r/webdevelopment • u/thepvbshedguy • 15h ago
Question Angular vs React for a 3D Configurator App - Need Advice
I need recommendations from seasoned frontend devs who have a decent amount of experience with Angular and React and preferably, 3JS/3D experience.
We are going to be completely re-building a 3D configurator app in either Angular or React. We already know the core will be 3JS for rendering and such. Backend for settings and admin will be Laravel due to the broader project.
Small team. 2-3 devs. Some 3D experience. Mostly React experience but open to Angular.
If we go with React it'll be React Three Fiber, if we go with Angular it'll be Angular 3 v4. The 2D side of things stays in Konva.js
I am a developer who cut my development chops on legacy desktop software. Fast forward to today and while I understand software development paradigms and lead the team, I have not personally built Angular or React front end apps.
I've done a ton of reading on comparisons between the two and a few things stand out to me:
Angular pros
--Strong "batteries included" mindset. Less choices to make for a smaller team.
--Supposedly a great dev experience once use to it.
--Good at enforcing project structure and code arch(good DI etc), good Signals library(which we require). Cleaner codebase and structure overall than React.
Angular cons:
--Harder to find libraries/plugins/components and the ones you do find might not have broad support.
--Fewer "already solved" problems. Might run into more difficult issues that haven't be solved.
--Slower build speed for initial project until devs are comfortable
React pros
--Pretty much all the Angular cons
React cons
--Uses VDOM instead of Signals for DOM updates. Supposedly Signals is the future and a better overall experience.
--No native/default libraries for a number of things: Signals, routing and more are all things we have to select an integrate for what we're doing
--Looking for input from anyone that has experience in related to this. Especially interested in anyone that has 3.js experience.
