Angular development company: scoping an enterprise front-end build in 2026

Summary. Angular v22 was released on 3 June 2026, with v22.1.2 the latest patch, and it changed the cadence: majors now ship every 12 months rather than every 6, with 4 to 6 minors in between. Each major gets 12 months of Active support plus 12 months of LTS, so v22 leaves Active support in June 2027 and LTS in June 2028. The nearer date is v20, whose LTS ends on 28 November 2026, 103 days from now. Angular v21, released 19 November 2025, stopped shipping Zone.js by default, which makes new applications zoneless out of the box. Versions v2 to v19 are no longer supported at all, and AngularJS 1.x has been end of life since 31 December 2021. If you are scoping an Angular build or a partner to run one, those five facts set the shape of the work.

The release and support table

Version	Released	Active support ends	LTS ends
v22	3 June 2026	June 2027	June 2028
v21	19 November 2025	3 June 2026 (ended)	June 2027
v20	28 May 2025	19 November 2025 (ended)	28 November 2026
v19 and earlier	various	ended	ended
AngularJS 1.x	n/a	ended	31 December 2021

Angular's own reference states plainly that "Angular versions v2 to v19 are no longer supported". Upcoming: v22.2 around September 2026, v22.3 around November 2026, v22.4 around January 2027, v22.5 around March 2027, and v23.0 around June 2027.

One widely repeated claim is wrong and worth correcting, because it changes upgrade budgets. Angular's support policy is not 6 months Active plus 12 months LTS. Since v22 it is 12 plus 12, on a 12-month major cadence. Any partner still planning around a twice-yearly major is planning against 2025.

The upgrade constraint nobody prices correctly

ng update will only update to a supported version, and only from a version within one major of the target. A jump from v18 to v22 is four sequential upgrades, each with its own build, test and fix cycle. It is not one command with a longer runtime.

That single rule is the difference between a two-week estimate and a two-month one, and it is the first thing to establish. The Angular Update Guide takes the from and to versions, an app complexity of Basic, Medium or Advanced, plus flags for ngUpgrade hybrid applications, Angular Material and Windows, and produces the step list. Run it before anyone quotes.

The deprecation policy softens this: a deprecated API survives at least one further major, roughly 12 months, and is only removed in a major, receiving critical and security fixes during that window. So a codebase kept current absorbs breaking changes gradually. A codebase four majors behind absorbs them all at once, and the interest compounds.

What changed in v21 and v22, and what it costs you

Angular v22 marked Signal Forms, Asynchronous Signals and Angular Aria as stable and production-ready, alongside template enhancements, core API improvements and Angular AI integration.

The change with the largest migration surface is zoneless. Zoneless change detection was experimental in v18, reached Developer Preview in v20, became stable in v20.2, and from v21 Zone.js is no longer included by default, so new applications are zoneless. An existing application built on Zone.js change detection does not break on upgrade, but it also does not get the benefit, and mixing signal-based state with implicit zone-triggered change detection is where subtle bugs live.

Angular Material and the CDK moved to v22.0.0 on 3 June 2026, with 22.0.4 the latest stable, and the v22 release carries explicit breaking-change commits in cdk/a11y, cdk/drag-drop and cdk/menu. If your design system wraps CDK primitives, budget that separately from the framework upgrade. Accessibility and drag-and-drop behaviour changes are the kind that pass a compile and fail a user.

Four build shapes and what they actually cost

Scenario	Typical scope	Effort	Main risk
New enterprise app on v22	Zoneless, signals, Signal Forms	8 to 16 weeks	Team unfamiliarity with signal-based state
v21 to v22 upgrade	One `ng update` step plus CDK fixes	Days to 2 weeks	CDK a11y, drag-drop and menu breaking changes
v18 to v22 upgrade	Four sequential majors	4 to 10 weeks	Third-party library support per major
AngularJS 1.x replacement	Full rewrite, EOL since Dec 2021	Months	No upgrade path exists; ngUpgrade is a bridge, not a target
Zone.js to zoneless conversion	Change detection audit across the app	2 to 6 weeks	Implicit change-detection assumptions in older components

The AngularJS row is the one to be honest about. The framework has been end of life since 31 December 2021, the angular/angular.js repository is archived read-only, the npm packages are marked deprecated, and the CDN links remain up only as a courtesy. There is no upgrade. There is a rewrite, optionally staged behind ngUpgrade while it runs. Any proposal that describes it as a migration is mispricing it.

Our five-step delivery process

Assessment, 1 week. Current Angular and Material versions, third-party library support matrix per intermediate major, Zone.js dependency audit, and the Update Guide step list with each step sized.
Sequential upgrade or greenfield scaffold, 2 to 8 weeks. One major at a time with the test suite green at each step, or a v22 zoneless scaffold if the decision is to rebuild.
Component and design system work, 2 to 6 weeks. CDK breaking changes, Material theming, and accessibility regression testing where cdk/a11y behaviour changed.
State and change detection, 2 to 4 weeks. Signals where they earn their place, zoneless conversion where the application is ready, and explicit change detection where it is not.
Performance and handover, 1 to 2 weeks. Bundle analysis, lazy-route boundaries, server-side rendering decision, and documentation your team owns.

Engagements run as fixed-scope phases with a named senior engineer per phase. Phase one deliberately produces the step list before the estimate, because the number of intermediate majors, not the size of the codebase, is what drives cost.

What to ask before signing

What Angular version are we on, and how many majors from v22? Multiply by the per-major cycle, do not average it away.
Which third-party libraries have no release for the intermediate majors? This is where sequential upgrades stall.
Are we on Zone.js, and do we want to stay? A deliberate answer either way is fine. No answer is not.
Does the app use CDK a11y, drag-drop or menu? Those carry v22 breaking changes.
Is there an ngUpgrade hybrid in here? The Update Guide asks, and so should your partner.
When does our current version leave LTS? For v20 that is 28 November 2026.

Why eCorpIT

eCorpIT was founded in 2021 and is based in Gurugram. We are CMMI Level 5 appraised, MSME certified and ISO 27001:2022 certified, and a Microsoft, AWS and Google partner. Front-end work is delivered by senior engineering teams, and phase one produces the sized upgrade step list as a standalone deliverable you can act on with or without us.

We design applications aligned with DPDP Act 2023 requirements where the front end handles personal data, including consent capture and data-minimisation in client-side state. We do not claim certification against frameworks we do not hold.

For the surrounding platform decisions, our guide to Angular 21 zoneless change detection and signal forms goes deeper on the change-detection migration specifically, the Interop 2026 web platform guide covers what the browsers are shipping underneath, and the Next.js 16 migration guide is the comparison point most teams weigh Angular against for a rendering strategy.

India-specific considerations

For Indian enterprises and global capability centres, the practical constraint on an Angular estate is rarely the framework and usually the upgrade cadence discipline. A 12-month major cadence with 12 months of Active support means an application upgraded once a year is never more than one ng update step behind, and an application upgraded every third year is three sequential steps behind with three sets of third-party library gaps. The cheapest Angular partner is the one who puts the annual upgrade in the retainer rather than selling you a remediation project every third year.

Where the application captures personal data on Indian data principals, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 obligations sit mainly on the backend, but consent capture, cookie and local-storage handling, and analytics tagging are front-end decisions. Build them in during the scaffold rather than retrofitting them.

FAQ

What is the current version of Angular?

Angular v22, released on 3 June 2026, with v22.1.2 the latest patch as of August 2026. It marked Signal Forms, Asynchronous Signals and Angular Aria as stable. Angular v23 is scheduled for around June 2027, following the 12-month major cadence introduced with v22.

How long is an Angular version supported?

Twelve months of Active support followed by twelve months of long-term support, on a 12-month major release cadence with four to six minors per major. Before v22 the major cadence was six months. Angular states that versions v2 through v19 are no longer supported at all.

When does Angular v20 stop being supported?

Angular v20, released 28 May 2025, left Active support on 19 November 2025 and leaves long-term support on 28 November 2026. Angular v21, released 19 November 2025, left Active support on 3 June 2026 and leaves long-term support in June 2027. Angular v22, the current major, holds Active support until June 2027.

Can we upgrade from Angular 18 straight to Angular 22?

No. ng update only updates from a version within one major of the target, so v18 to v22 is four sequential upgrades, each needing its own build, test and fix cycle. Third-party library availability for each intermediate major is usually the limiting factor rather than Angular itself.

Is AngularJS still supported?

No. AngularJS 1.x reached end of life on 31 December 2021. The angular/angular.js repository is archived read-only and the npm packages are marked deprecated, though the CDN links remain available. Moving off AngularJS is a rewrite, not an upgrade, optionally staged behind ngUpgrade.

What is zoneless Angular and do we need it?

Zoneless change detection removes the Zone.js dependency that triggered change detection implicitly. It was experimental in v18, stable in v20.2, and from v21 Zone.js is not included by default so new applications are zoneless. Existing Zone.js applications keep working, but mixing signals with zone-triggered detection causes subtle bugs.

Does upgrading Angular Material break things?

It can. Angular Material and the CDK moved to v22.0.0 on 3 June 2026, and the release includes explicit breaking-change commits in cdk/a11y, cdk/drag-drop and cdk/menu. Applications that wrap CDK primitives in a design system should budget that work separately from the framework upgrade itself.

How long does an enterprise Angular build take?

A new application on v22 typically runs 8 to 16 weeks across assessment, scaffold, component work, state and change detection, then performance and handover. Upgrades are driven by the number of intermediate majors rather than codebase size: one major is days to two weeks, four majors is four to ten weeks.

How eCorpIT can help

eCorpIT builds and upgrades enterprise Angular applications for teams in India, the UK and the US. The first deliverable is always the sized upgrade step list, because the answer to "how long will this take" is a function of how many majors you are behind and which of your dependencies stalled along the way, and neither is knowable from a demo. If your application is on v20, the 28 November 2026 LTS date gives you a natural planning boundary. Talk to us with your package.json and we will come back with the step list.