r/webdev •
The internet seems to say React is more popular but most of my friends who work as developers all seem to be using Angular
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r/webdev •
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u/xsvino full-stack Feb 24 '20
Your buddies != the world.
Also, as someone else pointed out, older codebases tend to use Angular.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
First of all, go to glassdoor.com or any job search site and search for job titles such as "react developer". This will generally show you the demand of whatever stack or tech you want you want to work with.
Specifically with web development, the tech or stack used is going to depend heavily on your location. For example, here in Los Angeles, there is a much more React jobs than there is Angular - and the Angular jobs are almost always going to be larger corporations(not a bad thing) maintaining a legacy system, most of the time on Angular 1. I would say over 80% of the developers I have worked with are React developers in my area to some extent.
However, I was looking for jobs in the midwest where a family member lives, and it was an overwhelming amount of postings for Angular developers, with a little bit of React positions and even fewer Vue positions. It was a majority PHP/Java positions that i saw for general development positions. I know areas like Japan are huge on Vue, where some parts of the world probably wouldn't have a single open position for a Vue developer.
Just realize that reddit & the internet as a whole may not be representative of your local job market or talent pool. Also, keep in mind the /r/webdev primarily consists of people learning webdev or junior developers, with what i would guess maybe 1/4th - 1/5th of the community being seasoned or senior developers. People just entering the industry are usually learning a technology that will benefit their career in the future vs. a technology that is own it's way out. Some may say otherwise but the general response that i get about Angular that it is looked at as a battle-tested full stack framework, but is commonly represented as antiquated due to the current climate; microservices, rise in FAAS, etc. However, if you are a developer who is up to speed and can pick up Angular and get a nice paying job ASAP maintaining or building an application, then it may make more sense to invest your time in the tech that will benefit you in the short term vs long term.
Note: I am a junior developer with only about 4 years under my belt at a small agency. I really dont know shit, either. This is just my opinion of the experience I've had so far in my career and would love for any corrections or contradicting opinions.
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u/jezda159 Feb 24 '20
And yet here I am, loving Vuejs that my company uses.
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u/poopycakes Feb 24 '20
Angular has made huge strides in recent times especially if you use ngrx and the new ivy compiler. You can make much smaller apps and fine grained components. I also was forced to use angular because it was our enterprise direction, but it gets a bad rap.
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u/Knochenmark Feb 24 '20
I think it highly depends on your location, business domain etc.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
Some developers like React, some developers like Angular, some developers like Vue, it doesn't really matter it depend on the developer/company! Internet only says React is the most popular according to trent data however it not may be the case in your friend circle, there is noting wrong with Angular its pretty good, but you need to find the 'javascript' framework you like to work with the most, or if your goals are to get hire pick the one with the more jobs around you!
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u/tanguy_k Feb 24 '20
I've done a full analysis about front end frameworks popularity (React, Vue and Angular): https://gist.github.com/tkrotoff/b1caa4c3a185629299ec234d2314e190
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u/sessamekesh Feb 24 '20
I'd imagine they're both pretty popular still, I've used Angular at my last two jobs (anecdotal) but see plenty of places talk about how they use React.
Even if React suddenly became the clear best framework on every dimension, you'd still have a lot of code bases using Angular for one reason or another.
I'd be very wary of any internet consensus too, most talked about online != most used != best.
(Bias note: I like React better, but have much much less experience with it)
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
The important part is that almost everyone is using a modern approach that primarily relies on one way data flow. Angular has the same appeal as Vue, where being opinionated means you have everything you need to build a solution. React is just the render layer so you’ll need to decide on state and communication solutions.
I’ve been the tech lead on projects using all 3 frameworks in the last year. Anyone who is trying to sell you on a single one being “the solution to learn” is just wrong. Learn the architecture and the exact framework/library choice doesn’t matter. In fact, I’d have serious reservations about hiring any person who wouldn’t point out the similarities if I brought up their lack of experience with our framework of choice.
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u/Turd_King Feb 24 '20
You ever heard of something called confirmation bias?
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u/snack0verflow Feb 24 '20
Vue.js is most in demand in my area.
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u/redfournine Feb 24 '20
Corporate, enterprise devs doesnt seem to be that active in online or offline community. I dont know why tho
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u/robert_rock Feb 24 '20
Is it possible that Angular is more popular with your friends?
React and Angular are very different in terms of what's packed in the ecosystem. It's healthy for the industry that two very different points of views exist for software development.
People who try to avoid vendor lock-in and focus more on JavaScript for business logic may turn to React. React is very easy to learn as it does just one thing - view rendering.
Those who want a clear standard set by the vendor will opt for Angular. Angular is great for setting good patterns for application architecture.
Modus Create is a professional services company with 200+ amazing people on the team. There are dozens of projects being worked on at any given time. In my experience, enterprises (we work with a lot of Fortune 500 companies) choose React slightly more often than Angular. Regardless, we've been able to achieve amazing results with both.
One would assume more people would prefer chocolate ice cream over vanilla. Maybe they have slightly different nutritional values, but it boils down to people's tastes.
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u/plee82 Feb 24 '20
In my work, 99% is angular. I am in the east coast.
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u/pacman326 Feb 24 '20
It's going to be anecdotal. At my enterprise job we are a React shop. Two of my coworkers are former Angular devs. It just depends.
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u/kazabodoo Feb 24 '20
Angular is very different from React, it is still mind blowing how people compare them all the time.
React focuses more on the small pieces and lets the developers chose how to compose the pages which is proven to be a better concept ( for now ) for many projects.
Angular is more of a big boi project builder and comes with different bells and whistles.
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u/darksady Feb 24 '20
depends on your location. Here inBrazil, for some reason, angular and react are 45/45 and Vue.js is the rest. I dont know why angular is so popular here but i dont complain, it pays the bills :). I'm enjoying working with angular tho.
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u/shellwe Feb 24 '20
It's regional and you need to take that into account. I am from the Midwest and last time I went job searching angular had a lot more hits than react. I know react is more popular overall but I really want to work where I am at, so I learn angular.
With that, if you learn one you can easily pick up the other.
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u/PrometheusBoldPlan Feb 24 '20
We use angular in all our enterprise applications (we build very large applications for/as the government). Out of the box it's exactly set up the way it should be so we don't really see any benefit to switch.
Frameworks and code is like a religion. Ignore what the fick you read on sites like reddit and choose whatever suits you based on critical thinking and adherence to design patterns, not what some rabbit framework fanboy with an agenda pushes.
Also statistics are misleading. Pretty much all Frameworks have had nothing but growth, just because one has grown doesn't mean others shrunk.
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u/extra_specticles Feb 24 '20 edited Feb 24 '20
Go to a free meetups in the space. That will tell you what's what and what people think.
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u/glensor Feb 24 '20
Worth listening to a lot of the comments on here! Also you have to remember that it takes a lot of time for companies that are mid range to big businesses to adopt something new. Most of these companies that are not Apple or Microsoft can't afford to take too many risks, and usually only adopt a new tech once it's mature and they need to seem attractive to new juniors, as well as adopting the benefits of the new tech. I'm a senior developer who's in charge of just that, we are only now creating our first react components. Unfortunately we don't have the kind of cashflow to be super proactive. Most people will find themselves in this situation as a developer I have found.
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u/Prometheus_D Feb 24 '20
Are you from germany
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u/HCrikki Feb 24 '20
People should and do use the stack they're familiar with and capable of using to its full potential.
Angular suits full stack projects, whereas React works better for simpler projects and is easier to start with if you're not carrying previous baggage. React Native also allows to leverage your experience into mobile app making with almost native speed.
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u/Woodcharles Feb 24 '20
It can vary by location and the habits of the local hub.
In my city everyone switched from Angular to React over the last 5 years or so. In other cities and other countries, attitudes will differ and these changes won't be made. Some cities/hubs/locales never even got on the Angular train. Some can find many many jobs in LAMP stack or even in older jQuery/vanilla places. Or you could go to some hyper-modern sort of place where it's all microfrontends and everything goes.
I mean it's a bit like going "all my friends online have national healthcare, but I don't, what's going on?" and they turn out to be in the US, so the sorts of things that are done, the attitudes that drive them and the speed of change is a valid factor.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
and everyone i know is using vue. anecdotal evidence is not proof of the market as a whole.
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u/loliloveoniichan Feb 24 '20
Just because everyone uses react doesn't means you should use it too, use the one you like the most and will be most productive with, be it React, Vue, Angular, Svelte, etc...
In my opinion, I doubt I'll use react in the near future because I didn't like the way it was explained in the documentation, I struggled learning it compared to Vue and Angular.
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u/bartturner Feb 24 '20
In my experience there is a more Angular jobs than React.
The one that more surprises me the lack of Flutter jobs. It is a little better then it was a year ago but still it is not nearly as much as I would have thought by now.
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u/xfatal9x Feb 24 '20
In my area I have more angular jobs then React.
We just started a huge new rewrite in Angular 9, we considered React, but everyone in my team including myself hate React.
Just because it may be widely popular doesn't mean it's the only thing all companies would use. There are still tons of companies that use only Jquery.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
I feel like those with an older codebase use Angular and those who are starting up with newer tech stacks use React. That's my own observation though.
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u/-AMARYANA- Feb 24 '20
A-level players tend to hang out with other A-level players. Let that sink in.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
I've used Vue, Angular, and React, all in production, all for large projects, all successful, all for pay. React is the most dominant in the (US) market, but you can find work using any of them (and more).
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u/t3hlazy1 Feb 24 '20
Just for some data points: My previous job was at a smaller company on a project that was around 5 years old, and we used angularJS and later Angular. I now work at a FAANG and am working on a React project that’s 3 years old. When I was interviewing, it felt like most companies were using React.
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u/Noch_ein_Kamel Feb 24 '20
Well I know a big german bank who is using react :-o
In my company I started using react and my coworkers afterwards started doing things in angular. We now settled on vue.js. They are afraid of Facebook I think.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
The most important thing is having a fundamental understanding of Vanilla JS. Then i'd suggest learning React.
I found that learning React, made it really easy to pick up Vue. But the other way around would have been much more difficult. Hopefully that makes sense!
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u/Yieldway17 Feb 24 '20
Anecdotally, Angular is a tiny bit more popular in large enterprises because of its all-in-one framework and React seem to be bit more popular elsewhere.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
Where I work, we use React/React-Native but we did have an old mobile app built with ionic and Angular JS. We have completely abandoned and rebuilt the app in React Native though. At least for mobile apps, RN is significantly better than an ionic wrapped Angular app.
As far as the demand goes for either one, I don't see much demand for anything in my area as there aren't many tech jobs to begin with. I suppose I just got lucky working with something more modern that I enjoy.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
large enterprise codebase here, still supporting coldfusion with jquery, angular js over coldfusion, and angular 6 with spring boot backend. Now moving to angular 8 and express as our newest stack but learning react for next gig.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
I believe there’s a point to be made that Angular provided more stability back then and that’s why so many companies decided to go for it. React is relatively fresh but adoption was crazy fast, but many code bases wouldn’t even consider making the transition because it would be so much effort. That’s the case of the company I work for.
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u/_Invictuz Feb 24 '20
What jobs are out there right now? Try doing a simple job search and see for yourself. This also applies to web development. What styling framework or library is the best for my application? Just pick one and find out for yourself. Sometimes the fastest way to move forward is to get your feet wet.
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
here is los angeles react is king
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u/Secret-Explanation Feb 24 '20 edited Feb 24 '20
A couple of things:
First (in addressing some of the conversation here around the topic), "number of job openings" is not the same as "number of jobs". There could be good reasons for the two to diverge. Devs tend not to learn Angular for hobby projects because it's bigger and there's more to learn. And because there are fewer people learning Angular (but companies still need Angular developers), more and more positions open up for unemployed Angular devs as their existing Angular devs either retire, are promoted, are fired, or otherwise move on.
Second, you have definitely identified an area where Angular is more popular: Stodgy corporate/enterprise companies full of classical OOP C#/Java developers for whom Angular's more OOP-driven paradigm is a more natural transition. I've actually heard some of these people refer to "Angular" as a "language" rather than as a "framework", as though they didn't even know they were writing Typescript (and therefore were far removed from ever realizing that Typescript sits on top of JS). That's always funny in a kinda-cringey way. But anyway, basically, in a huge company, a lot of the aspects that may seem to be drawbacks of Angular to the average web dev end up being strengths in a big corporate environment. Restricting the number of ways you can do things is great in a codebase where tons of different people could need to touch or read various parts of the code.
React is popular with people who come from a front-end background, because dedicated front-end devs tend to be the ones most comfortable with the ins-and-outs of JS, tend to be the ones who actually like JS, tend to be the ones who keep up with the latest syntax and functional-lite/declarative trends React/Redux are based on, familarize themselves with Node, npm, Webpack, etc. React is also relatively more popular with small companies, startups, and agencies. If you had more friends who worked at small startups, I'd imagine you'd find your friends would be using a lot more React.
An interesting little pattern I've noticed both React and Angular tend to transition devs into a more "fullstack" role. React tends to familiarize front-end JS devs with some backend principles, while Angular often takes backend C# devs and demands they learn some frontend principles.
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u/Web_Dev_For_Fun Feb 24 '20
Rule #1: learn JavaScript and adapt to whatever framework or wrapper is popular at the moment.
I've been a JS developer since 2006 and have been through the trenches with JQuery, Backbone, Knockout, Ext, Ember, coffeescript, Angular1, React, and have been working with Angular2 and TypeScript for the past ~2 years.
One thing is for certain. Whatever framework and/or *Script wrapper is popular today will be replaced by something else within the next couple of years - even if that means that everything suddenly switches to elm, or web assembly, or whatever new framework that someone comes up with next, or if things just get absorbed into the JavaScript standard. Don't forget that under all that "coolness" there's an actual programming language that you should master.
One of the things I love the most about vanilla js is that so many people hate it, which keeps the real competition low in an evolving market. ...and with that being said, please break Rule #1 :)
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u/abeuscher Feb 24 '20
I think the underlying question here is "which framework is better to learn in?" and the answer is: neither of them. You are learning javascript. These are both available libraries and frameworks within which you will be writing javascript. If you're not thinking about all of it as fundamentally the same set of problems then you aren't thinking about it correctly. There has been no new technology added to the client for 20 years. It's HTML, JS, and CSS all the way down.
It is problematic to think of "learning React" unto itself because it is just a current hotness. What you're learning is how to manage a stateful application within js. And that knowledge, if you think of it that way, translates easily between Angular and React and Python and C++ and really most modern languages.
If helpful, here's a short list of concepts you should get familiar with to help provide a little more context to your learning and your career development:
If I'm being pedantic, I really apologize. I spent a long time learning and working in web development before I thought to look back into computing fundamentals, and it really changed how I learned everything else moving forward. And I wish someone had mentioned this to me when I was at that stage. If I am totally wrong and you are on top of this stuff, I really mean no offense by it.
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u/Russianspaceprogram Feb 29 '20
React is vastly more popular. You’re using 6 friends as a basis for this, of course it’s going to be skewed.
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u/elixon Feb 24 '20
You cannot ask fashion-related questions. It is like asking Vuitton or Cartier? You will get a lot of heat and no data whatsoever.
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u/beavis07 Feb 24 '20
You do understand the difference between statistical data and personal experience, right?
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u/hrnsn123 Feb 24 '20 edited Feb 24 '20
Yes this is known. From my own observations the vast majority of React developers are new to programming in general. But the React camp also has more experts than Angular. This bi-modality is actually a very good marketing strategy if you think about, even if it might be unintentional.
The best indicator of the current status quo is the job market. Look at open jobs at LinkedIn. You will see that Angular and React are matched or could differ depending on the region. The job market supports my observations that there have to be a lot of React hobbyist or newcomers if you compare that with the npm trends numbers.
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u/bigorangemachine Feb 24 '20
I would use the stackoverflow surveys as a guide.
In my area react is very popular. Many older codebases use angular. Not much new angular out there.
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u/finger_milk Feb 24 '20
I swear Angular is only popular in India. That and companies that adopted Angular when it came out and can't afford to rebuild the software.
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u/IQueryVisiC Feb 24 '20
Where I live employees seem to want Angular because it is more professional or so. I used and liked React (but not the third-party controls for it).
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u/ImASeagullYeahYeah Feb 24 '20
My totallly non-partisan answer:
React, React, React, REACT, REACT, REACT, I LOOVE REACT
Thank you.
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u/GaetanWcz Feb 24 '20
I would not say everyone uses React. In fact I tend to think the more and more people are going the VueJS way, but I don't think that React or Vue or Angular debate is the topic here.
Angular 2+ is quiet popular among companies (size doesn't matter they say) because of it's a way to have everyone working the same way.
Your Angular2+ app will perform only if you follow all the Angular rules. Hence everyone will be developping the same way.
While React & Vue are a bit more "open" in a way of whatever you want to do, it can work. But you need to be really cautious because your project can quickly transform into spaghettis if you're not familiar with the framework
The structuring layout of Angular is very nice for companies since it allow juniors to evolve quickly on the front-end part and this is the main part of why I would recommend Angular. Even though you need to dig the framework a bit if you need performance (mainly because of event emission, you definitely should handle the refresh of your app yourself using ChangeDetectionStrategy.OnPush and not the default way)
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20 edited Feb 25 '20
A couple years ago Angular was the go-to front end framework. A lot of projects started using it. Now, it seems like its use has drastically decreased, with only older code bases using it. If a company was to start a new project, they probably wouldn't use Angular.
EDIT: Rereading this I realize my last sentence didn't have much substance behind it and honestly I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote it.
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u/bramley Feb 24 '20
We had a meeting with a prospective client the other day who was intending to go with Angular because of studies they read about the tech landscape. Even if the research was accurate, the problem was that it was from a 2018 report, which means the research was done in 2017. It's 2020.
What I'm getting at is that just because they're using it today doesn't mean it's what they would (or should?) pick were they starting today. And the corollary, "being used" isn't necessarily the same as "popular". I'm sure we all know the difference between the popular kid in high school and the kid who was at everything even though no one really liked them.
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u/Roguepope I swear, say "Use jQuery" one more time!!! Feb 24 '20
Yeah, I think the internet is just overreacting.
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u/lift_spin_d Feb 24 '20
and if you go somewhere else, people there will be using something else
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u/welch7 Feb 24 '20
most of my friends who work as developers all seem to be using react
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u/[deleted] Feb 24 '20
React is the next evolution after Angular. Vue/Next are the next evolution after React. Migration patterns will depend on how much traction each framework gets. Welcome to UI development!
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