Differences Between Angular vs Backbone
AngularJs and Backbone.js are the two popular frameworks to the world of front-end web development over the last few years. Both Backbone vs Angular are open-source and used to build dynamic web page applications. However, there are also many differences between AngularJS and Backbone. Here, we will be going to have a detailed discussion on Angular vs Backbone.
AngularJS is a Javascript-based open source standalone framework designed to support the development of data-intensive web applications and test-driven development. This framework is mainly maintained by Google. It was born in 2009 as a part of a large commercial product, called Get Angular. Some of the important features of AngularJS are mentioned below:
- Two-way data binding process
- Dependency injection
- Easy to test code
- Deep Linking
- Routing
- Controller
- Extending the functionality of HTML attributes with Directives
Backbone.js is a lightweight, Javascript framework developed by Jeremy Ashkenas in 2010. It offers an MVC framework that abstracts data into models, DOM into views and then binds these two using events. It is more of a compact MVC Javascript library than a full-fledged framework. Backbone.js communicates via events and this ensures that the code will be cleaner, nicer and easy to maintain. It is used to develop mobile applications in a well-structured format.
It mainly consists of six components.
Backbone.js: 1. Model, 2.View, 3.Collections, 4.Events, 5.Routers, 6.Sync
Like two sides of a coin, both Angular and Backbone have few pros and cons.
AngularJS (Pros and Cons):
Backbone.js (Pros and Cons):
Head to Head Comparison Between Angular and Backbone (Infographics)
Below is the Top 8 Comparison Between Angular and Backbone:
Key Differences Between Angular and Backbone
The key difference between Angular and Backbone are explained in the below-mentioned points:
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- AngularJS is a powerful Javascript based standalone framework whereas Backbone.js is a lightweight javascript framework
- AngularJS uses two-way data binding process whereas Backbone.js doesn’t provide any data binding process and so it is not suitable for large web page development. Backbone is mainly used in case of a small web page or small data sets development process
- Angular has larger community support than Backbone.js
- In case of performance aspect, Backbone.js is faster than AngularJS for small data sets
- AngularJS is very much easy to test. Also from the development perspective, unit testing is smoother in AngularJS than Backbone.js
- js can provide greater flexibility according to the different features that need to be incorporated into the app.
- Angular uses MVC whereas Backbone uses MVP architectures.
- AngularJS mainly focuses on valid HTML dynamic elements whereas Backbone.js relies upon direct DOM manipulation to represent data changes.
Angular and Backbone Comparison Table
The main differences between Angular and Backbone are as follows.
| BASIS FOR COMPARISON | Angular | Backbone |
| Definition | AngularJS is basically an open source javascript based front-end web application framework. It extends HTML with new attributes. | Backbone.js is a lightweight javascript library with a RESTful JSON interface and it offers an MVC framework. |
| Performance | AngularJS is one of the known open source frameworks and provides impactful performance for larger pages as it offers two-way data binding process. | Backbone.js provides much faster performance than AngularJS in the case of small data sets or small pages. But for larger pages, it is not that much preferred as it doesn’t do any data binding process. |
| Architecture | AngularJS works on MVS architecture and it uses two-way data binding to drive application activity | Backbone.js uses MVP architecture and it doesn’t provide any data binding process. |
| Templating | AngularJS offers to template through dynamic HTML attributes which are added to the document to make an easy to understand application at a functional level. | Backbone.js uses Underscore templates. These templates are not as fully-featured as those offered by Angular |
| Testing | Unit testing is more preferred in Angular than Backbone. Mainly in case of large application, testing is smoother through this framework | Backbone.js doesn’t provide any data binding process and thus it mainly provides swift testing experience for a single page or smaller applications. For big or multi-paged applications, it is less preferred than AngularJS |
| Support | AngularJS has a large community support and extensive documentation libraries. It is also backed by Google. | Backbone.js also has good community support. But it only documents on Underscore templates |
| Simplicity | AngularJS implements on a two-way binding process and thus it is a bit complex than Backbone.js | Backbone doesn’t provide any data binding and has simple and easy API than AngularJS |
| Advanced Features | AngularJS mainly focuses on valid HTML and dynamic elements that mirror the underlying data to rebuild the DOM as per the specified rules. It then works on the updated data records. | Backbone.js works on direct DOM manipulation approach to represent changes in data and application architecture. |
Conclusion
After comparing Angular vs Backbone over a range of factors, it can be concluded that selection of any of the frameworks depends entirely on the features that best fit the project needs as each one has its own pros and cons.
Backbone.js is a lightweight web framework that mainly focuses on a high-performance web application which is also easy to develop at the same point in time. AngularJS has also these characteristics and it adds a number of features like a two-way data binding process and dependency injection which are not present in Backbone. Now having said so, it actually makes Angular more difficult and complex than Backbone. So, for small web page development, it offers much slower performance than Backbone. Again Backbone doesn’t provide any data binding mechanism and so, it is not much preferred for large applications which can be smoothly processed using the AngularJS framework.
Thus, based on the type of project need, time of work and on all other different discussed aspects on Backbone vs Angular, any one of these frameworks should be selected to reach the desired goal.
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