As more and more people are embracing modernized technology, the need for a mobile app or apps has skyrocketed. Due to this growing popularity of mobile apps, companies need to build their apps to stay competitive in the market. As we all know, Android and iOS own 98% of the smartphone market. Which makes building the apps for these platforms more obvious.
Companies are looking to build apps for Android & iOS platforms with faster speeds and lesser resources. Obviously, Apple and Android have provided native tools and technologies to build apps for these platforms like iOS apps that can be built by using Xcode & Swift while for Android apps Android studio and Java/Kotlin. However, this requires the developer/engineer to learn two completely different technologies. As a result of this, companies have started using cross-platform technologies which can be used to build apps for both iOS and Android by using a single language.
Today, we’ll be comparing two of the most dominant frameworks in the cross-platform mobile development world — React Native and Flutter.
Facebook originated React Native and Google’s Flutter has created a lot of buzz in the mobility industry lately while being placed against each other to decide which is The BEST framework.
Let’s quickly look back at what these frameworks stand for to set a base for comparison of being the best solution to build android and iOS apps
What is React Native?
It is an open-source framework, developed by Facebook in 2015 as it’s own cross-platform mobile app development technology. React Native allows the developers to use React and JavaScript in addition to native platform abilities required to build mobile apps.
It comes with a bunch of benefits like:
- Open-source
- Ready-made components
- Hot reload
- Highly Reliable
- Uses a widely popular language — JavaScript
- Platform-specific code
The cross-platform mobile app development framework also comes with some disadvantages.
- Complex UI
- Uneven Navigation.
A few of the well-known apps made with the help of this Framework are Facebook, Artsy, Skype, Bloomberg, Vogue, etc.
What is Flutter?
Flutter is one of the leading open-source cross-platform mobile app development frameworks in the industry today. Rather than being just a framework, Flutter is a complete SDK (Software Development Kit). Everything you need to develop cross-platform apps. Google developed Flutter in 2017.
Out of numerous advantages, here are some of the major ones –
- Open Source and free to use
- Hot Reload
- A complete development ecosystem.
- Highly customizable.
- Google’s Reliability.
It has some disadvantages, like…
- Larger application size.
- Native tools dependency for building apps.
Here’s a quick overview of technologies and companies behind Flutter & React Native.
Now that we’ve dissected each framework enough to draw a comparative infographic to know the best cross-platform app development framework. Let’s dive deeper into these details.
The Bigger Difference Between React Native and Flutter : A Broader View
User Interface
When it comes to User Interface, there is a very large gap between React Native and Flutter. React native is based on Native components whereas Flutter works seamlessly with their highly customized widget sets, which are best for getting customized UI design that gives dynamic and native support.
These widgets are both in Material Design for Google and Cupertino for apple, making UI one of the possible factors of whether or not Flutter replaces React Native.
Native Appearance
Native look and feel of an app is something that both Flutter and React Native are promoting as their USP. While the performance is the sign of React Native Development is available for the world to peek in and explore, the reason why organizations hire Flutter developers is its feature to use the device’s native functionalities without using any 3rd party component.
Both these frameworks have what it takes to go far in the journey of native look and feel for any Android and iOS app.
Configuration & Setup
Flutter’s setup process is much more straight and aligned as compared to React Native. Flutter has the benefits of automated system problem check-ups, something which is missed in React Native to a great extent.
Developer Productivity
Developer productivity is the key to building apps faster. To achieve this, it’s very important to focus on app development without any kind of distractions.
Considering the development of the app faster, both the frameworks Flutter and React Native have Hot Reload features. The hot reload feature in both frameworks lets the developer see the changes without having to recompile the code. But being a little more mature framework, React Native has great developer support in terms of IDEs and language support. Flutter is fairly new in this context, but will surely catch up as the community around flutter grows.
Testing Support
The greatest way to get feedback on the code is by writing tests. There is always a testing work-frame associated with every mature technology to create unit, integration and UI testing.
React Native is a javascript framework and there are a few unit testing frameworks available in Javascript. However, when it comes to UI testing and integration there is no official support from React Native. There are third-party tools that can be used for testing React Native apps.
On the other hand, Flutter has great documentation and a rich set of testing features to test apps at the unit, widget, and integration level.
Popularity
Between Flutter and React Native, the number of developers and the number of apps built with React native is way more than Flutter. But the gap is quickly filling in, considering Flutter is still very young. According to the Stack overflow 2019 survey, Flutter is the most lovable framework, with over 75% of people interested in it.
Seeing both the frameworks getting traction, it’s fair to say that both the frameworks are equally popular among the developer’s community.
Conclusion
React Native and Flutter both have equal advantages and disadvantages and it’s hard to say which one’s better and which is not. However, Flutter has definitely taken a lead over React Native in a lot of fields. Some of the industry experts have also said that Flutter is the future of mobile app development. But I think we should not predict the future but just rather Wait and Watch!
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