They can call it a framework all they like, and obviously that word means different things to different people, but I've found AngularJS is more useful when described and treated as a library - a library for building a front-end framework.
AngularJS might exhibit some of the trappings of a framework (e.g. inversion of control), and it has some of the components a front-end framework would need: routing, templating, networking... but these components aren't tied together in a way that impresses an overall architecture. Calling Angular a framework leads developers to assume architectural decisions have been made when they haven't.
AngularJS might exhibit some of the trappings of a framework (e.g. inversion of control), and it has some of the components a front-end framework would need: routing, templating, networking... but these components aren't tied together in a way that impresses an overall architecture. Calling Angular a framework leads developers to assume architectural decisions have been made when they haven't.