Angular js vs Node js - Is These Same?

Core Architecture

AngularJS was developed by Google as a web application development framework. Unlike other JavaScript frameworks, Angular is written completely in JavaScript. It even follows JavaScript syntax rules. On the other hand, NodeJS was developed as a cross-platform runtime environment based on Google’s V8 JavaScript engine. It was written in a number of programming languages – JavaScript, C, and C++.

Web Framework

Unlike NodeJS, AngularJS is a web framework. The developers can use the web framework to automate common development tasks while developing a variety of applications – websites, web applications, web services, and web application framework. The JavaScript programmers cannot use NodeJS as a web framework. But they have an option to choose from a wide range of NodeJS-based frameworks – Socket.io, Hapi.js, Meteor.js, Express.js, and Sails.js.

Installation

The developers can write NodeJS applications in JavaScript. But the applications need to run within the runtime environment on various platforms – Windows, Linux, and macOS. Hence, the developers must install NodeJS on their computer system while creating the development environment. On the other hand, the developers are not required to install AngularJS on their computer systems. They can embed the AngularJS files in the code base just like other JavaScript files.

Important Features

Both NodeJS and AngularJS support MVC architectural pattern. But each of the two JavaScript-based technologies comes with different sets of features. AngularJS enables programmers to use HTML as a template language. It even allows developers to express various components of a web application by extending HTML syntax. Also, AngularJS simplifies development of single-page and dynamic web applications by providing features like data binding, scope, directives, filters, templates, routing, deep linking and dependency injection.

On the other hand, NodeJS, as a server-side framework, provides an array of features required by developers to build server-side and networking applications. The developers can avail the features provided by NodeJS to simplify development of single-page websites, video streaming sites, and similar I/O intensive web applications. Also, NodeJS helps programmers to use asynchronous APIs and a single threaded event mechanism while improving code execution speed drastically. The developers can even use NodeJS to make the web applications deliver data in chunks without buffering.

Working with Data

In addition to implementing MVC architectural pattern in a different way, AngularJS further supports two-way data binding. The bidirectional data binding keeps the data between a web application’s model and view components synchronized automatically. But AngularJS does not provide any feature for writing database queries. On the other hand, NodeJS allows programmers to generate database queries in JavaScript. Hence, it becomes easier for the programmers to create database queries for non-relational databases like MongoDB and CouchDB by overcoming syntactical differences.

Programming Language and Paradigm Support

Both NodeJS and AngularJS support a number of programming languages in addition to JavaScript. NodeJS supports Ruby, CoffeeScript, and TypeScript, whereas AngularJS supports CoffeeScript, TypeScript, and Dart. Both JavaScript-based technologies even support a number of commonly used programming paradigms. AngularJS supports object-oriented, functional, and event-driven programming paradigms. At the same time, NodeJS supports object-oriented, functional, event-driven, concurrency-oriented, and sub/pub programming paradigms.

Use Cases

AngularJS is used widely by JavaScript developers for building single page and client-side web applications. The features provided by the web framework further make it easier for programmers to write interactive and real-time applications. On the other hand, NodeJS is used widely by developers for building fast and scalable server-side and networking applications. The features provided by the cross-platform runtime environment even help developers to build applications that require real-time collaborative drawing or editing.

On the whole, AngularJS is a client-side framework, whereas NodeJS is a cross-platform runtime environment. The JavaScript developers can integrate NodeJS and AngularJS to simplify development of isomorphic applications. They can even use both AngularJS and NodeJS as two primary components of MEAN software stack along with MongoDB and ExpressJS.