[Flutter] Flutter vs React Native

Flutter vs React Native

https://medium.com/@vikranthsalian/flutter-vs-react-native-396216ad41d3

Flutter vs React Native

Developers often find it difficult to choose between Flutter vs React Native. Both have been created by the current tech giants of the world, Facebook and Google.

But the question of what to use to create these apps has been around for a while.

Flutter

is an open-source UI framework developed by Google in 2017 that aims to design cross-platform apps to run on mobile, Windows, macOS, and Linux as well as on the web. Flutter’s framework is built upon Dart. A lot of big companies like Alibaba, Philips Hue, Hamilton, etc., choose Flutter for development. Moreover, Google frequently provides updates for Flutter, improving its performance with each update.

Advantages of using Flutter

1. Great UI
2. Has a number of widgets
3. Apps are faster
4. Helps build web apps
5. Well-structured documentation and community
6. Helps replicate and create the same UI for different devices

Disadvantages of Flutter

1. Not native
2. Apps are larger
3. Has a limited set of tools

React Native

Facebook developed React Native in 2015. It is an open-source framework that is based on JavaScript. It also provides a similar feature, using the same codebase to create cross-platform apps, thus eliminating the need to compile other technologies for creating mobile apps. Skype, Instagram, Uber Eats, etc., depends upon React Native for development.

Advantages of using React Native

1. Uses JavaScript
2. Can create apps for multiple platforms using a single codebase
3. Understands the importance of code reusability and promotes it
4. Growing and active community
5. Helps in accelerating coding time

Disadvantages of using React Native

1. Not native
2. Does not provide innovative, out-of-the-box components
3. Limited choices
4. Abandoned libraries and packages
5. UI can be hampered easily and needs to undergo vigorous UI testing
6. Larger apps

Differences between Flutter vs React Native

React Native and Flutter are amazing choices for developing a cross-platform application, however, they share several differences which make them unique from each other.

• One major difference is the programming languages both frameworks use. React Native is based on JavaScript and uses JSX. However, Flutter uses Dart programming language.
• The architecture for both frameworks differs. Flutter uses a 2D graphic rendering library, Skia, whereas, React Native uses the Flux architecture, which also requires JavaScript bridging. Here, JavaScript bridging is necessary for React Native to allow JavaScript and Native code to interact with each other. However, there is no programming bridge in Flutter.
• Flutter and React Native documentation guides are very good. However, Flutter shares more organized and structured documentation. React Native documentation is poorly maintained because it depends heavily on third-party libraries.
• Installing Flutter requires you to download the binary from GitHub and also to set up the environment variables on your system. On the other hand, React Native is installed using node package manager (NPM) with one command on your terminal.
• Flutter relies on its developed widgets for customization, whereas React Native incorporates third-party customization components. Therefore, flutter offers more compatibility. Moreover, Flutter development is solely constructed upon Widgets, whereas React Native uses JSX.
• React Native has better support for 3D, whereas, Flutter does not support 3D.

Conclusion :

This blog explains the reasons behind the great popularity of the two emerging frameworks Flutter and React Native, for creating cross-platform applications. Flutter and Native solve the issue of creating separate code for native platforms like Android and iOS. Now, you can create an application for all the platforms using entirely the same code.

Moreover, picking the best framework for yourself depends upon your experience, requirements, and the business needs of your project. If you’re already aware of the JavaScript programming language, then there’s no doubt that React Native is a good choice. However, if you’re targeting a highly stable and fast performance, Flutter has several advantages over React Native.

Happy Coding!!!