The cross-platform application development is presently ruled by two super frameworks namely React Native and Flutter, giving each other the toughest competition possible. While the former was founded by Facebook in 2015, the latter was developed by Google in 2013. This article will compare React Native vs Flutter from a developer’s point of view, detailing each contender’s pros and cons.
Both the cross-platform application development frameworks are widely used for creating applications that are fast and reliable while requiring a single programming language. React Native has been around for quite some time thereby has witnessed a huge community of developers though Flutter has started to slowly keep up with the pace and is giving a tough competition to the former.
React Native is a framework that uses JavaScript, one of the most favourable programming languages for building cross-platform apps. Since JavaScript programmers are usually familiar with React and other JavaScript frameworks, it makes it easy for them to understand React Native better. Building mobile applications with React native when an established web development team is familiar with javaScript requires very little or no learning at all.
On the other hand, Flutter framework uses the programming language called Dart which was initially developed in 2011 by none other than Google though hasn’t been able to make a name for itself as compared to JavaScript. The developers familiar with JavaScript or other object-oriented platforms can easily understand the required syntax and the functions of the Dart language while the actual guide available on the official Dart website is also of great help.
Since JavaScript is widely used by programmers across the world, it makes it easy for them to adopt React Native as compared to getting accustomed to dar which is not widely used.
2. Technical Architecture
Coming to the technical architecture, React Native makes use of Facebook's Flux architecture which is further dependent on JavaScript bridge, making the application developed with React Native a bit slower. Since during runtime, React native framework is responsible to convert the JS Code to a native code thus sometimes resulting in poor performance.
On the other hand, Flutter being based on the Dart programming language doesn’t require a bridge to communicate with the native components. Apart from this, the cross-platform app development platform uses Dart which features inbuilt frameworks like Cupertino and Material Design as well as makes use of Skia C++ engine, which is everything that a developer requires to build a cross-platform app from a single package.
Thus, coming to the analysis, Flutter takes the win here for not being dependent on a bridge to communicate with native modules and offering the developers everything at a single place.
2. Omnichannel Selling Support
One of the other relevant benefits of choosing a headless CMS platform is omnichannel selling. Organizations often need to lure customers to their websites by marketing on various channels with different content that offers every user insight into their brand. Since marketing on every channel requires inputting all the information of the brand on every channel separately, it is rather a tedious job for a developer.
Now, with a headless CMS in place, the organizations can generate as well as store all the relevant content in a centralized location that can be further assessed on every platform. The user is allowed to use a headless CMS to facilitate a seamless marketing strategy on every platform from a single centralized hub.
3. Native Components
Since the core React Native framework only offers UI rendering capabilities and device API access, the developers mostly have to depend on third-party libraries in order to access major other native modules. It is usually less convenient for the developers to depend on other libraries rather than having every component available in a single tool kit.
On the other hand, Flutter framework is rather rich in components as compared to React native. The developers have access to UI rendering capabilities, device AP access, testing and navigation tools in addition to hundreds of other libraries. This offers the developers the freedom to access every component in a single tool kit without having to depend on third-party libraries and saving an exceptional amount of time.
4. Developer Productivity
Since most of the developers are familiar with JavaScript thereby making it easy for them to understand React Native and build scalable and after cross-platform apps. The hot reload feature of the framework makes it easy for the developers to save time during debugging while the ample IDE support speaks for itself.
On the other hand, Flutter frameworks also have a hot reload feature though as the app development picks up pace and progress, the complexity also evolves. Apart from this, most programmers are not familiar with Dart making it difficult to understand a few advanced concepts related to Flutter components.
5. Community Backup
React Native was launched back in 2015 while Flutter was launched by Google in 2017. There is an extensive community of React Native developers at Github while Flutter is fairly new though gaining popularity at its pace. The React Native community was quick to interact and gain new developers while Flutter is following closely behind.
Conclusion
Both React Native and Flutter are cross-platform application development frameworks that are fast and scalable while offering multiple native components. Flutter when compared to React Native is less preferred due to the familiarity of JavaScript programming language. React Native is largely known to have an extensive community of developers while Flutter is following its path to becoming popular widely. One should choose the React Native framework if they have a team of dedicated JS developers while if one needs an extensively tailored application created in no time and is familiar with Dart, Flutter is the option to go for.
