Mobile apps and web apps have taken the web by storm. For many years businesses have been developing unique web and mobile applications to get a competitive edge, which has given birth to various new frontend and backend frameworks.
Frameworks are ready-to-use collections of libraries, modules, and features that are built on top of other languages. Frameworks enhance the functionality of languages and provide developers with a way to create better apps in less time.
Two such front-end frameworks are Angular and Flutter. Angular is primarily used for dynamic web applications, and Flutter is used to create frontend UI for mobile and desktop applications. While both of these are front-end UI frameworks, there are many great things that can be done using these frameworks.
Today, we will understand both these frameworks and find out which one is a better choice. So let’s start with Angular first.
Angular
Angular is a front-end framework developed and maintained by Google. It is a framework for building web applications of all scales, and it has some pretty good features.
Google developed and released the AngularJS framework in 2010, which is a predecessor of Angular that was released in 2016.
At the core, Angular is based on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and TypeScript. After knowing the brief history of this framework, it is time to move on and understand the features.
Benefits & Features Of Angular
MVC Architecture
MVC architecture is among one the top Angular Framework. Unlike other JavaScript frameworks, Angular strictly follows this architecture, and there is inbuilt support for this.
Angular allows development teams to break down their application into different views. Based on the controller, a view is rendered from the Angular application. Whenever the controller sends a request, Angular creates the view with the model data that was passed from the controller and renders it on the client browser effortlessly.
Better Performance
Angular is known in the world for its excellent and highly optimized performance. It performs the best when it is about loading a webpage.
Angular is built on top of modern JavaScript, and it utilizes JavaScript features very well.
With the addition of TypeScript, angular has improved a lot. TypeScript brought in static type checking in the framework, which results in lesser runtime errors and faster compilation. When the compiler previously knows the type of a variable, it does not have to guess it, as guessing takes time, and knowing the type from the start helps a lot. Angular compiles and renders webpages quite faster, which ultimately results in better performance of your web applications.
The faster you serve pages, the higher you rank in search engine results, as your bounce rate decreases significantly.
Cross-platform
Angular is the one-stop shop for all things frontend. This framework is cross-platform, and you can easily build mobile applications and web applications that look and feel the same across platforms.
Angular does not have to worry about the underlying OS platform for it to work, as it works on JavaScript and inside the browser. Angular also supports the development of progressive web apps that feel like mobile applications, but they are web applications only. PWAs bring in offline functionality and many other things that make your web applications personalized for all platforms.
Two-Way Data Binding
Two-way data binding of angular is loved by all developers and users alike. With this feature, the view and model layers are directly connected with each other, and they are in perfect sync. This provides a better user experience overall.
When you make a change in the model layer, it gets updated in the views immediately, and this saves significant time for both users and developers. Developers can see their developed changes in real-time and debug them better, while users can have a better user experience and no data integrity issues.
After understanding Angular, this is the perfect time to jump on Flutter and explore what this technology is all about.
Flutter
Flutter is the leading cross-platform application development solution. Launched in 2015 by Google, Flutter has the same parent, but still, it is the rival of angular.
While Angular works pretty awesome on web applications and PWAs, there was no leading technology that catered to the ever-growing need for cross-platform applications. Flutter was developed with the aim of creating a standard technology that can be used to create cross-platform mobile applications.
With Flutter’s cross-platform capabilities, you can build and ship applications that provide the same user experience across Android and iOS mobile applications.
Flutter is built using Dart, and its compile & render engines use C++ for the execution of Flutter programs. With this in place, you can understand that Flutter is built for speed. There are many benefits of using Flutter so let’s have a look at some of them.
Benefits & Features of Flutter
True Cross-Platform Experience
If you are looking to get the perfect cross-platform experience on mobiles, Flutter is your choice. Today Flutter supports a wide variety of platform-specific features across multiple OS platforms. GPS access, Bluetooth, sensor data, camera, etc. are a few OS-specific features that can be added to your app instantly. All you have to do is to use one plugin.
Flutter has widgets that translate to the underlying platform’s design system, so you don’t have to worry about how things will look in different places. Building apps is easier, and Flutter provides the best cross-platform experience for mobile applications that are well-developed.
Hot Reload
Hot reload is a feature that was only seen in web frameworks, but it landed in mobile application development with Flutter. It leverages the hot reload feature to the best and provides an excellent developer experience. The hot reload shows changes as and when they are performed, leaving developers with a visual of their latest code as and when they change anything. This helps developers to debug and build applications at a faster speed.
Widgets & Libraries
Widgets are the building blocks of applications, and there are tons of them that can be used to create Flutter mobile applications. Flutter aids in rapid application development by providing a wide range of widgets and libraries. If you are looking to build applications faster while preserving the native touch on applications, you should use Flutter’s inbuilt widgets.
Moreover, being backed by Google, Flutter has been a favorite for many developers. In a short time, this technology has nurtured a good community. The community comes up with libraries that enhance Flutter’s functionality and allow developers to do more with less code.
Head To Head Comparision Between The Two
By having its own rendering engine and utilizing ARM code for cross-platform applications, Flutter provides higher and optimized performance when compared with Angular. In Angular, the app needs to be redone when the platform is changed, but it does well on the web part.
If you are looking for a developed and robust frontend framework, you should choose Angular as it has many stable releases to choose from, and there is a vast community to help you out. On the other side, if you are looking to experiment and build cross-platform mobile apps, Flutter should be your go-to choice.
Angular is built with JavaScript and Typescript under the hood, so if you have web development knowledge, picking up Angular is pretty straightforward. But if you want to learn something new, you should try Flutter, which is based on Dart and C++.
In the end, everything comes to your needs at the moment. You can choose Flutter to build the best cross-platform applications that provide an impeccable user experience on all mobile devices. On the other hand, when you want to build scalable web applications, Angular should be your go-to choice. Both these technologies are excellent at what they do, and they’ve powered humongous applications like Google Pay, YouTube, MS Office Online, Alibaba, and many more.