Restangular vs ngResource vs $http vs other

Which is better?
I also need to manipulate the data on the client.

nothing is better… ^^

the base is the $http-service.
And before you are working with other modules --> try to understand the $http-service.

ngResource is an abstraction of the $http-service, to have a more oop-approach specialized on REST-Request --> Define a Resource and the endpoints for that through the HTTP-Methods
But you can do the same with $http

Restangular is similar to the ngSource-Module

I am working with $http also if i have a rest-API, because in some cases i need deep access to configure my requests.
So i have a unified service, which sends request and adds some default handling.
All other services, that sends request are using my own unified request-service.