React vs Angular for Solo Developers

Quick Comparison

React Overview

React is the most popular JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It's flexible, has a massive ecosystem, and dominates the job market. You pick your own routing, state management, and styling approach. That flexibility is both its greatest strength and its biggest time sink.

I've shipped multiple projects with React, and the thing that keeps me coming back is the ecosystem. Whatever problem you hit, someone has built a library for it. Need forms? React Hook Form. State? Zustand. Animation? Framer Motion. You're never stuck searching for a solution.

The tradeoff is decision fatigue. React is a library, not a framework. You wire everything together yourself. For solo developers, that means spending time on architecture decisions instead of building features. Meta-frameworks like Next.js solve a lot of this, but vanilla React still requires you to make a lot of choices upfront.

Angular Overview

Angular is Google's opinionated, full-featured TypeScript framework. It comes with everything: routing, forms, HTTP client, dependency injection, testing utilities, even animation support. You don't pick libraries. You use what Angular provides.

The problem for solo developers is the sheer weight of it. Angular requires you to learn TypeScript, RxJS (reactive extensions), dependency injection patterns, decorators, modules, and a build system that takes a while to understand. The learning curve is not a hill. It's a wall. Once you're over it, Angular is productive. But getting there takes months, not days.

Angular shines in large teams where consistency matters. The strict architecture means ten developers write code that looks the same. For a solo developer building a side project or startup, that consistency is overhead you don't need. You're the only one reading the code.

Key Differences

Batteries included vs bring your own. Angular ships with everything you need. React ships with a rendering library and lets you choose the rest. For solo devs, Angular's "everything included" sounds great until you realize you have to learn all of it before you're productive.

TypeScript. Angular requires TypeScript. React makes it optional. If you love TypeScript, this is a wash. If you want the flexibility to prototype quickly in plain JavaScript, React gives you that option.

Bundle size and performance. React apps are generally lighter. Angular's framework overhead means larger initial bundles, though tree-shaking has improved. For content sites or simple apps, this matters. For complex dashboards, it matters less.

Learning curve. This is the dealbreaker. React's core API is small. You can learn useState, useEffect, and JSX in a weekend. Angular requires understanding modules, services, dependency injection, RxJS observables, decorators, and the CLI. That's weeks of learning before you feel comfortable.

Community and resources. React has a larger community, more tutorials, more Stack Overflow answers, and more third-party libraries. Angular's community is strong but more enterprise-focused.

When to Choose React

• You want a massive ecosystem of third-party libraries
• You prefer to pick your own tools and architecture
• You want a gentler learning curve to start building fast
• You're also considering React Native for mobile
• You value flexibility over convention

When to Choose Angular

• You're building a large, complex enterprise application
• You want everything built in with no library decisions
• You're comfortable with TypeScript and RxJS
• You prefer strict architectural patterns
• You're working in a corporate environment that uses Angular

The Verdict

React. It's not even close for solo developers. Angular was built for teams of 10 to 50 engineers working on enterprise applications. The architecture patterns, the dependency injection, the RxJS observables, all of it makes sense when you need consistency across a large team. When you're building alone, it's overhead that slows you down.

React lets you start small and add complexity as you need it. The ecosystem gives you options for every problem. The learning curve is manageable. And when you pair it with Next.js, you get a full-stack framework that rivals Angular's completeness without the ceremony. The 8/10 vs 5/10 solo dev rating tells the story. React respects your time. Angular respects your architecture. As a solo developer, your time is what matters most.