Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

AngularUI VS jQuery UI

Compare AngularUI VS jQuery UI and see what are their differences

AngularUI logo AngularUI

Native AngularJS directives for Bootstrap.

jQuery UI logo jQuery UI

Curated set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library
  • AngularUI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-05-05
  • jQuery UI Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-17

AngularUI features and specs

  • Rich Component Library
    AngularUI provides a dense library of user interface components, including modals, custom select boxes, and sliders, reducing the amount of code you need to write and speeding up development.
  • Native to AngularJS
    Designed to work seamlessly with AngularJS, AngularUI widgets and directives integrate naturally with AngularJS, offering a more consistent and performant solution compared to external libraries.
  • Extensive Documentation
    AngularUI has comprehensive documentation, making it easier for developers to understand how to integrate and utilize components, which reduces the learning curve.
  • Active Community
    There is an active and supportive community surrounding AngularUI, ensuring that developers can find help and resources quickly.

Possible disadvantages of AngularUI

  • Dependency on AngularJS
    AngularUI is built for AngularJS, and it is not compatible with Angular (the newer version of AngularJS). This limits its usability for new projects that prefer to use the more recent frameworks.
  • Performance Overhead
    In some cases, the additional features and abstractions provided by AngularUI can introduce performance overhead, particularly in large or complex applications.
  • Stagnation Risk
    As AngularJS is an older framework, there's a risk that AngularUI will not receive as much support or updates in the future, leading to potential issues with maintainability and compatibility.
  • Limited Integration
    AngularUI may have limitations when integrating with other tools or libraries that are not within its ecosystem, which could lead to additional effort in making these work together.

jQuery UI features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    jQuery UI simplifies creating and managing complex UI components with straightforward syntax and comprehensive documentation.
  • Compatibility
    jQuery UI is highly compatible with older browsers, offering a broader range of support compared to more modern frameworks.
  • Extensibility
    jQuery UI is designed to be modular and extendable, allowing developers to use only the components they need and easily extend or theming them.
  • Rich Set of Widgets
    It comes with a variety of pre-built widgets such as datepickers, accordions, and sliders, which can save development time.
  • Animated Effects
    jQuery UI includes many built-in animation effects that can enhance the user experience without requiring additional libraries.
  • Theming
    The library provides Themeroller, a tool that allows developers to create custom themes easily, ensuring UI consistency and branding.

Possible disadvantages of jQuery UI

  • Performance
    Due to its extensive feature set, jQuery UI can be relatively heavy, which may affect performance, particularly in resource-constrained environments.
  • Not Mobile-First
    jQuery UI is not designed with mobile-first principles in mind, making it less optimal for modern responsive web applications.
  • Learning Curve
    While easy to use for simple tasks, mastering jQuery UI for more complex applications may require a significant learning curve.
  • Dependency on jQuery
    Since jQuery UI relies on the jQuery library, it adds an additional dependency which can be limiting if you prefer or are required to use vanilla JS or another library.
  • Declining Popularity
    With the rise of modern frameworks like React, Vue, and Angular, jQuery UI has seen a decline in popularity and community support.
  • Limited Modern Features
    Compared to contemporary UI libraries, jQuery UI lacks some of the modern features and performance optimizations found in newer libraries.

Analysis of AngularUI

Overall verdict

  • AngularUI is generally considered a good choice for developers working with AngularJS due to its robust component set and strong community support. However, it's essential to note that AngularJS and its associated libraries, including AngularUI, have been succeeded by more modern frameworks such as Angular (Angular 2+) and React. For new projects, evaluating whether AngularJS or its libraries are the right choice, given their outdated status, is crucial.

Why this product is good

  • AngularUI, now part of the Angular ecosystem, provides a set of UI components that are highly modular and work well with AngularJS applications. It simplifies the development process by offering ready-to-use UI components like UI-Router and UI-Bootstrap, allowing developers to focus more on the application logic rather than the UI boilerplate. Its collaborative nature leverages the contributions from a large community, which ensures that it continuously evolves and adapts to modern development standards.

Recommended for

    AngularUI is recommended for developers maintaining legacy AngularJS applications that require enhancements and UI component implementations without adopting a completely new framework. It's also suitable for smaller projects where AngularJS is still preferred due to an organization's existing knowledge base. However, for new projects, one might consider more contemporary frameworks unless specific constraints necessitate using AngularJS.

Analysis of jQuery UI

Overall verdict

  • jQuery UI is a solid choice for projects that already use jQuery or for developers who need to implement standard UI components quickly and easily. However, for projects starting from scratch, considering more modern alternatives that align with the current state of JavaScript development, such as React, Vue, or Angular, might be beneficial due to their extensive ecosystems and support for modern development patterns.

Why this product is good

  • jQuery UI is a popular library that extends the capabilities of jQuery with a robust set of user interface interactions, effects, widgets, and themes. It is particularly well-suited for developers who are already familiar with jQuery and need to implement features quickly without starting from scratch. Its components are widely used because they are both customizable and reliable, and it is backed by a large community that offers support and contributions. Furthermore, jQuery UI simplifies complex interactions and effects that would otherwise require significant effort to code manually, especially for those who seek cross-browser compatibility.

Recommended for

    jQuery UI is recommended for developers working on legacy projects that heavily rely on jQuery, or for quick, short-to-medium-term projects where ease of use and speed of implementation are paramount. It is also suitable for educational purposes, helping beginners understand DOM manipulation and UI interaction concepts. However, for new projects aimed at creating highly interactive and scalable applications, a framework or library that supports modern front-end technologies may be more appropriate.

AngularUI videos

Introduction to AngularUI and UI Bootstrap

More videos:

  • Review - Introduction to AngularUI and UI Bootstrap

jQuery UI videos

jQuery UI tutorial: Adding a user interface with jQuery UI | lynda.com

More videos:

  • Review - jQuery UI Ultimate:Design Amazing Interfaces Using jQuery UI : Understanding the curriculum.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AngularUI and jQuery UI)
Development Tools
17 17%
83% 83
Javascript UI Libraries
16 16%
84% 84
Libraries And Widgets
18 18%
82% 82
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, jQuery UI seems to be a lot more popular than AngularUI. While we know about 15 links to jQuery UI, we've tracked only 1 mention of AngularUI. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

AngularUI mentions (1)

  • AngularJS directive with default options
    I've had a look around for the way others have done this, and in the angular-ui library the ui.bootstrap.pagination seems to do something similar. Source: over 4 years ago

jQuery UI mentions (15)

  • Let Me Talk About Component-based Front-end Development
    The once popular jQuery, with its strengths fully utilized in jQuery UI and Bootstrap, provides many UI components and is also friendly to backend developers, seemingly meeting the requirements. However, looking at their component implementation and resource loading formsโ€”. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • 100+ Must-Have Web Development Resources
    jQuery UI: An open-source library for building user interfaces based on jQuery. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • What is a component library and should you build your own?
    Fortunately, when I started web development in earnest, many of these issues were ironed out. By this point, there were still a handful of libraries that made writing complex interfaces with cross-browser support a little easier. Jquery UI, the first component library I used, supported accordions and other widgets. But the browser is constantly evolving, and we now have a native way of implementing this accordion... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Best ReactJS library for Drag-n-Drop Table for plugin Admin view?
    Because WordPress is already have these jQuery & jQuery UI libraries (https://jqueryui.com/). Source: about 3 years ago
  • jQuery 3.6.2 Released
    We still use jQuery + jQuery UI on our website because it is basically battle tested through 15+ years. https://jqueryui.com/ It is easy as hell. What's there to not like? I don't care to be called names or being old fashioned. I also don't care about "right" tooling for frontend. As far it works and it is robust and it is going to be around for many years, I am fine with it. - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing AngularUI and jQuery UI, you can also consider the following products

jQuery - The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library.

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Babel - Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript.

Composer - Composer is a tool for dependency management in PHP.

OpenSSL - OpenSSL is a free and open source software cryptography library that implements both the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols, which are primarily used to provide secure communications between web browsers and โ€ฆ

Raven.js - Raven.js is a standalone JavaScript client for Sentry.