AngularJS is an Open Source JavaScript framework that is mainly used for building Single Page Applications (SPA). It provides a framework for client side model-view-controller (MVC) and model-view-view model(MVVM). It also consists of integrated tools that help you build well structured client side applications with less code that are testable and easily maintained. AngularJS lets you extend HTML vocabulary for your application. It is fully extensible and works well with other libraries. Every feature can be modified or replaced to suit your unique development workflow.

MooTools is a lightweight, object-oriented JavaScript framework designed for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript developer. It allows developers to write powerful and flexible code with its elegant, well documented, and coherent APIs. MooTools is an extensible and modular framework that provides developers an option to choose their own customized combination of components. It follows object-oriented practices that make it a good choice for developers to learn and use. It also creates an easy interaction with JavaScript in web development and can also do a lot of things such as CSS extensions which gives you the ability to create animations and effects.

Here are some basic comparisons of the technologies.

Free and Open Source - Angular JS and MooTools frameworks are both FREE and open source, hence it will give you the opportunity to build powerful applications at no cost.

Browser Compatibility

AngularJS is compatible with both desktop and mobile browsers. This includes most modern browsers such as Chrome, Mozilla, the latest versions of Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera. AngularJS do not support Internet Explorer 6 or 7 and recently dropped support for Internet Explorer 8.

MooTools is compatible and tested with browsers Opera 9+, Internet Explorer 6+, Chrome 4+, Mozilla Firefox 2+, Safari 3+.

Common Benefits and Features

- uses MVC architectural pattern. The AngularJS MVC architectural pattern is a bit different than some other technologies that implement the MVC architectural pattern; the view is defined in HTML while the controller and model are implemented in JavaScript.

-  implementation of  SPA (Single-Page  Applications)  technique.  This  kind  of  approach  makes applications faster as most resources (CSS, HTML, Scripts) are only loaded once throughout the application’s life and only data is transmitted back and forth. It is also effective in using local storage and caching.

- uses directives as an extension to HTML. New attributes can be used for creating HTML tags and decorating elements that manipulate DOM attributes while offering functionality to your application.

- uses plain HTML template where HTML is extended to contain information on how the model should be projected on view.

- implements dependency injection technology that allows asking for dependencies rather than looking for them.

• Allows developers to execute various enhancements to the DOM.

• allows developers to create their own customized combination of components.

• follows object-oriented paradigm.

• provides components for animation effects with optimized transitions.

- provides a number of components that provide a collection of utility functions, collection of add-ons that extend the core and provide enhanced functionality, a collection of JavaScript Native Object enhancements, a large number of enhancements, and compatibility standardization to the HTML Element object.

• provides a cross-browser interface to client-specific information like window dimensions.

- Also includes XHR interface, Cookie, JSON, and HTML retrieval-specific tools for developers to access useful data.

• allows you to rename or alias an existing method e.g. Array.alias('forEach', 'each');

* based on the above sample, we can call each instead of foreach for more readable code.

• allows you to easily implement your own pseudo selectors

- extend existing classes. Of course, since MooTools implements Object-Oriented practices, we can extend existing classes depending on how your functions were implemented.

• provides an option to create custom events

Element.Events.ctrlClick = { base: 'click', 
                                       condition: function(event) 
                                       {
                                          return event.ctrl; // ctrlkey?
                                       },

                                       onAdd: function() {                        
                                       this.setStyle('cursor','pointer');

                                       },

                                       onRemove: function() {  
                               this.setStyle('cursor',this.retrieve('original-cursor'));

                                       }
                                     
                                       };

Design Goals

AngularJS

• to separate DOM manipulation from application logic

- to separate the client side from the server side of an application that allows development work to progress in parallel, and allows for reuse of both sides.

• to provide structure for the process of building an application

MooTools

- takes full advantage of the flexibility and power of JavaScript to implement better modularity and code reusability.

- class-based inheritance language like Java with the MooTools Class object

Expected essential skills

AngularJS – It would help if you have good understanding of or exposure to JavaScript to learn faster. A solid understanding of HTML, CSS, & AJAX also helps you to really make learning easy.

MooTools – In order for you to start MooTools, it would be beneficial to have a good understanding of how Object Oriented Programming practices work, or a basic to intermediate understanding on how web applications are done.

Documentation

Both frameworks provides great and detailed documentation on how these two frameworks works. They provide easy and downloadable files for setting up, and sample codes on how to implement built in methods or customize it which makes it very easy to work and start with. On the other hand Angular JS provides complete sample and out of the box information that really makes the framework easy to be learned for developers of all skill levels.

Popularity

There’s no questions that AngularJS is one of the most talked about technologies today and is more popular than MooTools. It is probably even considered as the most popular JavaScript framework today. Other frameworks such as React, Backbone, Ember, Jquery, Babylon and many more, are also on the list of top used and supported Javascript frameworks.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that AngularJS has a greater advantage and now has the upper hand in terms of technology when compared to MooTools, which is older and not as up-to-date. However, it’s still possible that MooTools will create new technology trends or innovate. The above comparison is just the basic information on how these two technologies really work but if you really want to dig deeper you can access more detailed information very easily on their respective websites.