What's the difference? When should I use which? I am new to Angular & they look very similar to me. I would rather follow best practices from the start.
Asked
Active
Viewed 2.0k times
2 Answers
63
$interval
executes a callback repeatedly, while $timeout
simply delays the execution of a callback (doesn't repeat). So, no, they're not the same. Additionally, it should be noted that both of them are wrappers for window.setInterval
and window.setTimeout
respectively.
I would also like to recommend to read this great article written by John Resig on how Javascript timers work.

Kemal Fadillah
- 9,760
- 3
- 45
- 63
3
Here's some info extracted from djvirgen's response to a similar Reddit question:
You should always be using $timeout in Angular apps. Here's why:
- It's injectable, making testing easier with ngMock.
- It runs a digest to ensure your view is updated.
- It is thenable (it's also a promise).
However, if you don't want a digest to run, you can simply pass false as the third argument.
I would guess $interval has similar advantages.