What's the difference between Angular and AngularJS?
AngularJS was the JavaScript framework built by Google that within a few years started to show its limitations and shortcomings. So, the internal team at Google built a different version of the framework from the ground up and thus we got Angular 2 or Angular. Though it seems Angular is just a more advanced version of the AngularJS with major changes and without the prefix JS the name, actually both are quite different frameworks with only a handful of core similarities. This is why making a comparison between them is quite obvious.
Angular
Angular is an open-source JavaScript framework developed and maintained by Google. Angular is widely used by the front-end developers for efficient data presentation and manipulation. Angular comes with a much improved CLI and enhanced modularity and flexibility for web app projects.
Angular JS
AngularJS was first developed by Google for building robust single-page web applications(SPAs) utilising the power of JavaScript. Build way back in 2010 the framework continued to gain popularity and since then has been used in a wide variety of web projects. Some of its core capabilities like changing the HTML to dynamic HTML, two-way data binding and dependency injection helped web developers build powerful websites in less time and more efficiently.
Let us now have a look at the different aspects of comparison between Angular and AngularJS.
App architecture
AngularJS supports Model-View-Controller (MVC) design protocol. According to this protocol, the View component uses the data available in the Model for creating the app output while the Controller takes care of configuration and business logic.
In Angular, this is further made simple by the use of components and directives. The directives coming with a template helps creating ready to use components for the developers.
Scripting language
AngularJS is written in JavaScript, while Angular is written in TypeScript language of Microsoft.
Mobile browser support
AngularJS doesn't support mobile browsers. In contrast, Angular provides full support to all popular mobile browsers.
Expressive syntax
In AngularJS, specific syntax is utilised for data binding between View and Model. In contrast properties enclosed in “()” and “[]” bind the data between View and Model. For the later data binding syntax is more expressive in nature.
Dependency Injection
In AngularJS no Dependency Injection is used while with Angular Dependency Injection is used to make updating easier.
Routing solution
AngularJS for the purpose of routing configuration uses $routeprovider.when().
Angular for the same purpose uses @Route Config{(…)}.
Structure
When it comes to the structure of the AngularJS, it remains less manageable in contrast to Angular. AngularJS structure is more suitable to smaller applications.
Angular offers a far better structure to build and maintain larger applications but in case of small applications, it is less efficient.
Conclusion
Though Angular has come with many value additions over and above AngularJS, both have its pros and cons as well. While Angular is more ideal for large enterprise applications, AngularJS is still good for small single page web apps.