For the past two years, React Native and Flutter have been the most popular tools for the cross-platform mobile application developmentand their adoption rate continues to grow and outpace the competition.
Unlike a native development approach, Flutter and React Native allow the creation of a single codebase that works for both iOS and Android. Because this requires less coding, apps can be deployed faster and on a smaller budget. That's one of the main reasons these two mobile development toolkits have become popular.
In this article, we'll dive into the world of these solutions and compare Flutter and React Native to determine which is best for app development in 2022. We'll contrast the advantages and disadvantages of React Native with those of Flutter using different criteria. Of course, before that we'll start by introducing each of the two options.
Introduction to Flutter
Created by Google, Flutter is free and open-source: Google's solution is presented as a complete software development kit (SDK) for building apps, with widgets and various additional tools.
As you know, Flutter enables cross-platform app development and gives developers an easy way to create and deploy visually appealing, natively compiled applications for mobile phones (iOS, Android), the web, and desktop, all from a single codebase.
It is based on Dart, a fast, object-oriented programming language. Released in 2011, Dart is relatively recent but still easy to learn, especially for experienced developers who already know Java and C#.
Flutter provides its own widgets, drawn from its high-performance rendering engine: these widgets are fast, attractive, and of course customizable. Thanks to these widgets, Flutter apps look good and are user-friendly, but you can also create your own custom app design using readily available UI elements that follow platform-specific guidelines.
Advantages of Flutter
Speed
Once you can get past the tedious step that comes with installing Flutter, everything else goes really fast: unlike React Native which uses JavaScript, the Flutter framework uses its own programming language, which simplifies the entire app development process because you don't need other third-party bridges.
Multi-device support
Flutter ensures that the user benefits from the same interface and the same features, even if they use a smartphone with dated processors or an older version of iOS or Android.
This helps maintain consistency and uniformity in the user experience, while ensuring that everyone can use these products.
Programming language
Flutter has its own programming language, Dart, created specifically for it.
Dart is both fast and elegant, with a syntax similar to C++, making it the new favorite of developers.
Publishing
The Flutter platform is designed so that applications created with it can be quickly and easily published in online app stores such as the Play Store.
Documentation
The platform is also designed so that documenting new application programs can be done quickly and effortlessly.
Disadvantages of Flutter
Installation
Installing Flutter is generally very slow and complex.
To learn more, here are the installation tutorials for Windows, macOS and Linux.
Programming language
Yes, the programming language is also among the drawbacks.
The language used by Flutter, Dart, is relatively new. Most developers are not yet familiar with how it works. For now, it is quite difficult to find developers capable of using Flutter professionally.
Popularity
On the mobile app development market, Flutter is only just beginning to earn recognition: other platforms like React Native are more popular and widespread, with a larger support community.
Lack of libraries
Flutter is a recent platform, and although it is open source (and has prebuilt libraries), the number of available features remains limited.
It is therefore up to the developer to create libraries from scratch and make them available to the community to help others and fill this gap.
Large file sizes
Flutter file sizes can quickly become huge. Because of its large size, the application can sometimes become difficult to manage.
This is considered a drawback, but it encompasses several issues because this characteristic could force the developer to turn to another platform that produces more compact files, and because an overly heavy app takes up space on devices and tends to run slowly, especially on older models.
Introduction to React Native
React Native is an idea from Facebook, and it quickly became popular among developers, probably because it has been around longer than Flutter.
React Native uses the JavaScript programming language. It is popular among social network companies. Tesla and Skype are among its most notable users.
React Native is a framework for cross-platform development, meaning creating apps for Android and iOS from a single codebase using the very popular JavaScript language. Apps built with React Native are not mobile web apps.
React Native uses the same fundamental UI elements as traditional iOS and Android apps: this means that instead of create in Java, Kotlin, or Swift, you assemble the same elements using JavaScript and React.
React Native finally has components that are similar to Flutter's widgets.
Advantages of React Native
Popularity
React Native has been around for some time and has attracted a large number of users, as well as about 42% of the app developers.
Since it is an open-source framework, the bugs and other problems can be easily solved by asking fellow developers. Moreover, developers will be encouraged to share their code and products, and to grow the community even more each day.
Ease of use
Well known to developers, JavaScript is also quite simple to use. It is easy to find developers with in-depth knowledge of JavaScript and therefore know how to use it perfectly.
Code reuse
This is a convenient feature because most functions and code are similar for iOS and Android platforms. It reduces the time required for the development process, thereby improving the overall efficiency of the system.
Installation
Installing the React Native framework is fairly easy. You just need a good command of Java.
Support for third-party libraries and plugins
Many third-party libraries with complex functions can be easily imported and used in your app.
This reduces development time, and the libraries are tested so there is very little risk of producing broken code or buggy applications when using them.
Disadvantages of React Native
Speed
React Native is not as fast as its counterpart Flutter. You will have to go through JavaScript bridges when developing an app.
Version and documentation
React Native follows standard manual procedures for release and documentation. That also makes the process quite slow.
Learning difficulty
Learning app development can be quite difficult with React Native, especially for beginners who are trying out the world of app development.
In addition, to start using React Native, you need experience in the native application development. Therefore React Native is not the best option to start your career as an app developer.
Poor memory management
Because of its JavaScript-based framework, React Native is not very efficient in memory management. Complex computations are also handled very inefficiently in React Native.
So it is not the best choice of framework for developing apps that need to perform complex tasks.
Low security
The open-source nature of Java also has drawbacks. With every resource open to the public, applications developed with React Native are poorly secured and can be easily breached by another developer.
Thus, when it comes to creating apps related to the banking sector, for example, developers avoid using React Native.
Conclusion
There are advantages and disadvantages to both frameworks, and it’s up to the developer to choose the platform that will best suit the task to be accomplished and the type of application desired.
However, since they are open-source platforms, the possibilities are immense in both cases, and they will only continue to expand in the days to come.
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