What’s New in Angular 20? The Complete Guide for Developers and Teams

Angular 20, which came out on May 28, 2025, is a major step forward for one of the most popular web frameworks. This isn’t just another small update; Angular 20 is the result of years of rethinking the framework. It ultimately adds features, makes improvements to the architecture, and makes it easier for developers to work with.

This tech blog breaks down what’s new, why it matters, and how you can start using Angular 20 today. If you’re a modern web developer, tech lead, or CTO, consider this your field guide: practical, hands-on, and focused on meaningful production impact rather than hype.

1. Angular 20 at a Glance

• Release Date: May 28, 2025
• Support Schedule: Active support until November 21, 2025, & long-term support till November 2026.
• It’s important to Remember: Angular 20 is about making things easier for developers, improving the performance, & making things easier for users to move on with the older versions. It comes with Signals-based reactivity, secure zoneless change detection, & latest templates.
• At a Glance:
  • Signals API becomes core and stable
  • Zoneless change detection (no more Zone.js!)
  • All-new template control flow (@if, @for, @switch, @defer)
  • Incremental hydration, optimized SSR
  • Selectorless components (preview)
  • Next-gen tooling & testing
  • Major deprecations, with clear migration guidance

2. Reactivity Revolution: Signals Become Core

Why Reactivity Needed a Reboot

For years, Angular relied heavily on RxJS for state handling which were making the simple interactions feel unnecessarily complicated for everyday use cases. Observables shined for complex, async data, less so for UI state, leading to subscription management headaches and unclear update flows.

The Stable Signals API

With Angular 20, Signals are no longer experimental. They form the backbone of the new reactive Angular. Their benefits:

• Fine-Grained Reactivity: Only templates using changed data are updated, not entire trees.
• No Subscriptions Needed: Changes propagate automatically—no more manual unsubscribe logic.

Declarative & Predictable: State is modeled directly, and derivations use computed(), effect()—clearing up Angular’s mental model.

Key APIs:

import { signal, computed, effect } from '@angular/core';

const count = signal(0); // Writable signal

const doubled = computed(() => count() * 2); // Derived value

effect(() => {

  console.log('Count changed:', count());

});

Result: Cleaner, safer, more ergonomic state that only re-renders what’s necessary.

Signal-Based Forms (Experimental)

Angular 20 paves the road for signal-based forms: next-gen forms built atop the Signals model. Benefits include lower boilerplate, real-time validation, and a unified API for all form types. While still experimental, early adoption is possible for developers eager to simplify complex forms.

3. Going Zoneless: A New Performance Era

What Is Zoneless Change Detection?

Historically, Angular’s change detection relied on the Zone.js library, a monkey patching mechanism that could result in performance bottlenecks and messy stack traces. Angular 20 debuts zoneless change detection as a developer preview: Zone.js is entirely optional.

How it works:

Developers now control when and where change detection runs (background tasks, specific user triggers, or through Signals).

Manual invocation via APIs or let the framework handle it with the new reactivity model.

How to Enable:

import { provideZonelessChangeDetection } from '@angular/core';
bootstrapApplication(AppComponent, {
  providers: [provideZonelessChangeDetection()]
});

Just remove Zone.js, configure your bootstrap, and instantly benefit from smaller bundles and cleaner runtime.

Real-World Gains:

• 30-40% faster initial renders
• Shorter re-render cycles
• Debugging is less confusing without Zones
• Small Application Bundles

4. Smarter Templates: Syntax and Power

Modern Control Flow Directives (Stable)

Just forget *ngIf, *ngFor, & *ngSwitch, as Angular 20 comes with JavaScript-inspired syntax using @if, @for, and @switch. These new block-style template controls are practically easy to read, type-safe, & unlock native language features in your templates.

Examples:

@if (user) {
  <div>Welcome, {{ user.name }}</div>
}
@for (item of items(); track item.id) {
  <li>{{ item.name }}</li>
} @empty {
  <p>No items.</p>
}
@switch (status) {
  @case ('online') { <span>Online</span> }
  @case ('offline') { <span>Offline</span> }
  @default { <span>Unknown</span> }
}

Also supported: @else, @empty, @placeholder, and @loading blocks for richer flows.

• No hidden <ng-template>s
• Cleaner, near-native syntax
• Improved debugging and type safety

Expressive JavaScript in Templates

In Angular 20, templates support:

• Template literals: ${value}-style string concatenation.
• New operators: Exponentiation (**), in keyword, and void.
• Migration Tools: Angular CLI can auto-migrate from old templates to new blocks.

Impact on Performance and Migration

• Benchmarks: Large apps show quick renders and hydration when using new syntax.

Migration: CLI offers automated changes for structural directives; deprecations are gradual, but asterisk (*) directives are set for removal in future versions (v22+).

5. Selectorless Components (Preview)

Motivation

Component classes can now be referenced directly, no need for a selector string. This moves Angular closer to the ergonomics of other frameworks, drastically reducing friction with IDEs and code splitting.
Before:

<app-header></app-header>

After:

<HeaderComponent />

Imported directly; no selector needed.

Current Status: Early stage, experimental, not all use cases are covered. It is Ideal for hybrid or monorepo projects seeking for better parallelism.

6. Server-Side Rendering (SSR) & Granular Hydration

Angular 20 solidifies incremental hydration as a stable, production ready feature. Rather than hydrating entire app at once after SSR, you can hydrate only what’s needed:

• On scroll
• On visibility
• On interaction

This shrinks initial JS, speeds up interaction, and improves web vitals (like TTI and FID).

Enabling it:

import { provideClientHydration, withIncrementalHydration } from '@angular/core';
bootstrapApplication(AppComponent, {
  providers: [provideClientHydration(withIncrementalHydration())]
});

Best practices:

• Use @defer block for delayed/lazy-rendered content
• Hydrate only visible/interacted sections for e-commerce or large content sites

Early adopters report up to 50% fewer unnecessary re-renders relative to pre-v20.

7. Tooling and Developer Experience

CLI and Build Improvements

• Vite is Default Builder: Faster, more reliable HMR and dev reloads.
• Better Error Reporting: Smarter error overlays, faster diagnostics.
• Karma Deprecated: Jest, Vitest, and Web Test Runner recommended for modern, headless CI.

Modern Testing Stack

• Expect better integration with CI, less configuration, and direct support for linting, code coverage, and advanced assertion libraries.

Enhanced DevTools

• Angular DevTools: Native metrics in Chrome DevTools for render profiling.
• DX Improvements: Live migration assistants, automated code cleanup, smarter stack traces, and actionable CLI migration advice.

New for AI-Assisted Development

• llms.txt: A new manifest for guiding generative AI tools to best practices, keeping code recommendations current.
• GenAI Scaffolding: Early utilities for bootstrapping AI-powered Angular applications.

8. Breaking Changes and Migration

Deprecated APIs and Directives

• Structural directives *ngIf, *ngFor, *ngSwitch deprecated; migrate to @if, @for, @switch.
• TestBed.get() fully removed; use TestBed.inject() instead.
• fixture.autoDetectChanges(true/false) signature changed; it no longer accepts a boolean.
• HammerJS gesture support deprecated.
• Debug attributes (ng-reflect-*) are no longer output by default, use provideNgReflectAttributes() if needed.
• Node.js minimum version requirement bumped; must use Node.js 20.11.1+ and TypeScript 5.8+ for compatibility.

Essential Upgrade Steps

• Upgrade Node and TypeScript: At least Node.js 20.11.1 and TypeScript 5.8.
• Update Angular CLI: ng update @angular/core@20 @angular/cli@20
• Run Migration Tools: CLI provides codemods for template and API changes.
• Test and Lint: Enable lint rules flagging deprecated *directives.
• Update Test Runners: Transition to Jest or Vitest as Karma support is ending.

Sample Upgrade Walkthrough

• Replace all *ngIf with @if, *ngFor with @for, and so on.
• Update any references of TestBed.get() and adjust forms if leveraging new APIs.
• For SSR/CSR, test @defer and hydration triggers for performance boosts.
• Adjust Dockerfiles and CI images for the new Node.js version.

9. Future Outlook

• What’s on the Horizon: Signals throughout all Angular features including full support for forms, stable selectorless components, and continued SSR/AI investment.
• Community Involvement: Feedback cycles, RFCs, mascot selection, and transparent roadmap published via GitHub and the official blog.

Conclusion

Angular 20 is the modernization milestone for this decade of frontend development. It finally makes good on the promise of reactive, concurrent, and bespoke software development, while still supporting enterprise-scale codebases. This is not gradual evolution; it’s the toolkit for what’s next in the browser.

Angular 20 Key Takeaways:

• Stable Signals: Reactivity is now concise and explicit
• Zoneless Performance: Apps are faster, lighter, and easier to debug
• Smarter Templates: Near-JS block syntax cuts boilerplate and improves clarity
• Optimized SSR: Hydrate only what matters, and get to interactive faster
• Better Tooling: Instant feedback, powerful new testing, and AI-aware utilities
• Clear Migration: CLI, codemods, and best-in-class docs smooth the path

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