AngularJs vs Angular Versions - A Definitive Guide

A framework is crucial for building dynamic web and mobile apps. One such prominent framework is Angular. It was created by Misko Hevery to handle the drawbacks of HTML. While creating Angular, he made sure to take ideas from the best libraries and practices. He did so to make sure this open-source front-end framework suits all app development processes. Angular, since its initial release in 2009, has evolved a lot.

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Major features of all Angular versions

• It is a JavaScript Framework
• It provides HTML support.
• Allows event handling and data binding
• Animation and form package

There are many versions of this framework, and to know which one is the best for our needs, we need to know their features and differences. We will cover all that in this blog, but first, let us learn when each version came out.

Angular Version History

• Google developed this web application framework in 2009. It is officially called AngularJS. Some people call this version Angular 1.0. This version came out on October 20, 2010.
• After Angular 1.0, in 2016, Angular 2 was released. It was written from scratch and is fully different from Angular 1 or JS. 
• The third update, Angular 4, was launched in the year 2017. It is not a complete rewrite of the original version. Instead, it is the updated version of Angular 2.
• Angular 5 was released on 1st November 2017. The updates in this version help developers to create apps fast, as it removes unnecessary codes.
• Angular 6 was released on 3rd May 2018, and the version of Angular 7 was out in October 2018.
• Angular Team released Angular 8 on May 28, 2019. It features differential loading of all application code, web workers, supports TypeScript 3.4, dynamic imports for lazy routes, and Angular Ivy as an opt-in preview.
• Angular Team released Angular 9 on Feb 06, 2020. By default, version 9 moves all the applications to use the Ivy compiler and runtime.
• Angular 10 was released on Jun 24, 2020, with four months difference from the previous release.
• The latest angular version from Google is Angular 11. It was made available in the market from 14th November 2020.

Thus, we can see that Angular has evolved a lot from its basic versions. Every version comes with some new and advanced features. All these updates are on par with the latest market trends, making developers migrate to the newest version.

All the major releases of Angular are supported for 18 months. This consists of 6 months of active support and followed by 12 months of long-term support (LTS). active support includes regularly scheduled updates and patch releases. Long Term Support includes only critical fixes and security patches that are released.

The current Angular Versions Supported are:

The angular version number is incremented based on the level of change included in the release:

• Major releases - It contains significant new features.
• Minor releases - It contains new smaller features.
• Patch releases - It fixes the releases.

Still, there is some confusion about all these versions of Angular, prompting some users not to migrate to the next version. In this blog, we will explore the differences between all the versions till 11.0. It will help you to understand them better and use the right framework for your app development process.

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Brief Introduction Of All Angular Versions 

We will differentiate between all the versions of Angular in detail below. But before that, let’s understand what every version brings to the table and the major difference between them. 

Angular JS

AngularJS is the official name, but some developers also refer to this as Angular 1. It is a front-end and open-source web application framework based on JavaScript. It uses HTML as a template in this framework. In AngularJS, the data and expressions are merged to create an expressive environment for developing web applications quickly. It simplifies both the testing and development of applications by providing a framework for client-side model–view–controller (MVC) and Model–View–ViewModel (MVVM) architectures, along with components commonly used in rich Internet applications. 

It uses the controller approach where the view communicates using a $scope.

Angular2

Angular 2 is the next version of AngularJS. But the thing to remember here is that it was not a typical update. Angular 2 is a complete rewrite of its counterpart. It uses the component-based approach. The use of Angular 2 in developing HTML and JavaScript Web apps is prevalent. Angular 4

Angular 4

Angular 4 is a typescript-based open-source and front-end web app development framework. Angular 4 is the successor of Angular 2. It is not a complete rewrite, and both versions use the same patterns and concepts. It comes with some advanced features like smaller and faster apps, animation package, use of AS keywords, and so on.

Angular 5

Angular 5 is more advanced and has more enhanced features than Angular 4. The best feature of Angular 5 is that it aids developers in removing unnecessary codes from their applications.

Other improved features are a code-sharing feature, less time for assembling dynamic web applications, and so on. Moreover, it has DOM support, and its compiler helps with incremental compilation.

Angular 6

The improvements in this version are even better. Angular 6 has been written to prefer web parts that are a part of most cutting-edge browsers. With this, you can make an Angular web component and use it in various HTML pages later.

Angular 7 

Angular 7 is an open-source Javascript framework used to build web apps in Html, javascript, and Typescript (a superset of JavaScript). If you're still using Angular 7, you will be experiencing benefits like better mobile apps with CLI prompts, drag and drop functionality, improved app performance, component dev kit (CDK), and virtual scrolling with this framework. 

Angular 8 

Angular 8 is an open-source and TypeScript framework used for creating dynamic web applications. Ivy is the default rendering engine in Angular 8. This version’s essential features are differential loading of modern JavaScript, support for web workers, dynamic support for lazy routers, and Angular 8 was more famous for the much-anticipated Ivy compiler as an opt-in feature.  

Angular 9 

Angular 9 brought us a new and improved Ivy compiler and runtime, better debugging, faster testing, and many more improvements. Angular 9 was famous for its Ivy default compiler and improved bundle size.

Angular 10 

Angular 10 features a "new date range picker" in the Angular Material UI component library, warnings for CommonJS imports, and more exciting features. 

Angular 11

Angular 11 was released on November 11, 2020. Highlights of this latest version include stricter types, automatic font inlining, and router performance improvements.

AngularJS Interview Questions

A Comparative Study Of AngularJS VS Angular 2

AngularJS VS Angular 2

Since Angular 2 is built from scratch; there is a huge visible difference in the code between the two. Let’s look at the major points of difference between the two:

• Architecture

AngularJS architecture uses the model-view-controller design. It is the central component of the framework that expresses the behavior of the application. It also manages the app’s data, logic, and rules. The working of the architecture is like this:

First, the view generates the output on the basis of the data in the model. 

Next, the controller accepts the input. It then converts the input into commands and sends them to the view.

The architecture of Angular 2 uses components and directives. They work with the application’s view and logic on the page. Angular 2 has two types of directives- Structural that changes the DOM layout by removing and replacing its elements. The second is the attributive directive that modifies the look and behavior of the DOM element.

• Components

The communication between the components of AngularJS and Angular 2 will see AngularJS come out as a winner. The reason- the communication between components of AngularJS is smooth, transparent, and fast, which makes its interface convenient and supportive for the developer. In angular2, the time taken to do unit testing for components is less.

• Performance

Angular 2 is faster than AngularJS in terms of performance. It doesn't fulfill the needs of the developers.

The speed of page loading suffered in AngularJS due to the creation of more processing time on the client-side. 

In Angular 2, there is a better structure that can easily create and maintain big applications. Thus, the speed and performance of this version are far better than its counterpart.

• Language

AngularJS language is JavaScript, while Angular 2 is written in Microsoft’s Typescript. It is also compatible with JavaScript, Dart, Elm, and PureScript.

• Expression Syntax

In AngularJS, to bind an image/event, you require ng directive. Whereas in Angular 2, you require “()” for event binding and “[]” for property binding. 

• Mobile Support

One of the new features in Angular 2 is mobile support. AngularJS has no in-built mobile support, but its counterpart has excellent support for mobile apps.

What’s new in Angular 2?

In Angular 2, you have better data binding. For binding an image, you need to remember only square brackets like:

<span style="color: #2880b9;"><img [src]="product.image"></span>. 

You don’t have to worry about inserting curly brackets and proper directives as only square brackets are enough.

Angular 2 VS Angular 4

The major difference between Angular 2 and Angular 4 is their performance value. It is an updated and improved version of Angular 2. It comes with better values, resources, and user-interaction, and so on.

There are only minor differences between these two in terms of core libraries and codes. If you are well-versed in Angular 2, the latter version will be easy for you to use.

• Architecture

As we know, Angular 2 has a component-based directive. In Angular 4, this has been improved in terms of enhancement of structural directives of ngif and ngFor. Also, in Angular 4, you can use if/else design syntax for your templates.

• Performance and Speed

Angular 2 is fast in assembling and processing the application. But Angular 4 is faster, and due to less AOT time in its compiler-generated code, it is smoother and swifter than both AngularJS and 2.

• Language

Angular 2 supports the 1.8 version of Typescript, while Angular 4 can easily support its higher version- 2.1 and 2.2.  These higher versions have type checking and object-oriented features.

What’s new in Angular 4?

The user has the freedom to use the ‘else’ block along with “*ngif” block in Angular 4. Example:

<div *ngIf="Condition; else runFalsyTemplate">
      <h2>Condition true!</h2>
  </div>
<ng-template #runFalsyTemplate>
<h2>Condition false!</h2>
</ng-template>

Angular 4 VS Angular 5

Angular 5 is a more enhanced version of AngularJS. The new features of this framework have more opportunities for developers and benefit them more. Let’s take a look at some of the new features of this version.

• Architecture

We already know the architecture of Angular 4. In Angular 5, the architecture has improved to include a build optimizer that reduces or eliminates the use of code in the application.

It helps the application to achieve a sharper, optimized, and arranged code structure.

Also, it has an in-built Angular Universal State Transfer API and Dom. It aids the developer to share the application easily between the client and server-side.  

• Performance And Speed

Angular 4 had better speed than its previous version. In Angular 5, there is a compiler that makes incremental compilation easy. It also increases the speed of the process, and application completion becomes easy and fast.

• Language

Angular 5 supports typescript version 2.3 as compared to the support of 2.1 and 2.2 version in Angular 4.

• White Space Preservation

Angular 5 helps preserve white space, which keeps the code organized. It helps to optimize the code for different browsers.

What’s New In Angular 5?

Exports: Angular 5 provides multiple name support for both components as well as directives.

Enhanced decorator support: Angular 5 lets the developer use the lambda expression instead of naming functions, unlike its previous versions.

Example:

Component({ 
            provider: [{ 
                provide: ''
                my - service ', useFactory: () => null}] 
            }) 
            export class CustomClass {}

Angular 5 VS Angular 6

Angular 6 is the most advanced version amongst all the Angular versions that were released before. The improved features of this version make it easier and faster in use.

Here are the main features of this version:

1. It supports typescript 2.7 and provides maintenance too. 
2. The decorator and error message scheme in this version is far better than its counterpart.
3. It has a closure compiler that generates small bundles.
4. It has Angular material and CDK stable which you can use for creating UI components.
5. It provides added support for native elements.
6. Added test comment
7. It lets you rename QueryPredicate to LQuery and LQuery to LQueries.

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Angular 6 VS Angular 7

• Features included:  The main highlights of Angular 6 are Angular CLI workspaces, Angular elements, Stable Angular Material with CDK, animations performance improvements, and Bazel compiler. And the prominent features included in Angular 7 are CLI prompts, drag and drop, application performance improvements, Angular material and components dev kit (CDK), and virtual scrolling.

• Main focus: Angular 6 was a major version that brought a few upgrades and new features. It made the development of Dotnet much more manageable. While Angular 7 focused on upgrading existing features rather than creating new features. Though Ivy was not a part of Angular 7, its useful features made the development process easy and improved the developer’s performance.

What's new in Angular7?

• It supports TypeScript 3.1 
• To recover from malformed URLs, Angular 7 now added a new ability.
• compiler-cli: update tsickle to 0.29.x
• Introduce a new Pipe called — KeyValuePipe
• Added a new interface — UrlSegment[] to CanLoad interface
• Angular 7 added a new compiler — Compatibility Compiler (ngcc).
• Added a new original placeholder value on extracted XMB
• Added a downloadable console to start and run Angular projects on your local machine.
• Added a new element features - enable slots and Shadow DOM v1
• Content Projection support in Angular Elements

 Angular 7 vs Angular 8

Angular 8 comes with a much-anticipated Ivy compiler as an opt-in feature. Compared to old versions upgrading, Angular 8 is simple to upgrade. As the significant features of Angular 7 discussed above, let's look at prominent features of Angular 8, making developers' jobs much more comfortable.

• Ivy Engine - Ivy plays a significant part in the Angular 8 version, and most of the effort is taken from Angular 6 to release it. Ivy is a new rendering engine that produces small bundle sizes. It helps to decide the potential and angular application execution.
• Web Workers - To improve parallelizability and application speed, Web workers are essential. Angular 8 makes it easier to use web workers by adding support to CLI that provides an ng generate a command to create and update necessary files in the project to add a new web worker.
• New lazy loading syntax - It is one of the most useful concepts of Angular routing and has been in practice in Angular for quite a while. That hasn't changed in version but adopted the more common dynamic import syntax, which is practiced in developing web applications.
• Differential Loading - It's the new feature in Angular 8 that lets you use CLI to create two different application bundles.
• Builder and workspace APIs - Angular 8 comes with new APIs that allow you to create a custom build and deploy commands using hooks in the familiar ng run, ng test, and ng build commands.
• Opt-In Usage Sharing - with Angular 8, we can switch between regular View engine build and IVY. 

What's new in Angular 8?

• Allow passing state to router link Directives and NavigationExtras in the Router.
• Supports SASS
• Added support for TypeScript 3.4 
• Added functionality to check control and its descendant controls as touched: — add markAllAsTouched () to AbstractControl.
• Added an ng-new command that builds the project with Bazel
• AngularJS API Migration Improvements with $location service
• The packages in this version are deprecated into two, one is @angular/platform-web worker-dynamic, and the other is @angular/platform-web worker. 
• ViewChild and ContentChild decorators will have a new preference known as static.

Angular 8 VS Angular 9

Angular 9 launched with some exciting features, and the highlight of this framework is the default Ivy compiler which provides a massive boost in performance. Let's see the features of Angular 9, which improved developers’ performance compared to the earlier variants.

• IVY as a Default Compiler - It reduces the build size by 25-40 percent, which facilitates better performance.
• More Consistent ng-update - It's the essential update to the CLI framework, which automatically takes advantage of newer advantages.
• API Extractor Updates - API landscape of these libraries helps to find the missing updates.
• New alternatives for 'providedIn' - This feature provides us with some options while creating services in Angular. For example

1. platform— The providedIn: 'platform' offers the service available in a particular single platform that is shared by all applications on the page.
2. any— Delivers a unique instance in every module, instilling the token.

• The Phantom Template Variable Menace - In the new version, when we create a template and don't specify a component, then a compiler shows up error.
• Component Harness - Angular 9 provides various substitute ways to ensure that unit tests are correctly audited and less frail. The existing compiler and runtime have been updated in Angular 9 so that it is no longer necessary to spot this in the entry components array.
  

CHECKOUT:-ANGULAR 8  TUTORIAL

What's new in Angular 9?

• Build Speed Improvements
• IDE and Language Service Improvements
• Support for TypeScript 3.8
• End-to-End tests now support invertGrep and grep, which allows you to pick the test you want to run easily
• Improved HTML & Expression Syntax Highlighting
• tslib or the TypeScript runtime library has made a peer dependency rather than a direct one. 
• Selector-less variable, which is already added in older versions but missing in Ivy preview in Angular 8, is now added in Angular.

Angular 9 VS angular 10

Angular 10 is smaller than previous versions of Angular. It witnessed a lot of deprecation and upgrades. When compared between angular 10 vs. angular 9, angular 10 is primarily focused on ecosystem and quality tools rather than launching new features. Let's take a look at them.

• Features: The prominent features of Angular 10 are Language Service, New Default Browser Configuration, Compiler Update, Optional Stricter Settings, Ngcc, performance improvements, localization, TypeScript v3.9 Support, and more.

• Performance:  When we compare the performance of both Angular 9 and Angular 10, one can witness improvement in the performance in angular 10, as it reduced the entry points size. The earlier versions have used Typescript 3.7, and now Angular 10 is upgraded with Typescript 3.9, putting more emphasis on improving performance, stability, quick fixes, error checking, speeding up the compiler, etc.

What's new in Angular 10?

• Added a New Date Range Picker.
• Warnings about CommonJS imports - It alerts developers when a dependency packaged with CommonJS could result in slower or larger applications, enabling developers to replace an ECMAScript module bundle.
• Version 10 offers a more strict project setup when you create a new workspace with ng new.
• TypeScript bumped to TypeScript 3.9
• TSLib updated to v2.0.
• TSLint updated to v6.
• New Default Browser Configuration
• Addition of EntryPointFinder
• This version contains Contentful as a new default directory to manage and edit content without touching code.
• LinkablePackageInfo added to the ng-module in the Bazel build tool.

Angular 10 VS Angular 11

Angular 11 is the latest version of Angular. It’s the current version of the Google-developed web framework as a production release.

Let’s discuss the major differences between Angular 10 and Angular 11:

• One of the major highlights in the comparison of the difference between Angular 11 vs. Angular 10 is typescript support. Angular 10 supports TypeScript 3.9, and Angular 11 supports TypeScript 4.0.
• To provide early feedback, a roadmap has been updated as one of the new features of Angular 11.
• The difference between Angular 10 and Angular 11 with the use of  IE 9, 10, and IE mobile is that Angular 10 deprecated the use, but Angular 11 has wholly dropped it. 
• Angular 11 has fixed the typing for date and number pipe that Angular 10 used for taking any type as a script.
• Another difference between Angular 10 vs. Angular 11 is that Angular 11 has enabled all the strict checks with a flag generating the angular application.

What’s new in Angular 11?

Following are the latest features and updates of Angular 11 -

• TypeScript 4.0 support
• Moving to EsLint
• Experimental Webpack 5 support
• Updates on Operation Byelog
• Improved Reporting and Logging
• Faster Builds
• Roadmap 
• Automatic Inlining of Fonts
• Updated language service preview
• Hot Module Replacement (HMR) support
• Component Test Harness

In the study of comparison of Angular 11 vs Angular 10 vs Angular 9 vs Angular 8 vs Angular 7, we see their differences in deprecations and upgrades. 

The below table depicts the significant differences between them.

Now that you are aware of these features, you can easily use the Angular version that suits your needs.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Angular Versions

AngularJS

Pros:

• Its MVC binding makes app development fast.
• It allows unit testing.
• Since it uses HTML as a decorative language, it is highly intuitive.
• It doesn’t require any other framework or plugin. It makes AngularJS the best front-end development framework.

Cons:

• It is complicated as there are multiple ways of doing the same thing.
• If the user disables JavaScript, only the basic page is visible to the user.

Angular 2

Pros:

• It is mobile-optimized
• The routing process is simple.
• It provides multiple language support.
• It uses the OOPS concept, which aids TypeScript in optimizing the code.

Cons:

• It is inefficient for creating small and simple web apps.
• It is difficult to set up.

Angular 4

Pros:

• The development process is quite fast.
• It is the best framework for single-page web applications that have extended the interface.
• It is easy to create bulky applications as it has full TypeScript support.
• It includes an animation package.

Cons:

• When you display bulk data, it slows down.

Angular 5

Pros:

• With Angular 5 you don’t have to rely on the browser for numbers, date, and currency. 
• It has in-built international numbers, data, and currencies in the pipe.
• It has a watch mode that complies only when needed.
• It has fixed many bugs and errors in the previous version.
• The new HTTP client is easy and simple to use.

Cons:

• It is difficult to switch to Angular 5 from previous versions.

Angular 6

Pros:

• Angular 6 reduces bundle sizes for common use.
• It has an optional backward compatible generic type that supports typed.
• It uses a new method of connecting modules and services. It helps to eliminate them if not required in the application.

Cons:

• Like its counterpart, it is complex to use sometimes.

Angular 7 

Pros:

• Enhanced application performance
• The core advantage of using Angular 7 is it comes with a compatibility compiler. It transforms the node_modules compiled with the ngc to node_modules, which are compatible with the new Ivy renderer, and these conversions will allow using legacy packages by the Ivy rendering engine.
• Improves accessibility for "selects.”
• Faster mobile apps
• Though there are many benefits of using Angular 7, there are some useful upgrades for CDK and Angular material design, that consists of virtual scrolling, an extensive list of data, dynamic loading, etc., that make it better.

Cons:

• For newcomers, it isn't easy to understand.

Angular 8

Pros:

• Higher performance
• Offers clean code development
• Provides seamless updates using Angular CLI
• Multiple applications in one domain are supported.
• We can debug templates easily in Angular 8
• With Angular 8, you can use Ivy renderer.

Cons:

• Third-party integration is difficult.

Angular 9

Pros: 

• Ivy compiler is built by default in angular version 9, which improves bundles size.
• Allows better debugging
• Faster testing
• Improved CSS class and style binding
• Enhanced internalization (i18n)
• Faster mobile applications
• Improved build errors and type checking
• Smaller bundle sizes and augmented performance

Cons:

• Migrating to a new version requires more time.

Angular 10 

Pros:

• Provides better support for all the platforms
• It's easy to load entry-point dependencies in Angular 10
• Syntax improvements are easily understood.
• High performance
• This version of the AngularJS framework makes website application development much more comfortable than the earlier variants.

Cons:

• There are no notable drawbacks for Angular 10.

Angular 11

Pros:

• By default, Angular 11 provides support for the font.
• In angular 11, reports and logs are easy to read.
• It supports rapid development and builds cycles.

Cons:

• As of now, there are no drawbacks to Angular 11.

Conclusion

With the help of the Angular framework, the web app development process has become quite easy and secure. Even the applications have become highly scalable, flexible, and secure. It is easy to upgrade to any version of Angular. 

Of course, many developers globally still use AngularJS. But by migrating to other versions, you can yield some benefits that it doesn’t provide. To conclude, every version has something to offer, and as a developer, you have to move on to bigger and better things.