Ever since the businesses have realized the importance of apps for attracting customers and creating a personal experience for them, the demand for mobile apps has increased considerably. Mobile app development has changed a lot over time. Earlier mobile app development was very simple in which most of the time was consumed in coding. But now robust technology is used to make the whole process quick, efficient and straightforward.
There are two most efficient platforms for this – Flutter and React Native. This article enlists the various features of both these platforms to help you choose.
Whether you are looking for the best web development services or a rookie developer, a great app begins by choosing the right tools for your development. While both these platforms have something unique to offer, it is important to get the basics right first.
REACT NATIVE
React Native was launched in 2015. This is supported by Facebook and is the oldest among both. You can hire React Native app developers from various parts of the world at economical prices.
User Interface – React Native uses native components for the customization of the user interface.it provides a more dynamic framework than Flutter to make it easy to enhance the user experience.
Architecture – React Native employs two main patterns during builds – Flux and Redux. These follow a unidirectional pattern for data flow during the development. These also make the app components stateless as they provide for the storage of the application’s state.
Development time – As stated above React Native provides a better user interface. This is because it is more efficient and reduces build time.
Performance – It uses a compilation of UI components using their native equivalents. Each native module is connected by JavaScript. This helps React Native to perform faster than Flutter. However, the efficiency of Flutter is more.
Stability – React Native provides greater stability than Flutter. It is preferred by the developers as it is well established, reliable and offers more features. Recently, Hackernoon also did a feature on React Native’s credibility.
Customer Base – React Native is well known for the big names that have opted for business such as Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Airbnb and Walmart.
API Capabilities – If you require native interfaces for NFC payments, Wi-Fi and biometrics, then React Native is the framework for the job. It supports geolocation, Bluetooth and a lot of other features. However, React Native is not suitable for the customization of graphics as it lacks any type of drawing tool.
Documentation – Documentation is one of the most time-consuming aspects of development. React Native offers general documentation you can use. But the framework also depends on external dev kits extensively. React Native’s documentation is simple to understand but it is not as organized as Flutter’s. Many best web development services have shown their concerns over this.
FLUTTER
Flutter was introduced in 2017 and is a newbie as compared to React Native. If you hire react native app developers, they’ll tell you the same.
User interface – Flutter works flawless with the proprietary widget sets, owner widgets are quite exciting and are the best for getting a customized UI design that will give dynamism and native support. However, the app lacks a few components which compromise the user experience.
Architecture – Flutter is relatively new, hence it has only a few architectures that are common among developers.
Development time – Flutter offers better usability and customization. But the development time in Flutter is comparatively higher than React Native which creates a disadvantage for Flutter.
Performance – Flutter employs C/C++ library. This is closer to machine language and provides superior native performance. Flutter makes it easy for developers as they can reuse the existing code. The C++ engine works flawlessly and supports the language. Hence, Flutter gains appreciation here.
Stability – Flutter is still working towards improving stability. The Alpha version of Flutter is not meant for larger projects. However, the newly launched Flutter Beta 2 version offers more impressive features for the developers.
Customer Base – Flutter is still struggling to make its presence felt in the industry. However, it has made an excellent start Alibaba, Hamilton Music, JD Finance etc.
API Capabilities – Flutter is easy to use with a variety of APIs. however, the platform is recent and still undergoing development. The release of APIs beyond the ones that support NFC payments and Bluetooth may take some time as Flutter stabilizes.
Documentation – Flutter is very good at facilitating the documentation, it makes the mobile app developer’s life easy by allowing them to use them while documenting their applications. Hence as far as documentation and Toolkit is considered Flutter is the best option when compared to the counterpart.
Conclusion
React Native and Flutter both have their own set of pros and cons. There are also some similarities among, they both offer app development across multiple platforms. Both are open source frameworks and provide excellent UI support and native experience.
Both communities are striving to provide up-to-date documentation, including API references and extensive resources. At the end of the day, it comes down to what factors are most important to you while designing and developing the app and the resources you possess.
Dikonia is one of the leading IT Companies in India has completed multiple projects in React Native and has delivered high-performance mobile apps to customers around the globe.