According to Stack Overflow survey 2018, Angular continues to be the most commonly used framework in front-end development stack. Further, the survey site reveals that the Angular framework dominates the front-end development tools in building a wide range of applications from static to dynamic and the content management system to complex ecommerce site.    

However, have you ever wondered why the developer community prefers Angular framework to other frameworks and libraries since its launch? Whatever the reason may be, when we look at the advantages of Angular, it’s hard to resist oneself not to use it. In this blog, let's take a glimpse at 10 advantages & benefits of choosing Angular, but before that let’s glance through the reason behind its popularity.  

Why is Angular so popular?

Angular is a TypeScript-based open-source framework that is made and maintained by Google. The framework became enormously popular once it is started to lead by a community of individuals and corporations. The most notable feature of Angular is that the framework supports developers to build applications for both mobile & desktop platforms. Also, it’s a comprehensive solution doesn’t require any other plugins or frameworks.  

Here are the 10 most compelling advantages and benefits of using Angular:

1. Single Page Application 

If you want your application to display a rich user interface with many features, choosing a Single Page Application style of development is the best approach. When Angular was introduced in the initial days, soon it became the most preferred framework for building Single Page Applications and this trend continues to date. 

SPAs can support rich client-side functionality that doesn't demand to reload the page as users take actions or navigate between pages of the app. It can load more quickly, fetching data in the background, and individual user actions are more responsive since full page reloads are rare. 

Moreover, SPAs can support incremental updates, which helps in saving partially completed forms or documents without the user having to click a button to submit a form. It can also support rich client-side behaviors, such as drag-and-drop, much more readily than traditional applications. 

2. SEO-friendly SPAs with server-side rendering 

Single Page Applications perform better in terms of user interaction and user experience. But search engines like Google have a hard time indexing correctly a SPA. Therefore, with the use of Angular Universal pre-rendering solution, it’s possible to have the performance and user experience of a SPA together with good SEO properties. 

Angular Universal can generate a static version of your app that can be easily searched, linked, and navigated without JavaScript. It also makes a site preview available since each and every URL returns a fully rendered page. Further, it improves performance on mobile and low-powered devices and shows the first page quickly. 

3. Component-based architecture 

Angular follows a component-oriented architecture. Having said that, the framework does share some of the concepts of both Model-View-Controller (MVC) and Model-View-ViewModel (MVVM). 

What's notable about component-based architectures is that, similar to JavaScript functions, a single piece of too much complex code can be broken apart so that each code snippet only has one job. 

Angular encourages you to use components, splitting your UI into separable and reusable pieces. Every component in angular can have any number of inputs and outputs. That way, you can modify your component based on inputs. Or notify other components about changes. 

Good components have high bonding, i.e. each component comprises only elements with related functionality. The components are also well encapsulated and loosely coupled. They can provide a clean API that does not reveal the component’s internal state. The advantages of this approach include: 

1. Reusability 
2. Testability 
3. Readability 
4. Maintainability 

4. Two-way data binding 

If there is a wow factor about Angular means, it is probably its two-way data binding system. With two-way data binding, changes in the DOM, such as user choices, can be automatically reflected into the view and vice-versa. In fact, it is possible to build your own directives with two-way data bound scope properties, by setting a configuration value. 

Essentially, two-way data binding in Angular is supported using the event and the property binding. You can use the ngModel directive to use two-way data binding. Also, if required, custom two-way data bindings can be created, which is useful in form controls. 

5. Change detection  

In Angular, every component has its own change detector. The framework can detect when component data changes, and then automatically re-render the view to reflect that change. 

The primary task of change detection is to take the internal state of a program and make it in some way visible to the user interface. This state can be any kind of objects, arrays, primitives or other JavaScript data structures. This state might end up as paragraphs, forms, or buttons in the user interface and especially on the web, it’s the Document Object Model (DOM). 

So basically, change detection is all about, when exactly a change in the data structure can happen? When does Angular know that it has to update the view in the DOM? Thus, with data structures as input, the DOM output is generated to display it to the user.  

6. Dependency injection 

In general, Dependency Injection (DI) pattern is all about removing dependencies from your code. It is a design pattern where objects are passed to another object to accomplish the tasks.  

In angular, service or component may require other dependent services to accomplish a task. Angular uses dependency injection design pattern to carry out these dependencies. 

The DI design pattern’s objective is to separate the task among deferent services. The client service doesn’t create the dependent object itself rather it is created and injected by an Angular injector. The role of Angular injector is to create service instances and inject them into classes like components and services. 

Angular creates root injector during the bootstrap process and then creates other injectors. Angular injectors do not automatically know how to create service instances, therefore, you need to specify providers for every service otherwise service instance will not be injected. Injector creates singleton object of service and hence the same object is injected into components and services. 

7. Unit testing ready 

Angular is unit testing ready, and that is one of its most compelling advantages. With Karma and Jasmine for unit tests, you can know if you've broken things every time you save. And Protractor makes your scenario tests run faster and in a stable manner. Below are the main reasons to use unit testing in your solution. 

1. Improve the design of implementations.  
Using unit testing is going to enforce to think and re-think the design, and if you are using TDD (test-driven development) the impact is even bigger. 

2. Allows refactoring. 
Since you already have tests that ensure you that all the things are working as expected, you can effortlessly add changes to that code with the confidence that you are not adding any bugs. 

3. Attach new features without breaking anything. 
When you are attaching a new feature, you can run the tests to ensure that you aren't splitting any other part of the application. 

8. Cross-platform compatibility 

Angular’s core advantage is its compatibility across all the platforms. Its render engine can be written specifically for every platform whereas the app code will remain the same. It provides the abilities to build apps for any deployment target like Progressive Web Apps (PWA), native mobile app, native desktop, etc. 

Progressive Web Apps: PWAs use modern web platform capabilities to deliver app-like experiences in the mobile or desktop environment. It can be worked offline with high performance and zero-step installation. 

Native: Angular offers capabilities to build native mobile apps with strategies from Cordova, Ionic, or NativeScript. 

Desktop: Using the same Angular methods for the web plus the ability to access native OS APIs, you can create desktop-installed apps across Mac, Windows, and Linux. 

9. Speed and performance 

If you want to achieve the maximum speed possible on the Web today, using Angular is one of the top choices. It takes the speed to the next level via Web Workers and server-side rendering. 

Universal (SSR): Serve the first view of your application on Node.js®, PHP, .NET, and other servers for near-instant rendering in just HTML and CSS. This process of server-side rendering paves the way for sites that optimize for SEO and even in some cases improve page load performance. 

Code Generation: Angular turns your templates into code that's enriched for today's JavaScript virtual machines, giving you all the benefits of hand-written code with the productivity of a framework. 

Code Splitting: Angular apps load quickly with the new Component Router, which delivers automatic code-splitting such as lazy loaded modules so users only load code required to render the view they request. 

10. Reduce development time 

Angular packs incredible tools making it easy to rapidly build features with simple, declarative templates.  

Angular Ecommerce Templates:  The framework lets you to quickly create UI views with simple and powerful template syntax. 

Angular CLI: With intuitive command line tools, you can start building fast, add components and tests, then instantly deploy applications. 

IDEs: Angular Language service is widely supported by various popular editors and IDEs. This service helps you to get intelligent code completion, identify errors, and other feedback.  

Want to know the disadvantages of Angular? Check here

 

Making use of all the above-mentioned advantages of using angular and incorporating them into your application project requires strong expertise in the technology. If you would like to leverage the Angular framework for your next project, contact our MEAN Stacks consultants or write to us at sales@infinijith.com.