When it comes to front-end development, I’ve always been an Angular advocate. Angular was my go-to for all my apps, especially since I developed a lot of Ionic mobile applications, which were initially based on Angular or pure JavaScript. My comfort zone was solidified by years of Angular development, but the day came when I decided to venture into the world of React.

The Beginning: My Angular Comfort Zone

My journey started with Angular, and I stuck with it through thick and thin. I appreciated its structured approach and how it seamlessly integrated with Ionic for mobile app development.** When Ionic added support for React, I was skeptical and assumed it was just a marketing gimmick**. After all, I’d been building software since 2012 and had tried one of the early versions of React around 2015/2016. My initial experience was less than stellar. Back in the day, React was a mess, props were everywhere, nested within other props, tangled and confusing. The “component” theory was still in its infancy, and JSX felt awkward and clunky. Frustrated, I switched to Angular.js (yes, is not a typo, is with .js at the end, I’m that old) and didn’t look back.

For the next eight years, I built production web apps, mobile apps, and custom dashboards with Angular. It served me well, especially since I always focused more on backend development, treating the frontend as a necessary task rather than a passion.

The React Boom

Over the years, I noticed the React community growing rapidly. People were raving about React being the future of front-end development. Despite the hype, I was content with my Angular setup. I’d given React a shot before and felt no need to revisit it.

However, curiosity eventually got the best of me. Curiosity led me to try Next.js because I needed a server-side rendering (SSR) solution, and Angular was proving to be a pain for this purpose. This is where everything changed. Next.js introduced me to a whole new world.

Typescript, React, SSR, and an endless array of libraries for anything I could think of. The number of pre-made components blew my mind. I whipped up a fully functional app in just one day, with login, authentication, and Stripe integration all set up. The productivity boost was unreal. I was able to build the frontend and the payment logic for Feedrika a News API Service in just 1 day

I found myself being more efficient with a framework that was new to me than with Angular, a framework I’d been using for years. It was a shocking revelation.

Conclusion

This experience completely changed how I see React. I went from being a skeptic to seeing its potential. The flexibility of React’s ecosystem and the incredible community support really impressed me. While I’m not ditching Angular, the productivity boost I got from React was shocking, and I plan to keep exploring this direction. My journey taught me the importance of staying open to new technologies and continuously evolving as a developer.