to $routeProvider or $stateProvider

Question

I have been looking for a sound answer to to this dilema, to routeProvider or not to.

It appears as if $routeProvider is soon going to be discontinued and replace with $

Answer 1

We started with $routeProvider and moved to $stateProvider to leverage some of the features that ui-router provides. When we moved the migration was absolutely trivial. Having said that, ui-router is still very early (from their GitHub page):

Warning: UI-Router is pre-beta and under active development. As such, while this library is well-tested, the API is subject to change. Using it in a project that requires guaranteed stability is not recommended.

Stick with $routeProvider until you decide you need something else. Until then, make sure you are getting good test coverage so that shifts like that aren't too big of a concern.