In recent times, if you were a C# developer who wanted to build code for browsers, you had to resort to JavaScript, the most widely used programming language in the world. However, the web development industry is rapidly evolving, and developers no longer need to rely on JavaScript to create high-end online apps. Blazor is making it possible to run.NET in the browser without the need for add-ons or plugins, due to a technique called WebAssembly.
This blog will examine the current status of Blazor, its features, and its preparedness for production use, before comparing it to one of the most popular frameworks, Angular.
Here is why you should choose Angular for your next web development project.
What is Blazor?
Blazor is a new Microsoft web framework that lets programmers build browser code in C#. Blazor is built on established web technologies such as HTML and CSS, but instead of JavaScript, it allows developers to utilise C# and Razor syntax. For.NET, Razor is a prominent template markup syntax. Blazor (Browser + Razor) allows developers to create dynamic and reusable web UI for WebAssembly-based client-side applications developed in.NET. It helps to exchange code and libraries since both the client and server code is written in C#, offering a platform for the development of lively, modern single-page applications (SPAs) using.NET end-to-end.
Features of Blazor
- Instead of JavaScript or TypeScript, create Web UIs with C#.
- Create progressive web applications (PWAs)
- Create and utilize C# components that may be reused.
- On the server side, full debugging is supported, whereas on the client-side, debugging is limited.
- Using the HTML DOM to connect data (limited two-way binding)
- In C#, you may share code between the client and the server.
- Client-side and server-side models
- For faster WebSocket connections, server-side rendering (also known as pre-rendering) is used.
- Doesn't require internet access (client-side WebAssembly only)
- All current web browsers, including mobile devices, are supported.
- The security sandbox for Blazor code is the same as for JavaScript.
- To call JavaScript frameworks and libraries, use JavaScript interop.
- Source code is freely available.
What is Angular?
Google built Angular, the successor of AngularJS, to allow frontend developers to communicate with both the frontend and the backend at the same time. Because Angular is based on JavaScript, there are numerous resources to choose from.
Angular, unlike Blazor, has been around for a long time. Many major organisations use it since it is a production-ready framework with complete support for MVC/MVVM apps. Blazor, on the other hand, is always evolving and, despite its potential, does not yet have the maturity to compete with Angular.
Progressive web applications (PWAs) are supported by Angular, however Blazor server-side cannot be used as a PWA. The use of angular tooling is more practical.
Blazor VS Angular: A comparison
Google created and launched Angular in 2016, which is a Javascript-based framework. Its goal is to make developing and testing Single-Page Applications (SPAs) easier.
This is made possible by the framework's support for client-side MVC and MVVM, as well as internet application capabilities. With such a feature, the developer may create amazing SPAs in a short amount of time.
Angular.js and Blazor are both open-source web frameworks. The main difference between them is that Angular.js uses Javascript whereas Blazor uses C#. However, there are several significant distinctions between the two:
- Angular has been around for a long time, but Blazor is still in its infancy.
- Blazor requires an active connection for each client and stores the component state for each client on the server.
- Blazor now has scoped component styles as well as CSS isolation. In terms of Angular, tooling is at its most advanced stage.
Wrapping Up…
For your next project, both Blazor and Angular are acceptable alternatives. It all boils down to a few factors:
Are you prepared to cope with some hiccups on the road using Blazor's newer, less mature platform?
Are you prepared to take the plunge and devote time to learning Angular in order to profit from a tried-and-true framework?
Are you a C# developer looking for a faster way to get started with contemporary web apps?
Are you a die-hard JavaScript developer who would never consider using.NET for web development?
Latest comments (5)
This article is completely wrong, the op don't even know blazor have been fully client side since the end of 2020 and the obvious advantage of a shared library. Please do more research next time so as not to spread misinformation.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean here. It does talk about code sharing and, even if they missed the 2020 date, how can those make the "article completely wrong"?
Microsoft always did excellent job, I loved XAMARIN, now MAUI is awesome, hope this time Blazor will also a boon for C# developers, instead learning JavaScript total different from .net, JavaScript is always hidden tasks, even experienced developers are not able to explain what is going behind, so Blazor will give a huge benefit to .net developers in Web Development
Microsoft can and will probably abandon Blazor just like Silverlight. People are already unhappy with Xamarin Forms being not supported as their focus shifted to rebrand the product and recreate everything under their own name. I would not choose Blazor over JavaScript as there is no benefit. Using C# for some data processing can be done via WASM without using Blazor.
There were many factors that led to the demise of Silverlight, it was not a case of MS abandoning it. With Blazor, being based on WASM - a standard that is widely across browsers and which has wide language base - it makes it more likely that it will stay with us for many years to come.
Of course, Blazor may move to the next version of the framework at some point in the future - just as is the case with Xamarin Forms moving to MAUI. These are examples of a technology evolving and I believe they are generally a good thing.
If your team's skills are focused on JavaScript, then I agree that there is probably little reason to adopt Blazor. However, the ability to build applications in the language that your team is most skilled in brings significant advantages. I am obviously talking there about the multi-language support of WASM, not Blazor specifically. But, for Blazor specifically, this brings all the advantages of the C# and Dotnet toolchain. Just from the developer perspective, the strong tool chain (IDE support, developer code-quality tooling, code scanning, and so on), does in my view bring strong advantages for larger applications and larger teams.