvidersFrom() if you need to bring in providers from existing NgModules

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Example: Bootstrap an App Without NgModule

import { bootstrapApplication } from '@angular/platform-browser';
import { AppComponent } from './app/app.component';

bootstrapApplication(AppComponent)
  .catch(err => console.error(err));

Just like that, your Angular app runs without a single NgModule!

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Timeline of Introduction

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Final Thoughts

The introduction of standalone components is one of the most impactful changes in Angular’s history. By simplifying architecture, improving performance, and aligning more closely with modern web development trends, standalone components bring a breath of fresh air to Angular development.

While they’re not a replacement for NgModules in every case, they open new doors for scalable and maintainable applications.

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Summary

• Introduced in Angular 14 (2022)

• Purpose: Simplify architecture, improve performance, enable better tooling

• Benefits: Less boilerplate, better tree-shaking, simplified testing

• Drawbacks: Mixed patterns, migration effort, potential tool/library issues

• Use when: Building new features, micro-frontends, or modular apps

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Ready to try standalone components?
Start a new Angular app with:

ng new my-standalone-app --standalone

Let Angular feel modern and lightweight again.

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✍ Written by Rishabh Mishra