With the rising need for fast and affordable development technologies, cross-platform technologies have gained popularity. As with the help of cross-platform technologies, android mobile app development companies can access features such as:
- Faster development speed as you don’t need to create an app from scratch for two different platforms.
- Affordable development cost as compared to that of Native technologies.
- Improved accessibility in every operating system for mobile devices
- Easier mobile application management as the merchants don’t have to handle separate codebase.
These provide the cross-platform technology for android mobile app development an upper hand over Native technologies. As in Native technologies merchants need to hire dedicated developers for each platform. This not only costs much but also demands merchants to put more effort and assets, which can be overwhelming for some.
Hence, choosing a cross-platform development technology is more beneficial for merchants. With this article today, we will take an in-depth look into the two most popular cross-platform development technologies, React Native and Flutter. We will take a comparative look into these technologies to help you make a better choice. But before we dive into that, let us take a look into the basics of these two technologies and their features.
Introduction to Flutter
Flutter is a cross-platform development technology. It was initially a startup that was later taken over by Google. It runs on Dart programming language and currently facilitates multiple popular apps such as Google Ads. Flutter comes in the form of a Software development kit and allows developers to create manageable and unique applications. It offers the following unique and out of the box features for developers:
- The Flutter comes with premade UI components which makes UI development easier and faster for merchants
- Flutter also has features such as Hot reloading. This dramatically decreases the time needed to perform testing and bug fixing.
- Further, it is backed by the vast and reliable google’s development community which ensures constant updates.
- Flutter uses Dart as its core technology which provides a centralized codebase. This facilitates easier code maintenance.
Introduction to React Native
React Native is a JS-based technology for cross-platform mobile app development. It is the core technology for Facebook mobile apps and is also provides the scope of cross-platform development for iOS, Android, and Windows devices. It has a component-based structure that is quite useful for creating complex apps of every scale. Below is a detailed list of features of React Native that ensures efficient cross-platform app development:
- React Native works on a component-based structure for the app development process. This allows it to produce reusable code.
- Further, React Native also facilitates easier integration of third-party tools. This makes app scalability easier.
- It is GPU-oriented which can easily provide better performance than other CPU-oriented apps. Hence, helping merchants and improving their app speed.
Flutter Vs. React Native: Making the right choice for App Development
Both Flutter and React Native can assist users in creating unique and out-of-the-box apps for their business. With their cross-platform compatibility, code reusability, and hot reloading features, these technologies have quite a few similarities. This makes making a choice between these two technologies a confusing task for an android app development company.
However, after taking a closer look one can easily notice that there are quite a few differences. These differences can affect multiple aspects of android app development. Hence, creating an in-depth understanding of these differences is a must to enhance decision-making. Below is a list detailed of some of the factors in which React Native and Flutter are different from one another:
Performance
Both Flutter and React Native can provide unique performance to android apps. However, when we take a comparative look we find that Flutter makes the android app run faster. The underlying reason behind this is their base technology.
The React native uses Javascript as its core technology. This however makes direct communication between compiler and React Native impossible. For this, React Native uses JS bridge which converts the code into compiler-friendly language. However, this results in a slower execution time.
Community Support
React Native is a little older than Flutter and hence has a larger developer community. Further, it also has much more resources to help you get started, this includes tutorials, git repositories, user forums, etc. Although flutter is growing exponentially, it still lacks contributions and resources apart from the official ones. This makes hiring android developers with expertise in React Native much easier than Flutter.
Native Features
Both React Native and Flutter come with UI components that make UI/UX development much easier. However, React Native takes on the native UI components. These components automatically get updated according to the changes in the operating system. In the case of Flutter, it uses the same components for both Android and IOS. As a result, the navigation for each individual device becomes confusing for the users and affects the overall brand image.
Management Cost
Since React Native has a larger community of developers and can easily integrate multiple third-party apps they are more scalable. Further, the development cost for React-based apps is much lower as compared to Flutter. Hence for an easy-to-manage android application React Native would be a much better option.
The Final verdict on React Native Vs. Flutter
From the above discussion, we can easily conclude that both React Native and Flutter are perfect for cross-platform development. As both of these technologies offer unique performance, security, and rapid development. However, choosing one between them ultimately requires merchants to contemplate their business needs. As the major differences between them make them suitable for catering to different development needs. Therefore, you must a fixed set of priorities before making a choice.
If your business needs lightning-fast performance choosing Flutter would be a much better option. But for easier management and higher scope of scalability React native would be a better fit. So sit with your development team and set priorities for your app today before making a choice. This will ensure a smooth sail for your business throughout the whole app development process.
