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Which Should You Use for Your Next App: Flutter Vs React Native?

Selecting the right framework for your application is super important to decide its functionalities and productivity. A poorly-developed application won’t work efficiently on every device and might lead to stuttering, lags, or even malfunction. There’s a constant debate between the two cross-platform development frameworks; Flutter and Reactive Native.

Understanding the Frameworks

Reactive Native and Flutter frameworks are used in cross-platform app development. Both of them provide assistance to the developers to decrease the time to launch a project into the market and thus improve productivity. In this blog, we are going to draw a comparison between Flutter and React Native with their architecture, learning curve, performance, community support, use case, and various other factors.

What is Flutter?

It is an open-source framework that works with the programming language called Dart (Developed by Google). This framework is commonly preferred for its improved UI toolkit used for creating cross-platform applications with a single codebase. The developers are able to develop a flexible and expressive UI with native performance by using flutter app development. The Google team of developers supports and contributes to this framework for effective flutter app development. Plus, developers have the backing of an entire flutter community.

Where Flutter is Used

  • It is used for creating MVP mobile applications
  • Applications following the material design language
  • Applications that have OS-level functionality
  • OS plugins that work with simple logic 
  • Apps compatible with Skia rendering engine
  • Reactive applications using huge data integration
  • Innovative UI with advanced widgets

What is React Native?

It is another widely popular open-source framework that works on JavaScript. React Native app development has the main aim of native rendering of applications that are compatible with Android and iOS. A unique combination of XML- JavaScript and Esque markup is used to write React Native. This framework was created by Facebook for react native app development and currently, there are over 50 dedicated engineers working on React Native. The framework depends on native components instead of depending on web components as building blocks.

Where React Native is Used

  • It is used for developing simple cross-platform applications
  • React Native is ideal for fast prototype applications
  • It is effective for applications with a simple user interface
  • React Native is ideal for applications that almost appear native
  • React Native is preferred for applications with reusable components
  • It is useful for applications that work with synchronous APS.

Let’s Draw a Comparison Between Flutter and React Native with This Chart

 

Flutter

React Native

Definition

A UI toolkit for the development of natively-compiled applications for mobile, web, desktop from one codebase

A framework used in the development of applications with React

Release Date

December 2018

March 2015

Invented by

Google

Facebook

Open-Source

Yes

Yes

Used Programming Language

Dart

JavaScript

Userbase

Over 120,000 users on GitHub (May 2021)

Over 95,300 users on GitHub (May 2021)

Tops Apps Created with the Technology

Google Ads App, My BMW, Xianyu app by Alibaba, Hamiton, Philips Hue

Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Tesla, etc.

The UI Differences

  • Flutter Apps looks uniform both on newer and older operating systems.
  • The flutter apps look and act similarly across different operating systems because the codebase remains the same.
  • Flutter apps are meant to act naturally on each platform by learning from the native components.

 

  • The React Native Application looks similar to native applications (Ex; the buttons look the same on respective platforms)
  • The React Native apps depend on the native components. Thus, any OS update also changes the app’s components.
  • You have to use third-party libraries to achieve the native features of the respective platforms.

Competitive Advantages

  • Provides the stunning look and feels with advanced widgets
  • Continuously growing community
  • Get complete documentation support from the Flutter team. This makes it to develop with Flutter
  • Enhancing flutter for Web to get one codebase across different mobile and web platforms
  • A very stable platform with over 5 years of existence in the market
  • Many successful businesses are using React Native
  • It is also an easy to learn technology with a huge community
  • Developers can reuse the code for web app and desktop application development

Not Ideal When

  • If your app requires 3D touch support
  • The design of your app is made for a specific platform
  • If your app needs to send multiple requests to an OS or needs rare libraries

 

  • If your app needs to focus on very specific tasks in the background
  •  You need customized communication with Bluetooth
  • If you want to develop an application only for Android

Which One to Choose for Mobile Application Development?

Both of the frameworks are reliable for creating reliable applications. However, there are different use cases where you should choose one of the two options.

Native Platform Support

Flutter can be used for not only mobile and web applications; we can use flutter app development for desktop and embedded applications as well. It is much better when your application can be accessed through almost any device including phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, etc.

Performance

Flutter apps work with native code, thus improving the overall performance. However, these apps might face performance issues if the graphics functionalities are not optimized from time to time.

Ease of use

The traditional JavaScript developers consider that is much easier to learn React Native. Whereas, learning Flutter requires expertise in Dart programming language

Size of Project

React Native projects are comparatively more lightweight than Flutter projects. It could be a great option for developing applications for wearable devices with limited storage. Thus, choosing react native app development makes a more sensible option.

About The Author
Erma Winter

Erma Winter is a senior mobile application developer at MobileCoderz, an established mobile app development company. As a senior developer, he has a keen interest in the latest mobile app development tools and technologies. With over 16 years of experience in the IT industry, he loves to lead the tech team. Apart from this profession, he loves reading and is a car enthusiast. 

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