React, Angular and Node apps the agency left behind

Because the ground moved. A modern web application is a few thousand lines you wrote on top of a few hundred packages you didn't, and those packages have release schedules of their own.

• AngularJS, the original Angular, reached end of life in December 2021. Applications on it get no fixes unless you pay a third party for extended support. The move to modern Angular is a rewrite, not an upgrade.
• Angular gives each major version 24 months. Angular 22 is current; anything more than two majors back is unsupported.
• Node.js 20 went out of support on 30 April 2026. Node 22 is in maintenance until April 2027; Node 24 is the version to be on.
• Create React App, which most React projects of the era were started with, was retired in February 2025. It still runs; it's not maintained.
• Everything else: a lock file with packages at 2020 versions, a build tool nobody has run in years, and a security scanner that lights up like a Christmas tree.

Built in 2003 or 2020, stuck is stuck. If your business can't move it forward, it's a takeover.

A codebase that's readable and a project that won't build. The agency's laptop had the right Node version, the right environment variables and the deploy script, and none of that came with the handover. Somewhere there's a Firebase project, a Heroku account or an AWS bill in the agency's name. The database is Postgres or Mongo on a hosted service whose login is in an ex-employee's inbox.

The application itself is usually fine. Rules in the API, screens in the front end, a data model that reflects the business. What it lacks is a home you control and a build that works on a machine that isn't the agency's.

Take it over and get it building. The repository into your organisation. Environment variables found or rebuilt. Node pinned to a supported version. A build that works on a clean machine, then in a test environment, then in staging. Hosting, database, domain and third-party services moved into accounts you own. This is the first stage, always, and it takes the app from "stuck" to "supportable" without changing what users see.

Upgrade in place. Angular major by major, with the official migration tooling, each step tested. React off Create React App onto Vite or a framework, with the components unchanged. Node to the current long-term release with the packages that need it updated. Contained work, done in stages, each priced.

Rewrite the parts that can't upgrade. AngularJS is the usual case: the components are rebuilt in modern Angular (or React, if the team prefers) one screen at a time, with a hybrid arrangement letting old and new run together until the last screen has moved.

Modernise and extend. Once it builds and it's on supported versions, the app is yours to move forward: the features the agency never finished, the integration that was always phase two, AI where it pays back.

The assessment reads the code and the package list and prices each path as a fixed number.

Part of every takeover is a list of accounts, and it's usually longer than anyone expected: the source repository, the hosting, the database, the domain and DNS, email sending, file storage, the payment provider, the analytics, the error tracker, the app's own API keys to other services, and the developer accounts if there's a mobile app. Each one either moves into your name or gets recreated. The assessment produces the list; the first stage works through it.

Usually on a hosted database service, and it stays there or moves once into an account you own, reconciled on the other side. Nothing meets a change until the change has proven itself somewhere else: built and tested against a copy in a test environment, then run in staging, before anything connects to live.

The assessment is from £395 + VAT, sized on a free one-hour consultation, with an exact price before you commit. For a React, Angular or Node app it gets the code building in a test environment, audits the packages and the accounts, and prices the takeover and the upgrades as fixed numbers. What drives the price and the payment terms each have a page.

Packages with published vulnerabilities and no one applying the fix. A runtime out of support on a public server. A hosting account in the agency's name that lapses when the card does. And the widening gap: every month the app isn't upgraded, the upgrade gets harder, because more of the ecosystem has moved on.

Get it building, get it owned, then move it forward in stages. Marc Allington builds on React, Angular and Node and has taken over enough agency-built applications to know where the environment variables hide. Everything we build runs on open, widely used technology, in your own accounts, with full source code and ownership transferring to you on final payment.