Node.js vs AngularJS: Understanding Node.js and AngularJS
You can go through this guide about Node.js vs AngularJS in detail and find out whether you should use Node.js or AngularJS or both for making web applications. Understanding Node.js and AngularJS is quite useful for building server-side and client-side web applications in JavaScript.
For making applications using Node.js or AngularJS, you first need to understand JavaScript language, and how both AngularJS and Node.js are related to JavaScript. Both Node.js and AngularJS require the applications to be written in JavaScript language. At first, JavaScript was used for doing simple things in a web page opened inside a web browser, for example, validating the data entered by users in a contact form, showing a larger image when the user takes the mouse over a thumbnail image, animating html elements, or making the web page more interactive.
Over the years, JavaScript has evolved far beyond a simple client-side scripting language into an incredibly powerful programming language which can also be used to create server-side applications in addition to the traditional client-side applications. AngularJS framework and Node.js platform can be quite useful for making powerful client-side and server-side web applications in JavaScript language.
In this guide, we will see how Node.js and AngularJS are similar and different from each other.
Node.js vs AngularJS: What are Node.js and AngularJS
Node.js
Node.js is a cross platform runtime system and runtime environment for applications written in JavaScript language. It is similar to Java Runtime Environment (JRE) for Java, Adobe Integrated Runtime (Adobe AIR) or Adobe Flash Player for ActionScript, Common Language Runtime (CLR) for .NET programs, or Android Runtime (ART) for Android apps.
Node.js uses the open-source V8 JavaScript Engine to execute JavaScript code of an application. Node.js is written in C, C++, and JavaScript languages and is quite useful for building server-side, networking, and real-time web applications.
AngularJS
AngularJS is a web application development framework built by Google which is especially suited for developing single-page client-side applications. It is written in JavaScript, but it is very different from other web application frameworks written in JavaScript such as jQuery.
AngularJS makes use of directives. Generally, directives are custom HTML tags and HTML tag attributes, for example, <html ng-app="myApp">. The directive ng-app in the form of tag attribute defines the container and the root element of the AngularJS application.
Node.js is a runtime environment useful in building server-side applications while AngularJS is a JavaScript framework mainly useful in building client-side part of applications which run inside a web browser.
Node.js vs AngularJS: Installation and Compatibility
Node.js
Node.js is available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and Sun OS, and it can be installed easily. If you want to install Node.js locally on your Windows PC, you can see our guide on installing Node.js on Windows. After installation, you can write your node.js applications using JavaScript.
AngularJS
Since AngularJS is a framework written completely in JavaScript, it does not need to be installed separately before using it in your application. You need to add the AngularJS file just like any other JavaScript file is added in an HTML document. AngularJS is compatible with Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9, Safari, Opera 15, and mobile browsers such as Android Browser, Chrome for Mobile, and Safari for iOS.
Node.js vs AngularJS: Applications and Uses
Node.js
Node.js supports non-blocking input/output (I/O) API and an event-driven architecture which is particulary useful in creating real-time applications such as instant messaging or chat apps. Node.js also has a number of built-in core modules, for example, the HTTP module which can be used to create a web server in your Node.js application without using any other web server programs like Apache, Nginx, IIS.
There are a number of frameworks based on Node.js such as Express.js, Partial.js, Sails.js etc. These frameworks have extensive set of features which can be used to easily build a variety of applications. Node.js is quite useful to build fast and scalable server-side and networking applications.
AngularJS
AngularJS allows you to extends the HTML's syntax to clearly describe the components of your application. AngularJS let's you to create MVC components on the client-side of the application. The support for MVC pattern with two-way data-binding in AngularJS applications makes AngularJS an extremely useful web application development framework.
Unlike other frameworks which support only one-way data-binding, in AngularJS, the changes in the View are reflected in the Model and the changes in the Model are propagated to the View which simplifies the programming substantially. AngularJS is a very powerful JavaScript framework especially for building single-page applications.
Both the open-source projects, Node.js and AngularJS are targeted at building web applications using JavaScript, but they are quite different in their architecture and working. Node.js is mainly used to build server-side applications, whereas AngularJS is suited for building single-page client-side web applications.
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