In the world of development, mobile apps have had a profound impact. With 3.6 billion users globally, creating mobile apps requires time-saving and effort-saving solutions. As of 2023, there will still be two main hybrid frameworks for developing mobile applications, Flutter and React Native.
Both of them are becoming increasingly popular, and their popularity keeps rising. This makes it hard for developers to decide between Flutter vs React Native. As two of the largest tech companies in the world, Google and Facebook have created both.
Flutter app development is the preferred choice of 39% of developers in 2023 compared to React Native, 42%. The reason why Flutter and React Native are so widely used is that both of these frameworks can be used to build cross-platform apps with the same code, and it is cheaper and faster than native development and offers the same convenience. Moreover, hybrid apps are easier to update and maintain than native ones.
Here's a quick guide to Flutter vs. React Native and what differentiates them.
About Flutter
Google 2017 created an open-source UI framework called Flutter which is intended to help developers design cross-platform applications which can be used on various mobile platforms, Windows, Mac OS, and Linux, and also to run on the web. Dart is the foundation of Flutter. Numerous prominent companies, such as Alibaba, Philips Hue, Hamilton, etc., use Flutter in their development processes. In addition, Flutter is regularly updated by Google, resulting in a steady improvement in its performance.
Pros and Cons of Flutter
Pros
- Same-codebase development for quick development
- Control and customization are maximized by layering
- A user-friendly design
Cons:
- Framework that is still young, with some common problems that are not easily fixed
- Downloading and installing apps takes a lot of time and space
About React Native
React Facebook was created native in 2015 as a JavaScript-based open-source framework. The same codebase can also be used to create cross-platform apps, removing the need for developers to make multiple compilations for creating mobile apps and allowing the same codebase to be used across all platforms. Many popular applications rely on React Native for development, including Skype, Instagram, Uber Eats, etc.
Pros and Cons of React Native
Pros
- Due to the use of JavaScript, there are extensive base packages
- Assists developers in reusing code and reducing costs
- React developers will find it easy to learn
Cons
- It needs more native developers
- Compared to Flutter, poor performance
History of Flutter and React Native
As developers continue developing cross-platform mobile device apps, Flutter and React Native have emerged as the most popular frameworks. Developed with both frameworks, mobile apps have achieved high performance, visual appeal, and full functionality across various platforms.
Flutter vs. React Native: Head-to-Head Comparison
For building cross-platform mobile applications, Flutter and React Native are both excellent choices. Sometimes it's only a matter of perspective determining whether you make the right decision. Let's see where Flutter and React Native stand head-to-head.
Flutter vs. React Native: Performance
A comparison of the performance of React Native versus Flutter must consider two primary factors - speed and app size. The Flutter application has a slight edge over React Native in terms of speed, with the apps loading slightly faster than their React Native counterparts.
Since React Native uses a JavaScript bridge for running the apps, it slightly impacts performance. Furthermore, Flutter provides a smoothness setting of 60 frames per second by default, further enhancing the application's performance.
Maturity of the framework
During the Mobile World Congress, which was held between the 26th of February and the 1st of March 2017, the first Beta version of React Native was released, while the first Beta release of Flutter was also published during the event. When it comes to maturity, Flutter lags behind React Native. In light of its infancy, it will take some time for Flutter applications to mature.
Installation
React Native is installed with Node Package Manager (NPM). A basic understanding of JavaScript makes installing the plugin hugely straightforward for developers.
Flutter can be installed using binary downloads from Github, depending on the platform you intend to run it on. In the case of macOS, one has to download one more file, flutter.zip, and add it to the PATH variable.
In contrast, to React Native, the Flutter framework requires one extra step to be installed using a native OS package manager.
A user-friendly interface
Flutter and its React Native counterparts differ significantly in the building blocks used in UI development. React Native leverages native Android and iOS components by integrating third-party or custom components. In contrast, Flutter uses proprietary widgets that are 100% customizable, allowing you to reuse components as often as you like.
Productivity among developers
A developer who specializes in JavaScript can quickly learn React Native. The hot reload feature of this application is a handy feature that saves developers a lot of time during development. Furthermore, developers can use whatever IDE or text editor they want.
Flutter also offers the capability of hot reloading, and flutter is harder to learn and use for developers. In addition, Dart is a new language that only supports a few text editors and IDEs, reducing developer productivity.
React Native, being more mature, provides more IDEs and language features for Flutter app developers.
Popularity
React Native and Flutter have switched places. The popularity of React Native over Flutter drastically increased only in 2019.
On Github, React Native had 92,800 stars at the beginning of 2021, while Flutter had 111,000 stars at the beginning of 2021. The number of searches for Flutter over React Native is much higher on Google Trends.
Conclusion
Flutter and React Native are close competitors. These technologies offer advantages such as live refreshing through adaptable software or building graphics interfaces through adaptable technologies. The similarity of these features further complicates any competition.
As a result, Flutter is still the clear winner in almost all comparisons between Flutter and React Native. If you want to develop an app on Flutter, then choosing Flutter app development company is an ideal solution.
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