The Case for Angular Over React or Vue in 2021
Why you should consider learning Angular if you want to break into software development in 2021 despite React being more popular.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably found yourself searching online for the answer to the age-old question of which front-end framework is “better”, or which front-end framework “should I learn” in {{getCurrentYear()}}?.
While it may seem trivial for those full-stack or front-end developers that already have a few years of experience under their belts, it's an important question for anyone who’s trying to break into the software development world. The framework we choose to learn first will directly affect which jobs we qualify for and sometimes what type of company we end up working at (large corporation or small startup). In the end, learning one framework greatly helps you learn the others and just like picking a specific programming language to learn, the same advice holds true: Just pick one and master it, then you can easily pick up any other one you want.
Since you’re reading this article, I’m assuming you already know some basic information about these three dominant front-end frameworks. You’ve probably heard how React is now more popular than Angular, or how Vue.js is the underdog that’s rapidly growing in popularity.
React
React is a javascript UI component library, in the sense that it doesn’t have an opinion about what you mix it with. Even though you’ll be using the React library that is maintained by Facebook, you will be using a number of third party dependencies in order to build a full-fledged web application (Axios, Redux, etc).
Angular
Angular on the other hand is more of a true framework because it comes out of the box packed with everything you’ll need. State management? included, router? included, HTTP client? included. With Angular, you have everything you need to build enterprise-grade software and all maintained and updated every 6 months by Google.
Vue
Vue.js was created by an ex-employee of Google and it’s often described as being the middle ground between Angular and React. Indeed, the creator says that its purpose was to take the best concepts from the popular frameworks and put them into one. Vue is now maintained by a community of developers, not just the creator. Vue is more like Angular in the sense that it is a fully-fledged framework with router and state management out-of-the-box.
My Goal, however, isn’t to compare and contrast these frameworks or to claim that one is better than another. But simply, to make the case for why I believe learning Angular in 2021 could be the faster way to land a job as a developer and I’ll explain why.
You’ve probably been shown a lot of graphs that show the popularity of these frameworks side-by-side like this Google trends graph showing interest worldwide over the past 5 years. Anyone looking at this would say it's clear that React is winning the war of front ends. However, this graph doesn’t help us answer the important question of “Which framework should I learn in 2021 to find a job?”.
First off, I think we can safely assume that when someone asks which framework to learn, they’re really asking, “Which framework should I learn in 2021 in order to get a job/get a promotion?”. Let’s take a look at LinkedIn for available jobs in the United States by simply searching for Vue, React, and Angular. We get the below results on 8/28/2020. And as of 1/24/21, React has 50.8k, Angular has 30.1k, and Vue has 7.5k jobs posted on LinkedIn.
React is clearly in the lead, but again this doesn’t tell us more than the rough number of jobs posted on LinkedIn and many job postings list both Angular and React.
Regardless, if the popularity of a framework and the number of available jobs are your preferred metrics for choosing which framework to learn, you have your clear answer: go learn React.
So Why Might It Be Easier To Get An Angular Job Than a React Job?
There are a number of reasons I think it could be easier to break into software development as an Angular developer than as a React developer.
#1 — The large majority of coding boot camps are teaching React development.
I looked, and I couldn’t find a single boot camp that taught Angular as part of their curriculum. This is despite the market for Angular jobs being greater than half the size of that of React jobs (according to a LinkedIn job search).
With so many Angular jobs, you would expect there to be a similar proportion of boot camps teaching Angular, but there isn't.
This probably means that there are many more new React developers on the market looking for jobs than there are newly minted Angular developers, thus making competition for those React jobs greater than the competition for Angular jobs.
Less competition for a job generally means that the talent pool will be smaller and you can increase your chances of getting hired.
#2 — Angular job interviews tend to be easier
This is a more anecdotal reason, but I believe it follows logically from the prior point, the Angular interviews are easier because you don't have thousands of recent boot camp graduates who have been methodically trained to cram information and pass interviews as is the case with the React ecosystem of developers.
And in my own experience, having interviewed for both React and Angular positions, I have noticed distinct differences in the interviews.
Firstly, Angular positions were more commonly found at larger, not traditionally tech, companies and more specifically, companies that were contracting firms. The interview process most often involved a series of interviews asking about your experience and past projects along with some rapid-fire questions about different aspects of the Angular framework. Questions might include how to set up a route guard or how to lazy-load components. Often, there was no whiteboarding or coding part of the interview, thus being a much easier interview IMHO.
With React interviews, the companies tended to be a tech start-up or a dedicated technology company and generally were not contracting firms. The interviews were completely different from the Angular interviews, involving multiple whiteboarding sessions and lots of coding.
Your findings might vary, but this is what I encountered.
#3 — Angular might be easier for a full-stack developer
If you have programming experience in Java or C#, Angular might come a lot more naturally to you since it is strongly typed with TypeScript. Angular also uses decorators and dependency injection, which are common patterns in Java and C#. This makes Angular an easier framework to pick up if you have experience with server-side programming in these languages and want to easily transition to the front-end. And the opposite is also true, if you learn Angular first, you might have an easier time transitioning your skills into a full-stack role allowing you to be qualified for even more developer roles.
Other Things to Consider
With all that in mind, I’m not writing this article to dissuade anyone from learning React. I personally think React is more valuable to learn for the future and I have heard several execs talk about how they would be changing their technology stacks away from Angular and Vue in order to try and capture the larger talent pool that exists for React developers.
My only point in writing this article is that you might have an easier time getting that first development job if you shoot for an Angular position. Once you get that first job, you’ll have that experience under your belt that will let you go anywhere.
Let me know if anyone has had a similar experience when interviewing for these different frameworks.
