React Native is an open source framework supported by Facebook and published on GitHub that covers ways to combine Native apis for both iOS and Android platforms. However, Google’s Flutter is a comprehensive move that allows you to create native apps for Android and iOS simultaneously and quickly.
In this competitive world, the ultimate goal for mobile application development companies is to choose a cross-platform framework that enables developers to write a code base and deploy across multiple platforms, sharing as much code, time, and cost as possible. In this way, we can help our clients choose an appropriate framework that best supports them to achieve their goals.
Flutter is a mobile app SDK (software development kit) built by Google that allows us to create high performance, high fidelity and extremely fast apps that run on multiple platforms, including Android and iOS. Now, what makes Flutter powerful is that it has a small part of C/C++ code, but most of its system is implemented in Dart (a general-purpose programming language originally developed by Google), which developers can easily read, replace, or remove. This gives the developer enormous control over the system.
Tools in a cross-platform solution:
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React Native
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Flutter
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Xamarin
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Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
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Kotlin Native
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J2ObjC/Doppl (Android-centric cross-platform)
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Ionic2
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Cordova/PhoneGap/Titanium
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Unity
For this list, we chose the two most popular solutions of 2018, React Native and Flutter.
Flutter Vs React Native is best suited for mobile application development
React Native has gained a lot of popularity in recent years, mostly from ReactJS and the online community. The way it’s written in JavaScript has increased its popularity, and many companies are turning to it. Flutter has been heavily promoted by Google since the 2017 I/O and has generated great interest among developers, with new competitiveness and long-term potential in the mobile app development industry.
Here is a quick comparison between the Flutter and React Native
Language stack
Flutter is an open source mobile application framework that uses a completely different programming language called Dart, while React Native allows mobile applications to be built using only JavaScript.
React Native (JavaScript)
React Native allows you to build mobile applications using only JavaScript. It compiles its dynamic JavaScript code to the native view at run time. The rest of the code runs in the virtual machine inside the application package.
Flutter (Dart)
Dart is a general-purpose programming language developed by Google in 2011. Dart is used by developers at Google and other companies to create high-quality mission-critical applications for iOS, Android and the Web. Dart’s client-oriented development capabilities make it ideal for mobile and Web applications.
Dart is based on C/C++ and Java and supports abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. Dart was chosen by the Flutter team because it matched the way the user interface was built, with a larger application size but much faster results using Dart bridging. Unlike React Native, which uses JavaScript as a bridge.
architecture
React Native
React Native’s application architecture is called Flux. Facebook uses Flux to build client-side Web applications. Each framework mostly follows the MVC framework. One-way data flow is the main concept of Flux. Here, React Native handles the view part and Flux, a programming pattern that works with models in MVC.
Flutter
Dart application architecture library with one-way data flow, inspired by RefluxJS and Facebook’s Flux. Flutter-Flux implements a one-way data flow pattern composed of Actions, Stores and StoreWatchers. It is based on W_flux, but modified to use Flutter instead of React Native.
Flutter Flux implements a one-way data flow pattern consisting of Actions, Stores, and StoreWatchers.
Flutter and React Native performance
React Native
React Native/NativeScript, you need a bridge to call Swift or Android or Windows & Mac APIs. Flutter uses Dart, so you don’t need that, everything is native. This also solves problems between many different versions of THE JS ecosystem, such as CommonJS, AMD. React Native developers face problems developing hybrid applications, but don’t face any performance-related issues with Native applications. It provides seamless performance under all standard conditions and is highly reliable.
Flutter
Based on their application performance, Facebook’s React Native was compared to Google’s Flutter, and Flutter beat the competition. Flutter has the advantages of Dart and has no JavaScript bridge to handle interactions with native components of the device, resulting in significantly faster development and uptime.
Flutter has set its animation standard to 60fps, which clearly demonstrates its high performance. Finally, because Flutter is compiled into native ARM code for Android and iOS, performance is an issue it will never face.
User Interface (UI/UX)
React Native
Unlike Flutter, React Native’s app development requires the use of third-party libraries because React Native does not have its own LIBRARY of UI components. We use components such as NativeBase, which is an open source UI component library created by geeks. React Native Elements, React Native Material Design, and Shoutem are other similar UI libraries available to users.
When comparing the user interface between React Native and Flutter, React Native is similar to using HTML without any CSS framework. It’s more of a native component based on Android and iOS, with a better user experience (UX) when the user clicks on the operating system.
Unlike Flutter’s flat application, React Native doesn’t have its own LIBRARY of UI components; it uses third-party libraries and components such as NativeBase. NativeBase is an open source library that builds a layer on top of React Native, giving you a set of basic UI components.
Currently, there are three main UI libraries:
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Shoutem UI Components
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React Native Elements
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Native Base components
Flutter
Layout components are now part of the application and can include new components, and existing components can be modified to give them a new feel and look. The trend has changed, and the UI has become more user-friendly, easier to use, more engaged, and gaining acceptance.
Flutter comes with beautiful Material Design and Cupertino ios-like components built in, rich behavior apis, smooth natural scrolling, and platform awareness. Flutter has its own UI components, Material Design, adaptable component set, and an engine for rendering them on both Android and iOS platforms.
Here are a few examples of Flutter components:
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Drawer
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Inkwell
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GestureDetector
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DefaultTabController
Community support
React Native
React Native, which was released as open source on GitHub in 2015, is the most popular framework on Stack Overflow. It is supported by a huge community with 68K stars on GitHub, 14.5K user segmentation, ~ 9000 user disharmony chat and strong support on Stack Overflow, which is why it has more third party class libraries/plugins than Flutter.
Flutter
The Flutter team can subdivide dIT for a ~ 4.5K user on GitHub, ~ 30K star, Google and Stack Overflow support for about 740 users. Although Dart didn’t get much love in Stack Overflow developer surveys, early blog posts were positive about the use of Flutter.
The community of Flutter is not as strong as React Native. But the Support provided by Google’s Flutter team is really good. Their documentation is thorough enough to help you, and within a reasonable timeframe, resolve the release issues that will help you start application development using Flutter.
Unit Testing
React Native
The developer has all the JavaScript frameworks available for testing at the unit level. However, when it comes to UI and automated testing, the picture is less rosy. While there are many third-party libraries available, there is no clear concept.
Flutter
Flutter is a new framework, and it’s somewhat difficult when it comes to testing a new framework, but Flutter uses Dart to provide an excellent unit testing framework that can be leveraged and Flutter provides you with a great option, Test components at run time at unit test speed.
Development time
Web App development companies have very strict deadlines these days, and if the framework provides a short development time, the company has a good chance of choosing that framework.
React Native has a number of different third-party libraries, such as calendars, images, and dialogs, and it has off-the-shelf components to speed up cross-platform application development. With Flutter, we need to add separate files for iOS and Android. In each of these files, we need to add code that corresponds to the platform rules. Flutter also promises high-speed application development, though.
Thermal loading
Both Flutter and React Native support stateful hot reloads, which are very fast compared to true Native apps recompiled in Android Studio and Xcode. If your application encounters an error, you can usually fix the error and continue as if the error never happened.
You can make changes to the Flutter app while it is running. It will reload the changed application code and let it continue from where you left it.
Configuration and Settings
Compared to React Native, the setup process of a Flutter is much simpler. Flutter is accompanied by automatic detection of system problems, which is largely absent from React Native.
Develop stability: React Native vs Flutter
Stability becomes an important factor when developing cross-platform applications. Because Flutter is so new to the cross-platform industry, the number of companies using SDK to develop cross-platform applications is much smaller. However, Flutter Beta 3 provides improved developer tools and resource systems.
On the other hand, the number of applications developed using the React Native framework is much higher. It’s fairly stable compared to what it used to be and has the support of a large community of contributors.
Conclusions of Flutter and React Native
React Native and Flutter have their own pros and cons. Flutter is still new to the app development industry market, and React Native started earlier to gain a good audience advantage.
I think many people don’t realize the untapped potential of Flutter + Dart. There is some work to be done for Flutter, it is still 5 years away from being able to compete, but eventually, it will get there, which means 100% cross-platform applications shared with 100% code.
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