Angular Performance Optimization Tips

It is the Angular performance that determines whether the software solution will succeed. No matter how innovational the basis of the created website or app is, it means nothing if its performance is low.

Nowadays, in the age of constant rivalry in the IT world, software developers chase better performance and follow the main trends to achieve brilliant results. They choose the best cutting-edge tools to improve their extraordinary solutions. They look for new tips and tricks to provide the users with more positive impressions of the web solution’s functionality.

AngularJS is one of the most popular, useful and convenient JavaScript products that frontend engineers use daily. But there is no limit to perfection. So, in this article, we would like to present you with the most effective tips for improving AngularJS performance.

Brief introduction to AngularJS framework

For those who are not familiar with AngularJS yet, we have prepared a short introduction to the topic. A brief review of the AngularJS success would be helpful for a better understanding of ways to improve performance.

What is so good about Angular JS?

• JavaScript development is a complicated and challenging task. Angular JS was developed to simplify this process and allow managing the created solutions easily.
• Angular solves DOM and AJAX issues with no developer’s help.
• Single page development got easier with Angular: thanks to MVC structure, it provides perfect conditions for hassle-free coding. Besides that, any web solution can be built with the help of this tool.
• Its modular nature impacts every detail of the development process. Angular enables dividing the workload between several teams. It makes testing and debugging easier and faster as well.
• A simple tag allows adding Angular to any existing HTML page.

Although it all sounds perfect and attractive, every tool has its cons. So, we are going to describe the solid tips on how to make your AngularJS performance even better. It is totally possible, really easy and surely useful to implement these practices in your work.

Angular.js performance optimization tips

Even though such a giant company as Google uses Angular JS, this framework is still complained about a lot. The main reason for complaining is the Angular performance tuning. What is good, performance can be easily improved by built-in Angular tools or external optimization tips. Speed can get higher and user’s satisfaction can skyrocket if you implement at least some of our tips described below.

• • The digest cycle
    This way of Angular performance optimization is considered to be among the simplest ones to make a web page load faster. Your application’s speed depends on the duration of the cycle: the shorter it is, the better the performance is.
    It should be mentioned that $$watchers and scopes extend the digest cycle. It is recommended to avoid using them in order to make a cycle shorter.
  • One-time binding
    This tip can be useful if you work with an older version of the Angular framework. Implementation of one-time binding takes place by simply adding “:” before the value. If a double-colon is added correctly, the value disappears from the list of watchers.
  • CSS class
    Simple small steps lead us to optimization. One of such steps is resolving CSS issues. If you are certain it is not necessary to use CSS class and comment directives, just get rid of them.
  • Variables scope
    More available memory means better performance. By keeping the variables scoped, you let your JavaScript collector free up the memory and optimize the app.
  • Manual activation with a scope.
    Manual activation of the digest cycle, in most cases, leads to errors. To avoid them, add $evalAsync instead of $apply to your code scope.
  • Replacing ng-show and avoiding ng-repeat
    If you are willing to improve Angular performance, it is recommended to use ng-if or ng-switch instead of ng-show.
    Additionally, do you know that ng-repeat directive can significantly slow down the performance? Try to use it only if absolutely necessary and use $interpolate provider instead of the mentioned directive.

• • $watch complications
    Working with $watch may be tricky. The third parameter is thoroughly checked by Angular, which makes the app work slower. $watchCollection works exactly like the third parameter but does not affect the Angular mobile performance.
  • DOM access
    DOM Access operations may take time and resources. So, keep the DOM as small as you can if you want to reach a higher level of performance.
  • Filters
    DOM parsing is also a time-consuming process. Each digest cycle includes two stages of filtering. The first one takes place when the changes are detected, and the second one occurs when values are updated. In order to optimize it, use $filter and watch how data is pre-processed and the performance improves considerably.
  • Chrome DevTools
    DevTools Profiler and the Timeline are your great assistance when optimizing the app’s performance. Those tools can find the weaknesses and guide you through the process step-by-step.
    console.time is a handy tool that is responsible for time tracking. It is irreplaceable if you spend too much time on debugging.
  • Lodash
    Lodash tool can let you rewrite the created logic quickly and easily in order to achieve better performance.
  • Infinite scroll
    Last but not least, we have another piece of advice for you to use when optimizing the performance of Angular application. If you minimize the number of elements on the page when scrolling, a better runtime can be reached. The framework even has a special directive for that, so use ngInfiniteScroll and make sure it impacts the performance positively.

Angular performance tips: something worth your attention

The dozen of Angular performance tips mentioned above is not a complete answer to the question on how to improve Angular performance. The framework is powerful and is being improved continuously, so the number of practical cases grows as well.

One more crucial moment needs to be taken into account: try not to think about the performance optimization during the development process. Plan your steps to improve the performance ahead. Dive deeply into the documentation, choose tips that suit your expectations and requirements best, and strengthen your willingness to create a great app.

Angular is one of the best front-end development technologies in comparison to other tools today. Using it properly, the developer can easily reach the highest of heights.

 

  The popularity of AngularJS keeps rising, and the number of its users increases as well. Even though Angular is considered to be one of the most beneficial development tools, its performance can still be better. You can make your app’s performance better by using built-in AngularJS tools or switching to dozen Angular performance optimization tips we briefly described in our article. Speeding up AngularJS solutions is a piece of cake if you choose the right approach.