
Introduction
The conversation around which front-end framework/library to use when building new web applications, or updating legacy applications, is important because it directly impacts the next 3 to 5 years of your software development team.
Front-end technologies, frameworks, and tools continue to evolve, and while some have risen to near-ubiquity, others are strong contenders with the potential the influence the community in the years to come.
When choosing a front-end technology, JavaScript has plenty of options such as VueJS and Svelte. However, Angular and React remain at the top of the list for most developers.
There are a few different ways to evaluate the right front-end technology, but in this article we will focus on React and Angular and explore just exactly why you’d want to use one or the other.
Angular and React are popular open-source JavaScript frameworks backed by Google and Meta (Facebook), respectively, with large developer communities supporting both.
What both React and Angular have in common is that they can be used for building single and multi page apps on both web and mobile. So right off the bat, both are powerful and robust options, but that’s where their similarities come to an end.
Coming to a final decision regarding Angular vs React requires a clear analysis of a variety of details such as:
- The back end of your web and/or mobile app
- Your current development team if you have one
- Current and future hiring requirements
- Budget
- Project roadmap/timeline
- Project requirements (scale and complexity)
- Performance requirements
What is React?
React is an open-source library developed at Meta and released in 2013. It uses component-based architecture to simplify the creation of complex, interactive user interfaces and break them down into smaller, reusable components.
While component-based architecture isn’t a unique quality of React, the way it implements this concept feels rather lightweight and leaves plenty of room for structuring your application the way you want.
React is also built around the concept of a unidirectional data flow. Changes in data flow down through the component hierarchy, triggering updates and re-renders, thus avoiding common issues with two-way data binding, such as:
- Performance problems
- Hard-to-debug code
The name React comes from Reactive programming, which is a declarative programming paradigm. React’s core feature is to “react” or respond dynamically to changes in data.
Seeing as Facebook (Meta) is a social media network with hundreds of thousands of changing elements, it makes sense that they needed a better way to handle this kind of complexity.
React is based on JavaScript ES6 and combined with JSX, which is a syntax extension used to write HTML-like markup in a JavaScript file.
Some distinctive features of React that are different than Angular are:
- Declarative views
- JSX
- One-way data-binding
- VirtualDOM
Note that React is not a framework, but instead, a library for UI development which makes it quite lightweight and minimalistic. We’ll dive into what this means in the next section discussing the benefits and drawbacks of React.
Benefits of React
React has long been the technology of choice for front-end developers looking to build user interfaces.
Here are some of the prime benefits of ReactJS:
- Large talent pool
- Easy learning curve
- Reusable code via components
- Easier debugging
- Faster development time
- Enhanced developer productivity
- Server-side rendering
- Integration with third-party libraries
- Easy version upgrades
- Mobile app development with React Native
Large talent pool
React has the largest talent pool out of any front-end technology out there. Finding React developers of any level of experience is easy and running a hiring cycle will result in a ton of resumes coming your way.
Senior React developers are also easier to find, due to React’s popularity. Many developers switched over to React after AngularJS and now we’re seeing plenty of mature talent who have already spent almost a decade using the technology.
Easy learning curve
React is a JavaScript-based library, which means that developers only need to know ES6 to get started. That means less time spent learning framework-specific code and more time writing UI components!
As a minimalist library, React does not have dependency injection, templates or other complicated features. On top of that, it’s extremely flexible when it comes to project structure.
There is one small caveat: it does take some time to learn how to set up a project properly. Thankfully, there are a lot of best practices out there to learn.
Senior React developers should already be on top of the latest updates and best practices.
Reusable code via components
React’s component-based architecture allows developers to break down user interfaces into smaller components that can be reused in different parts of an application. This type of built-in refactoring makes front-end codebases cleaner and easier to maintain.
Easier debugging
React comes with a set of browser extensions and developer tools, such as React Developer Tools and Redux DevTools (if using Redux).
These tools provide enhanced debugging capabilities such as component inspection, state visualization, and time-travel debugging.
Developers can also examine component hierarchies, inspect props and states, and track component updates, making it easier to identify issues and understand how the application behaves.
In addition, React provides meaningful error messages and warnings that include information about the component, the source of the error, and the stack trace.
React also supports PropTypes (a built-in type-checking mechanism) that integrates with TypeScript. Developers can define the types and structures of component props, state, and function parameters.
Having strong types helps catch potential issues during development and developers can receive type-related warnings or errors, improving code quality and reducing debugging efforts.
Faster development time
React’s modular structure allows developers to break down the UI into smaller, manageable pieces, making it easier to develop, test, and maintain code. Additionally, its declarative syntax makes it easier to plan and manage the application state.
Enhanced developer productivity
React comes with a few technical perks that enhance productivity such as hot reloading, which allows developers to see the results of their changes immediately.
Another benefit of React is its large ecosystem and community. Developers can leverage existing solutions and best practices, reducing time spent reinventing the wheel.
Server-side rendering
Server-side rendering is not a default React capability, and in their official documentation, they recommend using frameworks like Next.js instead of just using React. However, developers can still configure server-side rendering via ReactDOMServer.
One of the main benefits of server-side rendering is SEO. It’s easier for search crawlers to index a page if the HTML is generated on the server side. This is particularly important for websites relying on organic search traffic.
There are also performance benefits such as improved initial page load time. Since the server generates the HTML content, this allows the user to see the content faster compared to client-side rendering, where the entire page is rendered on the client side after downloading the JavaScript bundle.
Integration with third-party libraries
Whether it's UI component libraries, state management libraries, data fetching libraries, or testing frameworks, the broad array of options available for React developers is incredible.
Third-party integrations offer specialized functionality that may not be available in the core React library. For example, charting libraries, mapping libraries, or authentication services may provide features that are specifically tailored to those domains.
Another great example of how third-party libraries give an edge to React are libraries such as React Router that enable efficient routing and navigation. Even state management libraries like Redux or MobX offer optimized ways to manage complex application states.
Finally, third-party libraries can make rapid prototyping easier by leveraging the near out-of-the-box functionality that comes with it.There’s truly no need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to React. With such a large community powering the third-party ecosystem, there’s a solution to almost any UI challenge developers face.
Easy version upgrades
React releases new versions regularly, introducing new features, performance enhancements, and bug fixes. These upgrades are easy to implement without much risk of breaking the existing code.
Mobile app development with React Native
The React Library also supports React Native, an open-source framework for cross-platform mobile development. React Native allows developers to build mobile applications using JavaScript, and more importantly shares React’s core concepts along with JSX for building components.
Disadvantages of React
While there are many advantages of React, one such disadvantage is tooling complexity. While React has a wide range of tools, libraries, and build configurations for developers to tap into, this flexibility can lead to a more complex tooling setup and configuration process.
Setting up the development environment, choosing the right tools, and managing the build pipeline can be challenging for new developers. For senior React developers, this will not be much of a challenge.
On top of that, React doesn’t enforce project structure or architectural patterns in the way other frameworks might. For senior React developers, this is fine as they should be comfortable establishing their own structures and being up-to-date on the latest community best practices.
Hard to find and validate great talent
Earlier we mentioned that one of React’s big advantages when it comes to hiring is that there’s a ton of talent out there. Unfortunately, it’s also hard to find good talent because there are so many developers out there.
If you’re looking for senior React developers, the search won’t be as hard as other frameworks but it will be hard to validate their skills against their experience.
Developers come from all backgrounds and teams, and not all developers grow the same. Just because one developer has 6 years of experience with React on and off is much different than a developer who has consistently used the library for 4.
Senior developers are also not usually in the market, so you’ll need to attract them somehow to your project.
What is Angular?
Angular is an open-source web application framework developed by Google and is used to build dynamic and robust single-page and enterprise-grade applications. The framework boasts a collection of integrated libraries and features such as client-server communication, routing, RxJS, and more!
Angular also comes with a suite of developer tools such as Angular CLI, NgRX, and Testing Utilities that make scaling projects quicker and safer.
In earlier versions, Angular followed the Model-View-Controller (MVC) architectural pattern, which promotes the separation of concerns and modular development. Google has since moved away from the MCV approach towards a component-based architecture. The latest version of Angular is Angular 16.
Some distinctive features unique to Angular are:
- Two-way data binding
- Directives
- Dependency Injection
- Opinionated architecture
Keep in mind that Angular is a complete framework and therefore much more opinionated on how web applications are organized and built than React. This type of structural guardrail guarantee that whatever you build in Angular will work as expected for the most part.
Recently, the Angular team is being led by a former Vue.js core team member and has been shipping some amazing changes lately that address the community’s needs and pain points. The Angular team actively listens and ships meaningful updates several times a year.
Benefits of Angular
Angular is an extremely powerful framework that has ready-made solutions to the most common challenges developers face when building web applications.
Here are some of the prime benefits of Angular:
- Stable talent pool
- Powerful features like RxJS and AngularCLI
- Intuitive application structure
- Strong type checking
- Reduced cognitive load when building out components
- Ease in building, maintaining, testing and updating with fewer foot guns
- Cross-platform development support
- Improved developer productivity
- Performance optimizations
Stable talent pool
While talent for Angular may not be as plentiful as React, the quality of engineers naturally will be slightly higher. Those who stick with Angular, learn and use it well, and are proud of their experience.
Powerful features like RxJS and AngularCLI
Angular comes with a ton of power right out of the box. With features such as Angular CLI, routing, RxJS, Forms, and Universal, developers can easily build extremely stable and robust web applications without having to search, evaluate and learn third-party libraries.
RxJS provides a powerful set of tools for handling asynchronous operations, event streams, and data manipulation. With RxJS, developers can compose complex asynchronous workflows and manage streams of data in a declarative and efficient way.
Another feature Angular provides is a two-way data binding mechanism that allows automatic synchronization of data between the model and the view.
As Angular is a framework, it comes with built-in routing. Developers can define routes and associate them with specific components, and enable navigation in a Single-Page Application context.
NgForm provides comprehensive support for building and validating forms in web applications, offering both template-driven and reactive forms. Of course, forms come with two-way data binding, validation, controls, custom validators, and error handling.
Intuitive application structure
Angular standardizes project structure and promotes consistency by generating components via terminal commands.
An Angular application is ultimately built using reusable and self-contained components that help keep applications organized as they grow in complexity.
The framework enforces clear separation of concerns by splitting HTML, CSS, and TypeScript code of each component into separate files. Different aspects of these components are easier to understand and maintain as a result. Managing component complexity is made much easier thanks to concepts like dependency injection.
Angular also uses modules to organize and encapsulate related components and services, grouping together related functionality and establishing clear boundaries within the application.
Strong type checking
Angular is built with and uses TypeScript (a statically typed superset of JavaScript). TypeScript adds features like strong typing, classes, interfaces, and modules which improve code clarity, and quality.
TypeScript also supports compile-time checks that reduce the frequency of runtime errors and make code more reliable and easier to organize and maintain.
Reduced cognitive load when building out components
Components can get complex, which is why Angular has a built-in dependency injection system that helps manage dependencies between different components and services.
Dependency injection simplifies the process of creating, using, and testing components by allowing them to declare their dependencies instead of creating them.
Coupling between different components and modules is reduced.
Ease in building, maintaining, testing, and updating with fewer foot guns
Thanks to the features that Angular provides, building applications is easy! But perhaps more importantly, maintaining Angular applications is a breeze due to the intuitive structure Angular enforces.
When it comes to testing, Angular provides a powerful tool suit for unit testing called Karma and Jasmine that makes it easier to write and execute tests for components and services.
With Angular CLI, updating to newer visions of Angular is seamless in most cases.
Cross-platform development support
Angular allows developers to build mobile applications using technologies like NativeScript and Ionic. NativeScript uses Angular and TypeScript which makes it easy to carry framework-specific skills over.
It’s also possible to integrate Angular with Electro to build feature-rich desktop applications.
Another emerging area where Angular can be useful is building Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). PWAs offer native-like experiences to users such as offline capabilities, push notifications, and device hardware access.
Improved developer productivity
Building applications requires marrying front-end user interfaces with back-end business logic. Angular has a feature called directives that extends the functionality of HTML with custom attributes and tags.
With directives, developers can add behavior to HTML elements, such as showing/hiding elements, manipulating the DOM, or looping over data to generate dynamic content.
In addition, Routing in Angular is accomplished using clear and declarative syntax that defines the navigation structure. This makes it easy to understand and follow the flow of an application.
Data flow is well-defined between components via input and output properties. These properties allow parent components to pass data to child components. Output properties emit events and notify parent components of actions or changes.
Performance optimizations
Angular comes with a couple of features that improve the performance of web applications built using the framework.
Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation transforms templates and components into optimized JavaScript code at build-time. This improves the initial load time and performance by reducing the size of the code and eliminating runtime compilation.
Other features such as Angular Universal, a server-side rendering (SSR) solution that allows applications to be pre-rendered on the server, delivering static HTML to the client.
SSR improves initial load times, enhances search engine optimization (SEO), and provides a better user experience.
Beyond SSR, modules in Angular facilitate lazy loading, enabling on-demand loading and improving app performance as well.
Disadvantages of Angular
As powerful and robust as Angular is, it’s not the quickest front-end technology to learn. There is also the TypeScript pre-requisite.
If performance is a major issue, Angular is a bit heavier due to its comprehensive features and complexity and you won’t have the flexibility to pick and choose. On the bright side, Angular provides several optimization options to mitigate framework overhead and ensure good performance.
Not as much talent
Angular does not have as much talent overall compared to React. Meaning if you are looking for senior Angular talent, it will be a longer hiring cycle overall.
The upside to this is that if you do come across a senior Angular developer with 5+ years of experience actively working with the framework, there is a good chance that they are technically proficient and will get the job done.
Angular vs React: At-a-glance
At first, Angular and React appeared to be similar kinds of front-end technologies. This couldn’t be further from the truth. While they do share some similarities on a conceptual level, they go about implementing those concepts in different ways.
Let’s compare Angular and React briefly before discussing the technical aspects in detail.
Angular |
React |
|
Developed by |
|
Meta (Facebook) |
Type |
Framework with strong opinions on how web apps should be designed |
JavaScript-based library focusing only on UI components |
Purpose |
Develop dynamic and scalable web apps |
Build interactive user interfaces and components |
Language |
TypeScript |
JavaScript (JSX script) |
Learning curve |
Hard |
Easy |
Platform Support |
Web and Mobile |
Web and Mobile |
App structure |
Fixed, complex, opinionated (MVC) |
Flexible, component-based, open-ended, view only |
Front-end development approach |
Extends the functionality of HTML via templates |
Uses JSX to write HTML-like code in JavaScript files |
UI Rendering |
Client/Server-side |
Client/Server-side |
DOM |
Incremental/Real DOM |
Virtual DOM |
Performance |
Optimized with change detection |
Optimized with virtual DOM |
Directives |
Structural, Attribute and Custom Directives |
JSX, Props, Higher-order Components, Hooks |
Dynamic UI binding |
Plain object/ / property level |
Direct linking of states to the UI |
Data binding |
Two-way |
One-way |
Dependency injection |
Supported |
Not supported |
State management |
NgRx or RxJS |
Hooks, Redux or MobX |
UI components |
Built-in Material Design |
External Material-UI Library & dependencies |
Ideal use cases |
Single Page Applications |
Single Page Applications |
Popular apps |
IBM, Paypal, Upwork, Forbes |
Facebook, Skype, Instagram, Walmart |
Self-sufficiency |
No additional libraries needed |
UI development only, extra libraries needed |
Tools |
Angular CLI, Angular Universal, Jasmin, Protractor, Karma |
Create React App (CLI), Next.js, Enzyme, React Testing Library, React-unit |
Time to hire a senior developer |
2-4 weeks |
1-7 days |
Detailed comparison: React vs Angular
Popularity: Angular vs React
Both technologies are very popular among the front-end developer community. React boasts about 207k stars on GitHub, while Angular has around 88k.
Angular: Angular has grown quite a bit since the early 2010s, originally known as AngularJS. Over the years, Angular matured its technology and became more popular until 2016 when Angular 2 was released. By that point, other technologies were beginning to mature and new frameworks were being released into the community.
React: React stands out as being astronomically more popular than Angular with almost double the usage across the different sites. This is most likely because of the flexibility that it offers due to its minimalist approach.
Performance and scalability: Angular vs React
Both React and Angular are great for building high-performing web apps and their reputations for scalability and performance are pretty even granted React is the more popular of the two.
Angular: Angular probably doesn’t get as much shine these days, but the framework has everything a developer needs to optimize a web app despite being the heavier of the two options.
Features like Ahead-of-Time and Universal boost the performance of the app, while its opinionated take on project structure, dependency injection, and directives help Angular achieve the stability it needs for more complex applications.
React: Being a lightweight and minimal library, React is clearly focused on delivering user interfaces that lend to smaller feature filesizes.
Everything else can be added using a third-party library, shifting the performance liabilities away from React somewhat.
Experienced developers ideally will have learned the best patterns to build and maintain complexity on any level. After all, React was originally developed at Meta to solve an enterprise-grade front-end challenge.
Data binding: Angular vs React
Angular and React handle state in different ways. While React depends on third-party libraries to handle state management like Redux, Angular has built-in data binding.
Angular: Angular users two-way data binding to handle state changes automatically when an interface element is mutated or changed. This means that an underlying variable or collection of data and its view are synchronized.
Angular binds HTML elements to model variables and handles the coordination between the view and the model itself. This eliminates the need to create callback methods to handle changes.
Two-way data binding is extremely efficient as it instantly propagates data between the UI and the data model. Another advantage of two-way data binding is that it creates consistency across the application. When data changes in one component, it will be reflected in other associated UI elements throughout the application.
React: React propagates data only in one direction, and while two-way data binding is more efficient, there are some cases where one-way data binding makes more sense.
There are times when predictability is needed, and in this scenario one-way data binding is the safer option, making the codebase easier to maintain and debug. Being able to easily trace how data is updated and propagated can be very useful in large applications.
Data integrity is another area where one-way data binding shines in. Having better control over data flow by enforcing rules or transformations before displaying data in a user interface is very helpful if presentation is a big deal for you.
One-way data binding also has less overhead than two-way data binding. It avoids the costs associated with tracking changes and synching data between UI and models.
Code quality and maintainability: Angular vs React
Angular and React are slightly different in their approach to code quality and maintainability. While React is a bit more open-ended in this area, Angular takes structure and maintainability very seriously.
Angular: Angular is very opinionated when it comes to code quality and maintainability. From its modular component-based architecture to TypeScript, it’s very difficult to write a poorly written codebase.
Since Angular breaks applications down into components, services, and modules, projects are generally extremely well organized making it easier to test and maintain.
TypeScript provides static typing, classes, interfaces, and modules which also enhance code quality and maintainability. Developers get to benefit from compile-time type checking and improved tooling support and reduce bugs in their code.
There’s also something to be said about Dependency Injection, and how it helps manage dependencies between different parts of an application. Angular is all about loose coupling, reusability, and testing, and Dependency Injection makes that easy.
Angular also integrates with various code analysis tools and linters such as TSLint and ESLint. These tools help catch issues, enforce code standards, and ensure code quality. Linters are helpful to catch errors, throw warnings, and offer suggestions to improve code readability and maintainability.
Finally, AngularCLI makes repeatable tasks like creating new components and linking them together with models and views easy via the command prompts.
React: Though React does not enforce strict code organization and structure, React has a few ways to improve and maintain code quality. From its component-based architecture to JSX, developers can enjoy the benefits of clear app structure and HTML rendering.
React avoids heavy class hierarchies as well, instead focusing on composition. Reusing and managing smaller components is much easier to reason through than relying on class inheritance.
There are also developer tools that assist in debugging, profiling, and inspecting React apps. Developers can inspect the component hierarchy, state, and its props to identify issues.
Server-side rendering: Angular vs React
Angular: It’s hard to beat Angular’s ability to reduce traffic between client and server. With server-side rendering, Angular creates static views before they are made interactive.
React: React has some clever functions like RenderToString that avoid calling Render. You can also use renderToStaticMarkup to prevent DOM attributes from being created. Look no further than the speed at which Facebook renders its pages.
Testing: Angular vs React
Angular: Angular is structured with testing in mind and provides utilities and frameworks for unit and integration testing. Angular also supports end-to-end testing with tools like Protractor and Cypress.
Frameworks such as Jasmine and Jest help with unit tests on the component, service, and directive levels.
The Angular Testing Library allows apps to be tested from the user’s perspective as well as to verify the behavior of components.
React: React also comes with a test of utilities that help writing tests easier. Frameworks like Jest can be used with React to write unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests for React components.
There is also Enzyme which provides some APIs to traverse, manipulate and assert on React component trees and is widely used in the development community.
React also places a strong emphasis on accessibility, and has specialized tools such as `react-axe` and `jest-axe` for testing the accessibility of components.
Finally, React Testing Library helps test components from the user’s perspective.
Optimizing bundle size: Angular vs React
Bundle sizes are important as they are what must be downloaded at the initial page load. A larger bundle means longer loading times. Optimizing is crucial because of the performance implications it has not just for SEO, but also for the overall user experience.
Angular: Angular provides several features and techniques to optimize bundle size and improve the performance of Angular apps.
Angular CLI provides built-in optimizations to reduce bundle size, and automatically applies techniques like Ahead-of-time compilation, codeminification, and production optimizations.
Ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation allows Angular applications to be compiled ahead of time, eliminating the need for the compiler to be included in the final bundle. As a result, Angular can ship smaller bundle sizes compared to other compilation techniques like Just-in-Time.
Angular can implement Webpack for tree shaking, making it easy for the bundler to identify and remove unused code during the bundling process. Angular also supports lazy loading and route-based code splitting.
React: Unlike Angular, React doesn’t optimize bundle size directly but there are some techniques and tools that can help.
Using a modern bundler like Webpack, which uses a technique called tree shaking, can significantly reduce the bundle size by removing unnecessary components and other dependencies.
Tools like React.lazy and React Router allow developers to take advantage of another technique called code splitting. Code splitting splits the application into smaller chunks allowing the bundler to dynamically load necessary code for a specific feature or route. This reduces the bundle size while improving loading performance.
Lazy loading via React.lazy also helps by not including certain code in the initial bundle.
Learning curve: Angular vs React
The learning curve for each technology is a notorious topic, however, at the senior level, this isn’t such a big deal. Web development theory is universal, and technologies have opinions on how to implement certain concepts.
By this point, senior developers should understand their domain well enough to adapt to any framework or library because they understand the underlying theory.
At this point, it’s all about if they enjoy one over the other for personal reasons, not if one is harder to learn than the other.
Angular: Angular is a pretty large framework and so it will take time to learn. On top of that, developers must also learn TypeScript. Naturally, the learning curve for Angular is a little higher than React at first but as one dives deeper into the framework, development productivity will increase.
React: React uses JavaScript and is ultimately just a small UI library with some standard third-party libraries to extend its functionality. If you’re already familiar with JavaScript, you’re free to jump right in and use React. Best practices come quickly as well.
So which one should you use?
It’s easy to get caught up solely in the discussion of specific use cases and project requirements, where one framework or library might be better than another.
This is the wrong way to think about frameworks. For experienced engineering leaders or managers on teams, choosing a framework is rarely a technical decision. In most cases, the answer comes down to whatever your team is most proficient with.
Other factors to consider:
- How easy is it to hire people with that experience
- How easy is it to get support
- How big is the community
In the case of why use React over why to use Angular, both are high-caliber frameworks that will get the job done, end of story.
If you’re the one writing the code, ask yourself which one you gravitate towards. If you are managing a team, make this decision a collaborative one and see which one they think will be the most satisfying to use.
Why use React
Senior developers at Trio have typically stated the following reasons why they use React:
- Easy to learn
- It’s easy to create small and reusable pieces of a project
- The community is really big, so it’s easy to find a solution or get help for any issue
- here are many well-known compatible tools and libraries ready-to-use
- Easy to build a simple app but also a very complex and scalable app
- React data flow is much simpler and easier than Angular data flow
- React’s initial boilerplate is much simpler than Angular’s
- Using JSX is almost like using vanilla HTML
- React is always being improved
Finding senior React engineers will take less time when it comes to building or scaling a team, as well as filling gaps quickly. If you decide to hire internally, you will still need to invest time filtering through resumes and evaluating candidates. You can cut down hiring cycle time dramatically by leveraging a tech partner and finding senior React engineers within a week!
Frequently Asked Questions
How is React different from Angular?
React outperforms Angular due to its overall popularity, community, and job opportunities. React developers can leverage third-party libraries to take advantage of performance optimization techniques to make their apps fast as well.
Why React is better than Angular?
React’s smaller bundle size, open-ended structure, and third-party libraries make it easier to adopt and use within the developer community. On a technical level, the component-driven architecture of React allows developers to reuse components, which tends to save cost and time. Overall, React is the front-end framework of choice for many teams.
What is the difference between TypeScript and JavaScript?
JavaScript is the de-facto language of the web. It’s also loosely typed which can introduce a number of issues that can reveal itself at runtime. TypeScript is a strongly-typed OOP language that has strict requirements and compile time checks. Another major difference is TypeScript's use of Classes over JavaScript’s Objects.
Is Angular easier than React?
React is pretty easy to learn to use compared to Angular. In addition, React provides developers with various options for performing similar tasks. Angular on the other hand is a heavy framework and will take longer to learn.
Read Next

Introduction
Senior React Developer salaries are hard to pin down, and depending on which platform you look at will produce different results. To better understand the why behind senior ReactJS developer salaries, we must first understand the industry, company stage, size, and resources available to those businesses to hire.
Regardless, we can still get a general sense of the salary amount for senior React developers.
Senior React developer salaries
Again, the salaries across platforms aren’t uniform. A quick search on ZipRecruiter, Glassdoor, and Levels will produce similar but different results.
The average senior ReactJS developer salary in the United States across all industries is between $110k/yr and $150k/yr. Top performers earn upwards of $169k/yr to $176k/yr, while below-average earners make around $82k/yr to $100k/yr.
According to Glassdoor and ZipRecruiter, senior ReactJS developers can be as low as $87k and upwards of 178k in the United States. Keep in mind that these sites take a very broad look at developer salaries across many industries.
Glassdoor estimates that the average salary for a senior React developer with 7-9 years of experience is $116k in the United States. That average raises to $127k for senior ReactJS developers with 10-14 years of experience.
ZipRecuiter doesn’t make any distinction between years of experience and instead puts the average at $134k and shows the percentage distribution of salaries between $88k and $176k. Their data states that over 14% of senior React.js developers are making salaries in one of three different tiers, specifically the $104-112k, $128k-$135k, and $136k-$143k ranges.
Sites like Levels focus specifically on the tech industry and Silicon Valley-caliber positions where salaries become even more granular. This is due to the leveling systems that big tech companies use to distinguish seniority.
You’ll often see prefixes such as L4 or L5 to determine the “level” of a developer. Salary bands and percentile distributions increase with each level.
According to Levels, the median salary is $169k, with the 25th percentile making around $112k. The 75th% and 90th% make around $230k and $305k respectively. Keep in mind these are extremely competitive roles at the best tech companies.
Why are salaries so different (and high) across tech?
The broad salary variance is directly related to the location and cost of living where these positions are available. Resources also play a part as well-funded companies will pay more to attract the best talent. We saw plenty of this during the “talent wars” where companies such as Netflix paid top dollar to hire the best developers the United States had to offer. In fact, sites like Levels exist purely because of big-tech companies paying top dollar for top talent.
As a result of the “talent wars”, smaller companies weren’t able to hire senior talent as fast. Senior developers were especially challenging to find as they aren’t usually in the job market. Getting a solid senior developer took substantial recruiting efforts and a high offer.
Senior ReactJS developer salary vs other technologies
VueJS: $91k ($73k-$116k) High: $143k | Low: $59k (Glassdoor)
Angular: $104k ($85k-$131k) High: $159k | Low: $70k (Glassdoor)
React: $116k ($97k-$142k) High: $169k | Low: $82k (Glassdoor)
Is the cost of a senior ReactJS developer worth it?
If you are looking to build a new web or mobile application or get more done on a currently existing product with a small team, then the answer is yes. Senior developers unlock your roadmap by orders of magnitude compared to junior and mid-level developers.
Hiring senior ReactJS developers can be either seen as a profit center (investment) or a cost center (expense). To a finance executive, all of this is considered OpEx and it’s no secret that engineering departments are the most expensive to run.
We expect that the costs of building great software are made whole through solid product market fit, and great marketing/sales strategies to capture value. So it’s extremely important that you build a team with senior talent that moves the product roadmap forward in collaboration with other teams, and build software that feels as good as it looks.
You need to hire senior React developers that understand the big picture of building products and, apply their craft and experience effectively in a remote team environment, and value communication to make magic happen.
Unfortunately, high-caliber developers aren’t easy to find and even harder to identify. The costs of making a wrong hire are extremely high. If you’re looking for senior ReactJS developers that can help you get more done and make a real impact in your business, try working with one of our Trio senior React developers.

Senior React.js interview questions and answers for 2023
The way you interview senior React developers is different than how you would for junior and mid-level roles. This is because the roles, responsibilities, and skill requirements are very different between each level.
For senior React developers, specifically, there’s a large emphasis placed on years of experience. Experience is the one signal that will determine whether a developer has seen enough in the wild to come up with meaningful solutions based on, well, their experiences!
Mind blown? Don’t worry, it gets better.
Of course, we expect senior React developers to know the fundamentals of their library of choice, and they should also be able to solve a variety of popular advanced cases that make user experiences feel delightful and truly high-quality.
But more importantly, they need to communicate well with their team and demonstrate real-world experience through the stories they tell. It’s very hard to fake the experience.
If you’re looking to properly interview and validate your senior React developers on a technical and non-technical level, we got you covered. Below are some technical and non-technical questions you can use in your next interview.
Technical Questions for senior react developers
Is there a way to cancel a request inside a useEffect?
The following code doesn't preserve the component state when isFavorite changes, how can you prevent/fix this?
When a component is rendered in a React app, its state is preserved as long as it remains in the UI tree. This can cause issues if the component is unmounted and then remounted at a different position in the tree, as its state will be lost.
To prevent this, you can render the component within the same parent div to ensure that its state is preserved even if it is moved around in the UI tree. This way, the component can be safely unmounted and remounted without losing its state.
What's the main difference between useMemo and useCallback and when would you want to use and avoid them?
The useMemo hook is used to memoize the value of a function, optimizing expensive calculations, while useCallback is used to memoize the function itself, optimizing the performance of child components.
Use useMemo when you want to memoize a value and avoid recomputation, and use useCallback when you want to memoize a function and prevent unnecessary re-renders of child components.
useMemo
Use it: useMemo is used when you want to optimize the performance of expensive calculations or complex operations that are not related to rendering. It allows you to avoid unnecessary recalculations when the inputs haven’t changed.
Don't use it: useMemo should not be used for side effects or as a replacement for useEffect. If you need to perform an action that has side effects (such as modifying the DOM or fetching data), you should use useEffect instead.
useCallback
Use it: useCallback is used when you want to optimize the performance of child components that rely on callbacks. By memoizing the callback function, you can ensure that child components only re-render when the dependencies of the callback change, rather than on every render.
Don't use it: useCallback should not be used excessively or prematurely. It’s best to use it when you notice actual performance issues related to unnecessary re-renders of child components.
React Problem/Scenario Questions
These questions are quasi-technical questions that focus on general problem-solving within the context of ReactJS.
How do you ensure that React components are shared effectively across your development team and well documented so that everyone has access to the latest version of each component?
Of course, there are no wrong answers here but a good alternative is to use Storybook. With Storybook you are able to build UI components and pages in isolation. Some cool benefits of Storybook:
- Tests: Visual tests, interaction tests, accessibility tests, coverage tests, and snapshot tests.
- Documentation: generate UI docs automatically
- Reusability: reuse components across pages and apps
- History: track components' history and versions
If you want to install it in your application, please follow these steps.
Non-technical questions for senior React developers
Could you tell us about a project where you had to integrate React.js with other technologies/platforms?
It's common to combine platforms and technologies with React.js. This question is used to assess a candidate's familiarity with integrating React.js into different contexts as well as their versatility when it comes to using different tools and technologies.
A good answer to this question is a story where they demonstrate their overcoming the challenges associated with integrating React. They’ll present details that would be hard to fabricate otherwise.
There is no wrong answer to this question, only vague answers that indicate that the developer chose not to be honest about the fact that they did not integrate React. The signal to consider is that in cases where they might be under pressure, they might provide misinformation which can be problematic down the road.
How do you ensure that your code is maintainable and easy for others to understand and work with?
Maintainable code is code that is easy to read, understand, and modify.
Keep in mind that other developers will work with your code when creating a React.js application, therefore you should make sure it is as simple as possible for them to do so.
It's important to describe the steps you take to ensure that your code is maintainable. Be sure to mention descriptive variable naming, breaking code down into smaller pieces, modularization, separation of concerns, etc.
Great teams think about these types of things in advance. They create code standards and guidelines that ensure consistency across the codebase no matter who is writing.
Senior ReactJS developers who come from teams like these will know and understand the value of standardization and will most likely seek to continue working on teams that share their values.

Introduction
The choice of a front-end framework is a pivotal decision that can significantly impact the success of your web development project. In the ever-evolving landscape of web development, NextJS and ReactJS have emerged as two prominent options garnering widespread adoption.
This article delves deep into the intricacies of NextJS and ReactJS, shedding light on their unique features, benefits, and key considerations.
By gaining a comprehensive understanding of these frameworks, you will be equipped to make an informed decision that aligns with your project's requirements and sets you up for success.
What is React
React is a JavaScript library developed by Facebook. It provides a powerful and efficient way to build user interfaces for web applications. One of the key reasons behind ReactJS's popularity is its component-based architecture.
This approach allows developers to build reusable and modular components, making code organization and maintenance a breeze. Additionally, ReactJS utilizes a virtual DOM (Document Object Model) to efficiently update and render UI elements, resulting in better performance and a smoother user experience.
React’s key features include:
- Component reusability: React promotes the creation of modular and reusable UI components, making it easier to build complex interfaces.
- Virtual DOM: React's virtual DOM efficiently updates only the necessary parts of the user interface, improving performance.
- Unidirectional data flow: React follows a one-way data flow, making it easier to track changes and maintain application state.
- Rich ecosystem: React has a vast ecosystem of libraries, tools, and community support, making it suitable for a wide range of use cases.
The ReactJS ecosystem is vibrant and constantly evolving. It offers a wide range of third-party libraries, tools, and community support. Developers can find solutions for various requirements, from state management (using hooks like useState and useContext) to global state management (with Redux).
The availability of numerous resources, forums, and tutorials ensures that learning ReactJS is both accessible and rewarding.
What is NextJS
Next.js, built on top of React, is a framework specifically designed for server-side rendering (SSR) and static site generation (SSG) in React applications.
Some key features and benefits of Next.js are:
- Server-side rendering (SSR): Next.js allows rendering React components on the server before sending them to the client, resulting in faster initial page loads and improved SEO.
- Static site generation (SSG): Next.js supports pre-rendering of entire pages at build time, enabling the generation of static HTML files for improved performance and better caching.
- File-based routing: Next.js provides a simple and intuitive file-based routing system, eliminating the need for complex routing configurations.
- API routes: Next.js allows the creation of serverless functions called API routes, enabling the development of backend functionality within the framework itself.
These additions simplify the development process and reduce the need for additional libraries or configurations.
NextJS shares many key features with React, including component-based development and the virtual DOM, and combines the power of React with server-side rendering capabilities, allowing developers to pre-render pages on the server and deliver HTML to the client. This approach improves initial page load times, enhances SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and provides a better user experience.
Getting Started with React
To start using React, you need to set up a development environment. Here are the basic steps to get started:
- Installation and setup: Install Node.js and npm (Node Package Manager) to manage dependencies. Then, create a new React project using tools like Create React App or manually configure the project structure.
- Creating a basic React component: Define a simple React component using JSX syntax, which combines HTML-like syntax with JavaScript.
- Understanding JSX syntax: JSX is a syntax extension for JavaScript that allows you to write HTML-like code within JavaScript. It enables you to create React elements and define their structure and behavior.
Getting Started with Next.js
Next.JS, being a framework built on ReactJS, requires a similar development environment setup. You will need Node.js and a package manager. Fortunately, NextJS provides a streamlined setup process with its built-in create-next-app command, allowing you to quickly initialize a Next.JS project with minimal configuration
To begin working with Next.js, follow these steps:
- Installation and setup: Install Next.js using npm or yarn. Create a new Next.js project using the provided command-line interface (CLI) tool or manually set up the project structure.
- Creating a basic Next.js project: Create a pages directory where each file represents a unique route. Define the structure and content of the page using JSX syntax. Next.js automatically handles the routing for these pages.
- Understanding server-side rendering (SSR): With Next.js, components can be rendered on the server and sent to the client as HTML, providing a faster initial page load. Understand how Next.js handles SSR and the benefits it offers.
Both React.JS and Next.JS rely on various tools and dependencies to streamline the development process. Some commonly used tools include code editors like Visual Studio Code, version control systems like Git, and development servers like webpack-dev-server.
Additionally, libraries like React Router, CSS-in-JS libraries for styling, and testing frameworks can be utilized to enhance the development workflow.
React Ecosystem
React's popularity has led to the growth of a vibrant ecosystem consisting of libraries, tools, and community support. Here are some essential components of the React ecosystem:
- React Router: React Router is a popular library that provides client-side routing capabilities, allowing you to create navigation within a React application.
- State management with Redux or MobX: React itself offers basic state management, but for complex applications, libraries like Redux or MobX are commonly used to manage application state more efficiently.
- UI component libraries: Several UI component libraries, such as Material-UI and Ant Design, offer pre-built UI components and styling options to streamline the development process.
These components enhance the development experience and provide ready-to-use solutions for common challenges in building React applications.
Next.js Ecosystem
Next.js has its own ecosystem, offering additional features and tools to augment the development process. Some notable aspects of the Next.js ecosystem include:
- Server-side rendering (SSR) benefits: Next.js brings server-side rendering capabilities to React, allowing for faster page loads and improved search engine optimization (SEO).
- File-based routing: Next.js simplifies routing by mapping files and directories to URLs, reducing the need for complex routing configurations.
- API routes for serverless functions: Next.js provides a built-in API routing system, allowing you to create serverless functions that can serve as backend endpoints.
These features make Next.js an attractive choice for projects that require server-side rendering and seamless API development.
Creating Components
Building reusable components is a fundamental aspect of both React.JS and NextJS. React.JS promotes a component-based architecture, where you break down your user interface into modular components that encapsulate their own logic and can be reused across your application. This modular approach simplifies maintenance, promotes code reusability, and improves collaboration between team members.
Similarly, Next.JS encourages the use of components to create reusable UI elements. However, Next.JS takes it a step further by providing built-in features like Layouts and Partials. Layouts allow you to create consistent structures for your pages, while Partials enable you to reuse smaller components within your layout.
When creating components in React.JS and Next.JS, it's important to follow best practices. This includes writing clean and concise
Performance Comparison
When it comes to performance, both React and Next.js have their strengths and considerations. Here's a comparison of their performance aspects:
- Performance considerations in React: React's virtual DOM diffing algorithm optimizes rendering, minimizing costly updates to the actual DOM. However, React primarily relies on client-side rendering (CSR), which can result in slower initial page loads and potential SEO challenges.
- Benefits of server-side rendering (SSR) in Next.js: Next.js addresses React's limitations by enabling server-side rendering, resulting in faster initial page loads and better SEO. By rendering components on the server, Next.js provides a fully rendered HTML page, improving performance and user experience. Understanding the trade-offs and implications of performance in React and Next.js can guide your decision-making process based on your project's specific requirements.
SEO and Next.js
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical aspect of modern web applications. Let's explore how Next.js addresses SEO challenges compared to React:
- Importance of SEO for web applications: SEO helps improve the visibility of a website on search engine result pages, driving organic traffic and increasing user engagement.
- SEO challenges in React: React primarily relies on client-side rendering, which may lead to slower initial page loads and difficulties in search engine indexing due to the reliance on JavaScript for rendering content.
- SEO benefits of server-side rendering (SSR) in Next.js: Next.js' server-side rendering capabilities generate fully rendered HTML pages on the server, ensuring faster initial page loads and better search engine indexing. By leveraging Next.js' SSR capabilities, you can enhance your application's SEO performance and achieve better visibility in search engine rankings.
Deployment and Hosting
Deploying and hosting React and Next.js applications involve different considerations. Here are some deployment options and hosting platforms for both frameworks:
- Deployment options for React applications: React applications can be deployed to various hosting platforms, including cloud providers like AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure, as well as static site hosting services like Netlify or Vercel.
- Deployment options for Next.js applications: Next.js applications can also be deployed to cloud providers or static site hosting platforms. Additionally, Next.js offers features like serverless deployment to serverless computing platforms like AWS Lambda or Vercel's serverless functions.
Choose a deployment option and hosting platform that aligns with your project's scalability, performance, and cost requirements.
When to Choose React
While Next.js builds upon React, there are scenarios where using React alone might be more appropriate:
- Scenarios where React is a better choice: If your project has minimal server-side rendering (SSR) requirements and focuses on building client-side rendered applications or leveraging React Native for mobile app development, using React alone can be a suitable option.
- Projects with a different backend technology: If your project involves integrating with a custom server or a backend technology other than Node.js, using React without Next.js may offer more flexibility. Understanding these scenarios will help you determine if React is the ideal choice for your specific project requirements.
When to Choose Next.js
Next.js excels in scenarios that demand server-side rendering, improved SEO, and a simplified development experience for server-rendered applications. Here are some instances where Next.js shines:
- Scenarios where Next.js is a better choice: If your project requires server-side rendering (SSR) to enhance performance and SEO, or if you want a streamlined development experience with file-based routing and built-in API routes, Next.js is a powerful framework to consider.
- Projects with a need for enhanced SEO: Next.js' server-side rendering capabilities provide fully rendered HTML pages, ensuring better search engine indexing and improved SEO performance.
Next.js empowers developers to build performant, SEO-friendly applications with ease, making it a compelling choice for certain project requirements.
Should Your Hire A React or Next.js Developer?
Hiring React and Next.js developers can be a crucial step in ensuring the success of your projects. Consider the following technical aspects when hiring developers proficient in React and Next.js:
- Proficiency in React ecosystem: Look for candidates who have a solid understanding of the React ecosystem, including popular libraries and tools such as Redux, React Router, and styled-components. They should be familiar with best practices for state management, routing, and styling in React applications.
- Knowledge of JavaScript and ECMAScript standards: React and Next.js are built on JavaScript, so candidates should have a strong command of JavaScript fundamentals, as well as familiarity with modern JavaScript features introduced in ECMAScript standards. Assess their knowledge of ES6+ features like arrow functions, destructuring, spread syntax, and async/await.
- Understanding of component-based architecture: React follows a component-based architecture, so candidates should have experience in building reusable and modular components. They should understand concepts like props, state, lifecycle methods, and hooks. Assess their ability to structure and organize components effectively.
- Experience with Next.js features: If you specifically require Next.js expertise, evaluate candidates' knowledge of Next.js specific features such as server-side rendering (SSR), static site generation (SSG), and API routes. Assess their ability to leverage Next.js to optimize performance, handle data fetching, and build server-rendered applications.
- Testing skills: React and Next.js applications can benefit from comprehensive testing. Look for candidates who have experience with testing frameworks and libraries like Jest, Enzyme, or React Testing Library. Assess their ability to write unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests for React and Next.js components.
- Performance optimization: React and Next.js developers should be knowledgeable about performance optimization techniques. Evaluate candidates' understanding of code splitting, lazy loading, memoization, and other performance optimization strategies in React applications. Assess their ability to identify and resolve performance bottlenecks.
- Version control and collaboration tools: Proficiency in version control systems like Git and collaboration platforms like GitHub or GitLab is crucial for team collaboration. Ensure candidates have experience using Git for code versioning, branching, merging, and collaborating with other developers using pull requests.
- Familiarity with front-end build tools: Candidates should be familiar with front-end build tools like Webpack, Babel, and npm/yarn. Assess their ability to configure and customize build processes, handle dependencies, and optimize the bundling and minification of assets.
- Knowledge of responsive and mobile-first design: React and Next.js developers should understand responsive design principles and be able to build applications that work well across different devices and screen sizes. Assess their knowledge of CSS media queries, flexbox, and CSS Grid for responsive layouts.
- Problem-solving and debugging skills: Assess candidates' problem-solving and debugging abilities by asking them about challenging scenarios they encountered while working with React and Next.js. Evaluate their logical thinking, troubleshooting strategies, and familiarity with debugging tools like browser developer tools.
By considering these technical aspects during the hiring process, you can ensure that the React and Next.js developers you hire have the necessary skills and expertise to contribute effectively to your projects.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the right framework between Next.js and React depends on various factors. React offers a powerful library for building user interfaces, while Next.js extends React with features like server-side rendering (SSR) and simplified routing.
By understanding the features, benefits, and use cases of both frameworks, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your project requirements. Consider the performance implications, SEO considerations, and deployment options to determine whether React or Next.js is the best fit for your specific use cases.
If you’re considering hiring a senior React developer that knows Next.js and hoping to save a ton of time screening and interviewing, consider working with a tech partner like Trio to hire faster and smarter.