Comparison to other Angular starters. Path to convergence.

[dancancro]

This is a great project!

I have started adding the facts about this project to my collection and created the following work-in-progress comparison between it and some others. Now I'm looking for some help from you who know this project best. The goal is to help people choose among alternatives and also clarify a path to convergence. Now that the Angular-CLI project has provided access to webpack.config.js, this seems like a great time to start thinking about working together.

Once all the facts are in, we can talk about which things to add from which projects to which projects so that at the end of the day there are fewer, better choices.

If you would like to contribute what you know, please go here to get access to the database. All you need to do is scan through a Google Sheet and indicate which benefits this project provides.

Developer Experience	great big angular2 example	Angular-kitchen-sink	angular-seed-advanced	angular-webpack2-starter
Authentication	X	X
Authentication, with two-factor authentication		UNIQUE
Can run on a desktop without a browser			UNIQUE
Code coverage reporting (?)	X	X
Command line interface (CLI)	X	X
Compiled, supports ahead of time (AOT) compilation			X	X
Components communicate with events	X	X
Core Module	X		X
CSS style checking	UNIQUE
Deployment automation, to a mobile native executable			UNIQUE
Deployment automation, using Docker (?)	X		X
Deployment automation, using Heroku (?)	UNIQUE
Error handling, Client-side logging			X	X
Hot Module Replacement (?)				UNIQUE
In-memory server-side database		UNIQUE
Local storage	X	X
No pluralization	UNIQUE
Production build, generate docs (?)		X	X
Renders markup on the server (universal) (?)				UNIQUE
Separation of smart containers and dumb components (?)	UNIQUE
Server-side integration & unit tests	X	X
Shared Module	X	X
Single source of truth, central state management, without lots of boilerplate (?)	UNIQUE
Style guide for code (?)	X		X
Update generated code in an existing app			UNIQUE
User Experience	great big angular2 example	Angular-kitchen-sink	angular-seed-advanced	angular-webpack2-starter
Account Management, Forgotten Password with Resetting		UNIQUE
Account Management, login/logout	X	X
Analytics			UNIQUE
Asynchronously loaded data example	X	X	X
Breadcrumbs (?)		UNIQUE
Derived, computed properties	X	X
Dynamic component creation		UNIQUE
External, 3rd party, API interaction	X	X
Footer		UNIQUE
Full-stack CRUD (?)	X	X
Full-stack CRUD, with Create, Update and Delete	X	X
Full-stack CRUD, with Create, Update and Delete, individual records	X	X
Full-stack CRUD, with Create, Update and Delete, whole data structures	UNIQUE
Full-stack CRUD, with Read	X	X
i18n, localization (?)			UNIQUE
Many-to-many data	UNIQUE
Mouse wheel (?)		UNIQUE
Navigation bar	X	X
Panels, draggable	X	X
Responsive styles	UNIQUE
Search, actually works with backend API	UNIQUE
Dependencies	great big angular2 example	Angular-kitchen-sink	angular-seed-advanced	angular-webpack2-starter
Backend Frameworks	Express		Express	Express
Client-side API interfaces	@angular/http	@angular/http	@angular/http	@angular/http
Continuous integration testers	Travis		Travis
Convenience method libraries	lodash	lodash	lodash
Databases		Redis
Documentation generators		typedoc	typedoc
Frontend Frameworks	Angular 2.0	Angular 2.0	Angular 2.0	Angular 2.0
Languages	JS ES5, JS ES6 (ES2015), JSX (opt), Typescript	JS ES5, JS ES6 (ES2015), Typescript	JS ES2016, JS ES5, JS ES6 (ES2015), Typescript	JS ES5, JS ES6 (ES2015), Typescript
Linters	codelyzer, ESLint, stylelint, tslint		codelyzer, tslint	tslint
Loaders/Bundlers	Webpack	Webpack	Rollup, SystemJS	Webpack
Misc	Angular Style Guide, Helmet, nodemon, Redux, redux-devtools, RxJS	Immutable, Redux, redux-devtools, RxJS	Angular Style Guide, cssnano, Electron, Redux, redux-devtools, RxJS	nodemon, Redux, redux-devtools, RxJS
Package Managers	npm	npm	npm	npm, Yarn (opt)
Routers	Angular Component Router	Angular Component Router	Angular Component Router	Angular Component Router
Runtime Environments	Node	Node	NativeScript, Node	Node
Stacks	angular-cli	angular-cli	mgechev's angular-seed
State Managers	ngrx	ng2-redux	ngrx	ngrx
Task Runners		Gulp	Gulp
Test assertion libraries	Chai, Jasmine, Mocha	Chai, Jasmine, Mocha	Jasmine	Jasmine
Test coverage reporters	Istanbul
Test runners	Karma		BrowserSync (opt), Karma	Karma
Transpilers	libsass	libsass		libsass
Widget collections	Angular Material	Angular Material		Angular Material

EDIT: Added "Renders markup on the server" as the benefit of Angular Universal delivered by angular-webpack2-starter

EDIT: Added State Managers dependencies section for ngrx and ng2-redux

[Tuizi]

Very good post! A row missing is a row about the support of Angular Universal

[Matmo10]

I think https://github.com/AngularClass/angular2-webpack-starter might be worth adding

[dancancro]

@Matmo10 Thanks. I don't have any info about that one yet, but you are welcome to fill in the details about it if you know it. Just go here and request access to the Google Sheet.

Here's a good list of other ones too.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Angular2/comments/5rj14a/helpful_angular_2_github_repos_curated_through/

[Waterstraal]

@dancancro Maybe you could add a row about @ngrx/store and @ngrx/effects integration? That's a big feature imho.

[dancancro]

@Waterstraal I added the State Managers row to the dependencies section.

The database contains thousands of possible technology selling points and I give each one an importance weight based on my imperfect judgement.

To keep the above report to a reasonable size, the way it works is that it filters out benefits whose importance score is below a certain threshold and benefits that are delivered by all of the contestants in the report. In this case the benefit delivered by ngrx, "immutable state", is important but also delivered by all of the projects. So it doesn't appear in the table. However the dependencies part includes every project dependency (that I have in the db) even if all the options have it.

Now, if you know of something that's both important and delivered by ngrx but not ng2-redux, then that would show up because one of the options uses ng2-redux and not ngrx. So far I don't know of any salient distinction between them and I wish that they would just converge and make life a little easier. :)

[Waterstraal]

@dancancro Thank you for this, and your quest for a defacto starter for angular2. I was hoping angular-cli would move into that direction, but I think it would need a plugin system, or custom blue-prints for that to be flexible enough.

And I did not know that all starters have an immutable state solution built in, so that's already something I learned by putting it in the table, and not only the differentiators :).