Difference Between "Promise" and "Observable" in Angular

In this article, I will mention the differences between Promise and Observable . They are used in TypeScript (Angular) for handling async operations but have different use cases and behaviors. Let's see these six differences...

1. Eager or Lazy Evaluation

Promise: A promise is eager! This means that as soon as a promise is created, it executes the operation, like initiating immediately an HTTP request. You can't control the execution start time; it begins right away!
Observable: An observable is a lazy operation! It doesn't start executing until you subscribe to it. This allows you to define an observable without triggering the actual operation until it's needed.

2. Handling Value Count

Promise: A promise is designed to handle a single async value. Once the operation completes, it either resolves with a value or rejects with an error, and that's it! You can't emit multiple values with a single promise.
Observable: An observable can emit multiple values over time. It can have several values, and it can continue to do so until it either completes or errors out. So observable is ideal for event streams or data streams.

3. Cancellablity

Promise: Once a promise is created and the operation has started**, you cannot cancel it!** The promise will resolve or reject eventually, and there's no way to stop it from being executed.
Observable: An observable can be canceled. If you unsubscribe from an observable, it stops emitting values and can clean up any resources like canceling an ongoing HTTP request. This makes observable more flexible in scenarios where you need to abort an operation.

4. Chaining and Composition

Promise: It supports chaining using .then() for handling the result and .catch() for handling errors. This is straightforward but can become complex for more advanced scenarios.
Observable: It supports powerful operators like map, filter, merge, switchMap. This allows for complex composition and transformation of data streams and makes it suitable for handling complex async scenarios.

5. Error Handling:

Promise: Error handling in promise is done usually using .catch(). However, if an error occurs, the promise will reject, and the chain will stop.
Observable: It has more robust error-handling mechanisms. You can handle errors using operators like catchError and decide whether to recover, continue or retry the process. It can also be completed successfully after an error is handled.

6. Built-In or RxJS

Promise: It’s a built-in feature of JavaScript and a part of the ECMAScript. Almost all browsers support it.
Observable: It’s not a built-in feature of JavaScript. In Angular, it’s provided by the RxJS library.

Use Cases

Promise:

Simple async operations that return a single result, like fetching data from a Web API.
Scenarios where you don’t need to cancel the operation.
Handling a single event or action.

Observable:

Operations that might emit multiple values over time, such as WebSocket connections, user input events, or real-time data streams.
When you need the ability to cancel the operation.
Complex async flows require composition, transformation, or error handling.

Examples

Promise Example

javascript

const myPromise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
  setTimeout(() => {
    resolve('Promise is resolved!');
  }, 1000);
});

myPromise.then(value => console.log(value)).catch(error => console.error(error));

Observable Example

javascript

import { Observable } from 'rxjs';

const myObservable = new Observable(observer => {
  setTimeout(() => {
    observer.next('Value-1 retrieved!');
    observer.next('Value-2 retrieved!');
    observer.complete(); // No more values after this
  }, 1000);
});

const subscription = myObservable.subscribe({
  next: value => console.log(value),
  error: error => console.error(error),
  complete: () => console.log('Observable finished!')
});

/* 
  You can unsubscribe to cancel the observable as below:
  subscription.unsubscribe();
*/

Summary

A promise is simple and suitable for operations that return a single value or need to handle a single event. It’s eager and can’t be canceled.
An observable is more flexible, especially for handling multiple values over time, allowing for complex data manipulation, and providing the ability to cancel operations. It supports lazy operations via RxJS.