jQuery VS Angular: Difference Between jQuery and Angular

What Is Angular?

Angular is a popular open-source front-end development framework that is based on TypeScript. It is used to create dynamic single-page applications and make testing easier.

It is an upgraded version of AngularJs that is Javascript based and is significantly faster.

Angular is component-based and employs dependency injection, integration, and declarative templates to enhance the process of app development. It also prevents “spaghetti code.”

Angular also supports two-way data binding. It implies that the data-flow relationship between UI fields and model data is bi-directional.

It changes dynamically on detecting change in the UI field or the model data. This increases the functionality and interactivity of an application.

While we are on it, let’s understand what Single Page Applications are.

As the name suggests, Single Page Applications are designed to fit on a single page.

This is a clever method to reduce page loading time and also contributes to the aesthetic attribute of a website.

Whatever JS, HTML or CSS code is present on a page loads with a single page load. This means you don’t have to reload your page while using it. They are also easy to deploy.

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In recent times, SPA have gained immense popularity amongst app developers.

In summary, the key features of Angular include

1. It is built on the concept of Dependencies Injection
2. It supports two-way data binding.
3. It provides MVC support
4. It makes use of restful API

Angular also doesn’t require you to manually create instances or make configurations to dependencies yourself. You can simply use  functions arguments in the declaration:

myModule.controller(‘MyController’, function($scope, dep1, dep2) {

$scope.myMethod = function(arg1) {

return dep1(arg1);

};

});

What Is jQuery ? 

jQuery is an open source JavaScript library that is used in the creation of quick and responsive web pages and applications. It shares compatibility with most browsers including Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Opera.

As is a cross-platform library, it is quite feature-rich and easy to use. It is lightweight and allows users to perform a variety of functions on applications using its modular approach.

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This includes navigating documents, creating animations, adding new events or elements or using DOM to select elements, to mention a few.

In summary, jQuery’s key features include

1. It supports seamless cross-browser compatibility
2. Elements, methods, or events added can be reused as plugins to save time.
3. It offers efficient HTML/DOM manipulation
4. It has CSS manipulation capabilities
5. It has event handling capabilities
6. It is lightweight.
7. It allows you to create Ajax/JSONP applications
8. It also has an active user base in its open-source community that regularly brings out useful plugins to integrate with jQuery.

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Angular Vs jQuery: Key Differences Between Angular And JQuery

1. jQuery is a Javascript-based library that is primarily used for DOM manipulation whereas Angular is a front-end development framework that is used for creating single-page applications.
2. Angular employs two-way data binding to adapt and extend HTML codes. It also uses dependency injection, routing and directives to enhance its performance.

Two-way binding in Angular is a huge time saver. It is executed using the ngModel using symbols to denote the type of binding: One-way binding – [], Two-way binding – [()], Event binding – (), and Property binding – []

jQuery does support any of these. It is unidirectional. It makes up for this with a set of extremely functional tools like Mustache and Handlebars, Knockout, to name a few.

3. jQuery can’t handle complexity in projects. It is suitable for small size projects. Whereas, Angular is designed to handle large-size projects that have high complexity.
4. jQuery is easier to understand than Angular that is said to have a learning curve. Everything from DOM manipulation, Ajax calls, to delegating events and adding elements, jQuery makes it quite easy to get a handle on.

Angular, one the other hand, may require background knowledge of AngularJs to make navigating Angular easier.

5. jQuery components are in themselves the UI of jQuery. This includes widgets, animations, themes and effects built in compatibility with the jQuery JavaScript library.

Angular’s entire framework is based on the hierarchy of components. They are considered the fundamental blocks for UI.

Angular Vs jQuery: Which Should You Choose?

Reasons For Choosing Angular

1. It supports automatic DOM manipulation.
2. It has all the features you need in one place including RESTful APIs, dependency management, etc.
3. Maintenance and testing is seamless in Angular.
4. Its architecture which is based on the MVVM pattern makes it clean, simple and efficient.

Read: jQuery Project Ideas & Topics

Reasons For Not Choosing Angular

It has a steep learning curve. It would require knowledge of core concepts to get a handle on it.

Reasons For Choosing jQuery

1. It is quite easy and intuitive.
2. It offers great extensibility with plugins.
3. It has a large, creative community.
4. Cross-browser compatibility is a huge plus.

Reasons For Not Choosing jQuery

You can’t use it for large, complex apps. It would need additional libraries and plugins for large apps which would then slow down the application due to the added dependencies.

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Conclusion

When it comes to application development, you need a framework that allows an interactive and responsive user interface, requires minimum coding to provide maximum functionality, provides cross functional support and easy Document Object Model manipulation, and enhances the aesthetic functionality of your application.

While Angular is a framework, jQuery is a library. jQuery helps in the creation of a quick and responsive UI, or front-end development. Angular, on the other hand, can handle the entire process of front-end development, emphasis on single page applications.

It brings “server-side development tools and capabilities to web client. ”  So, essentially it is the same results, although using very different techniques.

As you may have already guessed, there’s no winner here. Both Angular and jQuery will get the job done; it just depends on what you really want done and whether you want to take the library/framework route.

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