[SOLVED] What is the main benefit from NgModule in Angular 17

What is the main benefit from NgModule in Angular 17

Now with Angular 17 I understand that you don't need to use the NgModule to run the different components in the application, because you can import them in the app.component.ts. With this approach; what is the main benefit of keep using the NgModule on your app?

Solution

In new Angular apps, you should only use standalone components. Everything which can be done with NgModules, can also be done with standalone components/pipes/directives, but not vice versa. The key benefits of standalone are:

Less code and smaller bundle size (especially with v19)
Only standalone directives can be added to hostDirectives
Only standalone components can be deferred
Reporting of unused imports only works in standalone components

The only case I see where NgModules might be beneficial, is when you have a big feature consisting of several components/directives/pipes. Here a module can help to collect them, instead of needing to import all separately.

For example, if you have a complex table feature and always need to import the following components:

imports: [
  MyTableComponent,
  MyTableHeaderRowComponent,
  MyTableRowComponent,
  // ...
]

Here it would be easier if there was a module:

@NgModule({
  imports: [
    MyTableComponent,
    MyTableHeaderRowComponent,
    MyTableRowComponent,
    // ...
  ]
})
export class MyTableModule {}

And when using the feature you could simply import MyTableModule. The individual components however should be standalone nevertheless, for the reasons mentioned above.