Businesses want a robust and reliable web development framework to manage their online presence. And in the process of deciding which one is more suitable, they get confused by seeing how the developers are divided into different camps for favoring a certain framework as the best one available in the market.
Angular vs jQuery is one such topic that is the most debated, discussed, and compared in detail by expert developers. So if you too have some confusion and need clarity regarding what to choose from Angular and jQuery for your development project then you have arrived at the right place. The thing is these frameworks have been compared so many times, it made people wonder whether both are similar frameworks. Of course, both Angular and jQuery have some unique features but they also have many key differences as well. But before that, let’s get a brief overview of both of our contenders.
What is Angular?
Angular is a TypeScript-based front-end framework. It is mostly used to build cross-platform and scalable web apps. This framework comes with some unique directives. Many top companies like Forbes, PayPal, and Google use Angular to empower their digital products and ultimately grow their business. The features of this web development framework include:
- Two-way data binding
- Precise orders, an expansion of HTML.
- Validation forms
- Dependency injection
- MVC support
- Unit testing
What is jQuery?
jQuery is a popular open-source, free, client-side, JavaScript library. It was initially launched in 2006 under an MIT license. Its main purpose was to make the JavaScript programming language more dynamic and interactive. It is widely used to minimize code lines. The most interesting thing is that according to W3techs almost 77% of websites on the world wide web are using jQuery including Quora, Zoom, and Amazon. The key features of this javascript library are as mentioned below:
- Event handling
- HTML/DOM manipulation
- Ajax/JSONP
- CSS manipulation
- Cross-browser compatibility
- Lightweight
Major differences between Angular and jQuery
Language
In terms of language, jQuery uses JavaScript programming language and Angular uses Typescript which is a derivative of JavaScript only. Being a subset of Javascript, Typescript can support all JS-based libraries and APIs.
In terms of deciding which language is better Typescript vs JavaScript then the latter is more popular as well as advanced but it is hard to learn. TypeScript is more progressive and user-friendly. TypeScript is also armed with Object-oriented programming techniques like code refactoring, code navigation, and code highlighting which makes this language better at code structuring too. If you prefer, typescript also allows for static typing.
Library VS Framework
As we already discussed in their basic description, jQuery is a Javascript library and Angular is a front-end web development framework. The former provides various components that can help you with DOM manipulation. Meanwhile Angular provides a variety of tools that can help you with developing and deploying a web application.
Being a library, jQuery is of course more lightweight in comparison to the Angular framework. But the latter comes with a lot of in-built utilities so that a developer doesn’t have to waste time installing and configuring a wide range of plugins for every feature they create.
Data Binding
The angular development framework is popular for providing the two-way data binding feature. The data flow between different layers is auto-synced with the help of this feature. Now, if a developer makes any changes in the Model layer then it will be automatically reflected in the View layer and vice versa because of the two-way data binding feature.
But jQuery only offers unidirectional data flow, which means that changes made in one layer are not reflected in the other. However, jQuery does provide interactive UI components that can significantly reduce the complexities of the debugging process.
Now, both processes in our contenders have almost similar functioning, the only difference is that one is focused on efficiency whereas the other is focused on productivity and consistency.
Usage
The angular framework is designed to create web apps. Being one of the most popular javaScript-based frameworks, angular is widely used for creating single-page applications.
jQuery on the other hand is a consistent DOM API that is largely used for CSS, HTML, and DOM manipulation. This cross-platform library can render cross-browser compatibility for front-end development.
Components
Components used in the Angular web development framework are simply building blocks. They are used to build the application’s UI. All the components here have to follow a template and for every element of the template, only a single component can be used to represent it.
Meanwhile, the components of jQuery are known as UI elements. They are a set of themes, widgets, effects, and user interface interactions. All of these components are built on top of the jQuery JS library.
Speed and Performance
jQuery was built to manage small projects. This JS-based library can’t handle complicated, large-scale projects. But Angular can easily scale a web app without affecting its performance.
jQuery also needs a large amount of time just to do simple coding tasks. Being an older technology, jQuery can’t get around some new unique features that you might want to include in your project but if you use Angular you can get all you need and reduce your time-to-market.
Conclusion
After discussing the differences between Angular and jQuery I think it is safe to say that both have some unique features to offer. But if you want to create high-performing applications and single-page apps then you have to consider Angular. You must choose the technology that can fulfill your development needs.
- Some Key Differences Between Angular vs jQuery - April 24, 2023
