Following are the various notable differences between Angular and Backbone.js
Architecture
Backbone.js makes use of the MVP architecture and doesn’t offer any data binding process. Angular, on the contrary, works on the MVC architecture and makes use of two-way data binding for driving application activity.
Community Support
Being backed by Google greatly ups the community support received by the Angular framework. Also, extensive documentation is available. Although Backbone.js has a good level of community support, it only documents on Underscore.js templates, not much else.
Data Binding
Angular uses two-way data binding process and thus is a bit complex. Backbone.js, on the contrary, doesn’t have any data binding process and thus, has a simplistic API.
DOM
The prime focus of Angular JS is upon valid HTML and dynamic elements that imitate the underlying data for rebuilding the DOM as per the specified rules and then works on the updated data records.
Backbone.js follows the direct DOM manipulation approach for representing data and application architecture changes.
Performance
Thanks to its two-way data binding functionality, Angular offers an impactful performance for both small and large projects.
Backbone.js has a significant upper hand in performance over Angular in small data sets or small webpages. However, it is not recommended for larger webpages or large data sets due to the absence of any data binding process.
Templating
Angular supports templating via dynamic HTML attributes. These are added to the document to develop an easy to understand application at a functional level. Unlike Angular, Backbone.js uses Underscore.js templates that aren’t fully-featured as Angular templates.
The Approach to Testing
The approach to testing varies greatly between Angular and Backbone.js due to the fact that while the former is preferred for building large applications the latter is ideal for developing smaller webpages or applications.