Side Note: Regardless of the JavaScript framework you choose, I recommend integrating Tailwind CSS, a utility-first CSS framework for rapidly building modern designs.

Most blog posts on this topic might try to convince you that Angular, being a full-fledged framework, has a higher learning curve, and therefore might be less suited for beginners. But at the same time, React being a library rather than a full framework means there are more decisions to make when it comes to integrating the additional required tooling like routing and form controls.

For a frontend beginner, you could say that having a full framework like Angular with a highly opinionated architecture and established best practices might actually speed up the learning and development process by eliminating those additional decisions and integrations. Especially if you anticipate your project growing into a large application, Angular would easily be able to support that.

Then again, depending on the complexity of your project features, you may be able to use React without needing to install many third-party libraries at all. For that reason, using a huge platform like Angular for a relatively simple UI application could be overkill.

Lastly, let’s consider job market trends. At the time of writing, searching for React on popular online job boards returns about 2-3 times as many results as for Angular. This isn’t surprising considering the incredible growth in popularity of React in the past few years due to its lower barrier to entry (as a JavaScript library vs an application framework) and its reputation for efficient rendering and ease of development.

While current market trends are an important consideration, it’s also true that the landscape for frontend web development has been constantly and rapidly changing since its inception. As such, don’t put too much weight on picking the perfect framework for your UI project. Either way you go, just getting started and learning the principles of frontend development will set you up for success in your future UI endeavors.

PDG Consulting is a technology and business-focused consulting firm with direct experience in frontend/full-stack development using these and other technologies touched on above. Regardless of the current state of your technology ecosystem, PDG can help identify pain points and define the roadmap to achieve a cleaner, organized suite of services and web applications. And finally, we can help you execute that plan and build the most efficient and engaging interfaces for your users. Contact us and let us know how we can help.