Battle’s on for Flutter & React Native
Flutter SDK is Google's UI toolkit for crafting beautiful, natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase.
React Native is a JavaScript framework used for developing a real, native mobile application for iOS and Android.
Flutter or React Native
Flutter offers faster app development. Though React native and Xamarin also perform better, when compared with flutter, it is a bit slower. The speed of the app mainly depends on the function, features, development process, and other terms.
Flutter is a relatively new framework when compared to React native. It is backed by another giant,Google. Flutter is Google's open-source SDK for creating apps for Android and iOS using a single codebase.
Flutter v/s React Native: which is worth your time !
Here are just few popular apps delivered with Flutter and React Native :
What the heck is Flutter?
Flutter is Google’s new open source technology for creating native Android and iOS apps with a single codebase. Unlike other popular solutions, Flutter is a complete software development kit. This includes a rendering engine, ready-made widgets, testing and integration APIs, and command-line tools. Similar tech such as Xamarin, React Native- all try to achieve platform nativeness via different approaches.
Flutter follows the reactive development architecture but with a twist. The main thing to know about reactive programming is that it updates UI (user interface)contents automatically when you update the variables in the code. React Native also follows this principle, but it uses the JavaScript bridge to access OEM(original equipment manufacturer )widgets. But since the app has to pass this bridge to access widgets each time, it causes performance issues. Flutter, however, omits this bridge altogether and communicates with the native platform using Dart.
Dart is Flutter’s object-oriented language that uses Ahead-of-Time compilation techniques and compiles into native code without that additional bridge. This noticeably speeds up the app startup time. Besides, Flutter doesn’t have to call to OEM (original equipment manufacturer) widgets, because it uses its own. As seen on the image below, Flutter uses the OS (operating system) as a canvas to build an interface on and moves services such as gestures, rendering, and animations into the framework itself, which gives developers complete control over the system.
Benefits of Flutter
Flutter comes with beautiful and customizable widgets for high performance and outstanding mobile application. Besides these, Flutter offers many more advantages as mentioned below −
1. Dart has a large repository of software packages which lets you to extend the capabilities of your application.
2. Developers need to write just a single code base for both applications (both Android and iOS platforms).
3. Flutter needs lesser testing. Because of its single code base, it is sufficient if we write automated tests once for both the platforms.
4. Flutter’s simplicity makes it a good candidate for fast development.It contains more powerful customization capability and extendibility .
5. With Flutter, developers have full control over the widgets and its layout.
6. Flutter offers great developer tools, with amazing hot reload.
Limitations of Flutter
Despite its many advantages, flutter has the following drawbacks in it − as mentioned below −
1. Since it is coded in Dart language, a developer needs to learn a new language (though it is easy to learn).
2. Modern framework tries to separate logic and UI as much as possible but, in Flutter, user interface and logic is intermixed. We can overcome this using smart coding and using high level modules to separate user interface and logic.
3. Flutter is yet another framework to create mobile application. Developers are having a hard time in choosing the right development tools in hugely populated segment.
What the heck is React-Native?
React-Native framework is a rising mobile solution and is considered the future of cross-platform mobile app development. It is an open-source framework that allows you to build a mobile app with only JavaScript.
React Native uses the same fundamental UI (user interface) building blocks as regular iOS and Android apps . This means that instead of building in Java , Votlin, or Swift- you're putting the same building block together ,using JavaScript and React (source).
The main distinctive of this framework is that React Native apps function just like native apps. They don’t differ from apps built on Java and they use the same UI building blocks as native iOS or Android apps. But with React Native, building a mobile app is much faster and less expensive.
Benefits of React Native
The advantages to add up are-
1. Community matters
2. Reusable code & pre-built components
3. Third-party plugin support
4. Modular architecture
5. Live and hot reloading:
Live reloading reads and compiles a file in which changes were made by a developer and file to the simulator, which automatically reloads the app from the starting point. Whereas Hot reloading is based on Hot Module Replacement (HMR) and was introduced after the first reloading option. One of the biggest advantages of hot reload is the ability to make changes in the source code so they can be seen without the need to recompile the app. If a software engineer has two open windows (one with the code and another with the app screen), for instance, they can see the result on the app screen immediately after applying changes in code.
6. Plenty of ready-made solutions and libraries:
The React Native framework has an impressive list of ready-made solutions and libraries that greatly facilitate mobile development.
Limitations of React Native
It has some drawbacks. Recently, Airbnb shared their experience using React Native and gave the verdict that this platform has plenty of benefits but still can’t be successfully used to build absolutely any kind of mobile application. To sum up-
1. Immaturity
2. JavaScript tooling
3. Complex user interfaces
4. Initialization time
5. Open-source libraries
Summing up the pros and cons of using the React Native framework for mobile app development, React Native is a perfect solution for most use cases unless you have some specific platform issues.
To speak for Flutter replacing React Native , considering the rate at which we’re improving our programming habits, it’s fair to expect a new Flutter to appear on the horizon in a few years. This doesn’t mean that any older technologies become obsolete, it just gives us more options and opens new possibilities.
In business, the decision whether to use a new tool when there’s an old tried and tested one can cost a lot. We always recommend considering these three factors:-
- 1. Team- If you have in-house developers, will they gladly learn Dart and embark on creating apps differently than they did before?
- - If you want to hire an outsource team, is there one with Flutter experience?
- - If you’re looking to create your own development expertise, is there enough Dart/Flutter talent on the market?
- 2. Time limit- Does your team have time in between their project tasks to learn Dart/Flutter?
- - How time-sensitive is your project?
- 3. Scope- How big a project do you have?
- - Is it complex and long-term?
- - Or is it an MVP that will bring minimum losses in case of failure?
Summary
Customizing apps, in terms of styles, is fundamental for creating a unique experience for the user and achieving the app's goals. Knowing the Flutter framework classes that help on this task is crucial to the development of any app, including our Favors app.Then, you learned about basic styling in React Native with Flexbox and became acquainted with new syntax and functionalities of the ES6 specification. You also discovered the iOS simulator debugging menu, which is a helpful tool for writing apps.
Conclusion
Hybrid apps are a necessity today. They save a lot of resources for building individual apps for different platforms. The quality of the chosen framework results in the quality of a future application. So, opt for the best ones – Flutter vs. React Native. We’ll provide their explicit comparison, by finding out their pros and cons, and also looking at the other hybrid frameworks on the market. It means that it estimates a query as a percentage of all search queries in Google. We can see that Flutter’s popularity amounted to nearly twice the React Native. The average number of “Flutter” queries score is 86, while React Native takes 58. With Google Trends, we can also analyze how popular other hybrid frameworks are compared to the described two.
