React
It was initially released on May 29, 2013. It is an open source (MIT license), developed and maintained by Facebook. React is used in single page or mobile applications.
It is a framework for building applications using JavaScript, used for building User Interfaces(UI) for both single page or mobile applications. React and React Native are two different things, React is focused on UI and is just a JavaScript library, where as React native is a mobile framework library which uses native components and native modules during development.
React Native is used for developing mobile applications for Android, iOS, Windows. Popular apps using React Native are Myntra, AirBnB, Uber Eats, Instagram, etc.
Notable features:
- One way data binding with properties(props)
- Virtual DOM
- Life cycle methods
- Javascript XML (JSX)
- Nested Elements
- Attributes
- JavaScript expressions
- Conditional statements
- Code in React is easily readable, users don’t need to have a programming knowledge to go through the code.
- React native allow the developers to use the same code logic for both iOS and Android, they don’t need to develop two codes for Android and iOS.
Drawbacks:
- RAM requirement is very high, because it uses Virtual DOM concepts.
- While developing hybrid apps, it affects the performance, but works well with native libraries and native components.
Flutter
Flutter is an open-source mobile application development framework. It is developed and maintained by Google. Initial release was in 2017.
Flutter is used to develop Android and iOS applications and also for Google Fuchsia. Popular flutter apps are Google Ads, Alibaba, Reflectly, etc. Flutter has entered the top 50 most active repos on GitHub.
Notable Features
- No need to manage multiple APKs manually.
- No need to maintain separate code for Android and iOS
- APK size reduced
- Good widget support, which provides natural look and feel on any screen size and resolution.
- Expressive and Flexible User Interface(UI) , Flutter allows a developer to control each and every pixel on screen; Full customization is available due to its layered architecture.
- Code reusability and over writing of code is available.
- Statefull Hot reloading, this is by far the best feature in flutter. Any changes done to code will immediately be reflected on the mobile. This is useful during development.
- It allows the developer to create Android and iOS high responsive-native apps at a time.
- Flutter has its own built-in support for unit testing, for logic and widget testing for User Interface(UI)/interactions.
Major components of Flutter architecture
- Dart platform - Dart is a client-optimized programming language for developing apps on multiple platforms. Dart has type system similar to TypeScript and is useful to develop and debug code more easily. Dart programming is easy to learn if the developer/user has knowledge on Java, c#, Javascript or kotlin or swift.
- Flutter engine - It uses a powerful C++ engine, skia engine for 2D rendering
- Foundation library
- Design-specific widgets
Drawbacks
- Very less community support since it is a newly launched i.e in 2017.
- Speed and responsiveness is less compared to react native for now, may be this will be fixed in future versions.
- Life cycle management is poor.
- Tooling is not as satisfactory as React Native, better tooling is available in React.
- Native look and feel are just satisfactory, which is far better in react native.
Conclusion:
React native is better compared to Flutter due to following reason
- Better community support for React native since it has been in the market for quite a good time now.
- UI components are proprietary widgets in flutter where as in React as OS native components.
- Industrial adoption is better with React native than Flutter.
- Time taken to develop React native is less compared to Flutter, because of large community support , good references if you are struck at any point, greater availability of third party packages, etc.
Performance wise Flutter performs better compared to React Native.
- Flutter has the advantage of Dart programming language and has JavaScript bridge like react native to communicate with native components.
- Flutter is compiled ahead of time, so your app opens up fast and stays fast
- React Native on the other hand, is compiled during runtime
- React Native has no issues while working with native components, but effects when working with hybrid apps.
- Flutter allows code reusability.
- Code reusability in React Native is restricted to a basic-level
Key Takeaways
I’ve listed both frameworks, which are popular and useful for startups to built mobile app development. Every framework has it’s own plus points and draw backs as listed above.
For now React native is more reliable and efficient compared to Flutter, but in the future there is scope for flutter in the long run. Since Flutter has been into the market very recently so it takes time to gain popularity in the market and industrial adoption. The future looks promising for flutter as the flutter team have announced projects like flutter web, wherein you write code for one platform, and the same code can be used and run other platforms, like mobile, web and native desktop application.
At last, it all depends on the client and developer choice in choosing the best to develop their applications.
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