Everything to know about Flutter vs React Native & which one should you go for in 2020. Read a more detailed version of it here: https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
2. Flutter vs React Native: Which one’s better for you?
Frameworks like Cordova or Ionic that facilitated developing cross-platform apps
using HTML and JavaScript had their limitations since they fell short of the native
experience.
Businesses are constantly looking for frameworks that enable them to build apps
as close to native as possible while keeping the development costs down.
Flutter and React Native are two such frameworks. In this guide, we compare
Flutter vs React Native so that you can make an informed choice for your mobile
app development project.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
3. Introduction to React Native
React Native is an open-source framework created by Facebook to develop native
apps based on React. React Native’s development started in 2013 as an internal
project which was first released in March 2015 when Facebook announced it as
“Open-source”.
React Native is popular among developers as the Stack Overflow Developer
Survey 2019 reports 62.5% of them loved React Native, which puts it right at the
top 3rd position for the most popular framework that developers want to work on.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
5. Introduction to Flutter
Also being an open-source framework for making mo, Google’s Flutter initially
named “Sky” was first introduced in 2015. An alpha version of Flutter (v0.0.6) was
released in May 2017, and a stable version of Flutter 1.0 was released in
December 2018. The latest stable release of Flutter is 1.12 which came out in
December 2019.
According to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey conducted in 2019, 75.4% of
the developers loved Flutter. Considering the fact that Flutter is new, that puts it
in an impressive position.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
7. Differences between Flutter & React Native: UI Design
UI Design varies significantly between both as React Native uses the native
components of Android & iOS:
It has external UI kits like React Native Material Kit, React Native Elements, and
NativeBase.
Flutter on the other side has proprietary components and widgets for UI design.
These come built-in which are available to both Android & iOS apps:
The material design widgets cater to Android app design, where its Cupertino
widgets correspond to iOS UI design. Flutter’s UI is flexible as it is dependent on a
layered architecture.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
8. Differences: Programming Language
As React Native is based on JavaScript, apps developed from this
framework run on JavaScript. Whereas Flutter is based on Dart a
completely different yet easy to learn programming language. Compiling
native code and customizing Flutter widgets is quicker and easier in Dart.
It can be said that choosing between React Native and Flutter comes
down to personal preferences. JavaScript has high popularity and a wide
user base, while Dart is powerful but less popular.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
9. Differences: Coding Structure
Dart makes no differentiation in data, styles, and templates from a file
while JavaScript makes a clear differentiation. Programmers usually find it
easy to code using Flutter as it offers all tools in one place.
Developers who are used to JavaScript development can find the styling
aspect of Flutter to be hard. Such developers go with React Native
instead.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
10. Differences: App Performance
Interactions are initiated with the native components with a JavaScript
bridge in React Native while Flutter does not feature any such bridge as it
uses a streamlined process to interact with the native components.
Additionally, apps developed using Flutter compile into native ARM for
both Android & iOS making Flutter faster than React Native. An example
of that would be how Flutter can achieve an animation runtime speed of
60 frames per second. Both Flutter and React Native are friendly towards
sharing and reusing code.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
11. Differences: Development Time
React Native considerably reduces the time required to develop mobile
apps, moreover, creating an engaging UI quickly is easy with it. This
framework offers ready-to-use components, and this accelerates the
development projects.
Flutter has many advantages in this regard too, e.g., it’s easy to set up and
configure. React Native has a higher number of IDEs and tools supporting
it, and Flutter has some catching up to do here.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
12. Differences: API Capabilities
React Native has API support for key native interfaces, e.g., NFC
payments, Wi-Fi, and biometrics. If you are planning to launch an app that
will use geolocation, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi interfaces of the device,
consider React Native for such a project.
Flutter will likely have API support for many features requiring native
interfaces since it’s built using Dart. Flutter has API support for NFC
payment and Bluetooth, however, it will likely require some more time
before other APIs are available.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
13. Differences: Documentation and Support
Developers keen to work with Flutter can benefit from its comprehensive
documentation, which is easy to follow. The documentation for Flutter
follows a clear format, and it has the required details.
React Native has generic documentation that developers can read.
However, this framework has external development tools and the overall
React Native documentation isn’t as comprehensive as Flutter.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
14. Differences: Hot Reload
Hot reload refers to the ability to have the app running while injecting
new versions of files edited during runtime. Both Flutter and React Native
support this.
Hot reloading is fast enough for both React Native and Flutter, however,
it’s a bit faster in the case of Flutter. If developers make a change to a
Flutter app when users are using it, the app will reload the changed code
and let the users continue from where they left.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
15. Differences: Adoption and Popularity
As we have explained earlier, React Native is used in highly popular apps
like Facebook, Instagram, Skype, etc. This framework has been around
since 2015, therefore, businesses and developers had sufficient time to
work with it. Naturally, React Native has higher adoption and popularity.
On the other hand, the first stable release of Flutter came in December
2018, therefore, Flutter is still quite new. However, Flutter already counts
Alibaba, Tencent, etc. among companies that use it, and that’s an
impressive achievement in a short period of time!
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/
16. Conclusion
Both Flutter & React Native have their strengths, however, both
frameworks have a few drawbacks. If you are evaluating them for your
mobile app development project, then you need to carefully weigh your
business requirements against the comparison yardsticks we have
explained.
Are you looking to get your App built? Contact us at hello@devathon.com
or visit our website Devathon to find out how we can build your app with
beautiful designs, quality development, and continuous testing.
https://devathon.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native/