Since Angular introduced Standalone Components and started improving its developer experience, Single‑File Components (SFCs) have become a more central part of the framework.

Although Angular traditionally encouraged separating template, TypeScript, and styles into individual files, inline components now offer a modern alternative. They fit well with Angular's current direction and with patterns used in other major frontend ecosystems.

This article looks at the practical reasons why inline components are becoming more common, and how they influence maintainability and architecture in Angular projects.

Smaller components, clear responsibilities

The Single Responsibility Principle has always been part of Angular's philosophy. In practice, components often grow without clear boundaries. When templates and styles live in separate files, it is easy to keep adding small conditions or structural elements. Over time, this can create components that are harder to understand and test.

Inline components naturally limit this tendency. When everything is visible in one file, the size of the component becomes easier to evaluate at a glance. If the template or styles start to expand too much, it is immediately noticeable. This makes it simpler to decide when to extract a part of the UI into its own component.

This approach encourages concise components and improves overall maintainability. Smaller units are easier to test, easier to document, and easier to refactor.

A well‑structured architecture through composition

Modern Angular applications often follow a feature‑first structure, where every functional area of the project has its own folder containing components, services, and sometimes directives or pipes. Inline components fit naturally into this structure : creating multiple small components does not have to mean multiplying the number of files in a directory.

A folder that previously contained large templates and several separate files now becomes more compact and easier to navigate. Each inline component clearly expresses its purpose, and the boundaries inside a feature become more visible.

A more fluid development flow

Inline components reduce context switching. Instead of moving continuously between .ts, .html, and .css, the developer stays in a single file. This eliminates friction when iterating quickly on UI behavior, especially when writing small components intended to display simple data, handle a limited interaction, or wrap other UI elements.

For many use cases, this allows a smoother workflow. It also improves readability when revisiting the code later: everything related to the component is visible in one place.

Angular is moving toward single‑file components

Over the past releases, Angular has progressively aligned its component model with patterns seen in other frameworks. Standalone Components were a major step in this direction. More recent documentation and examples now rely heavily on inline templates and inline styles. The CLI also supports generating components that default to inline configurations.

This evolution makes Angular more familiar to developers coming from ecosystems like React or Vue. These developers are used to colocating logic, template, and styles, either through JSX or through Vue SFCs. Inline components offer a similar mental model, reducing the learning curve and allowing teams to onboard frontend developers more easily.

Conclusion

Inline components in Angular are not just a stylistic preference. They influence how developers structure applications, how they reason about component responsibilities, and how they maintain projects over time. They support smaller and more focused components, simplify navigation inside feature folders, and encourage cleaner architectural patterns.

Inline components are not always the right choice. Large and complex templates may still benefit from being separated. But for many everyday components, they offer a practical and modern way to build Angular applications.