Flutter vs React Native: What to Choose for Your App Needs in 2019?

The growing competition in the mobile app market has made businesses realize that making their presence on a single platform is not enough.

They have to look for a faster, inexpensive and cross-platform presence to get a bigger slice of mobile market revenue share. But, at the same time, it is making them face the dilemma of choosing the right cross-platform app development framework between React Native and Flutter too.

Considering how important it has become to make the right choice between Flutter and React Native, we have dug into the comparison of these two popular frameworks in this article.

But before that, let’s have a quick look at what is React Native and Flutter, and who uses them.

React Native

Based on Facebook’s JavaScript library React, React Native is a JavaScript framework that empowers mobile app developers to build exquisite natively rendering user interfaces for both Android and iOS while enjoying the benefits like single codebase, code reusability, upgraded code quality, easier app maintenance, and lower app development cost.

The framework came into existence in 2015 but has recently received a re-architecture, increasing its potential beyond apps like Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Bloomberg, Tesla, Walmart, and Wix.com.

Flutter

Flutter is an open-source app development framework created by Google for building apps for Android, iOS and Google Fuchsia.

The framework was firstly announced in March 2017 and has recently its stable live version 1.0 was announced in the Flutter Live Event 2018. The framework has proved its prominence in the market by becoming the first choice of several reputed apps, like Google Ads, Alibaba, Reflectly, Hamilton Musical, Coach Yourself, and Cryptograph, giving hints to becoming the new face of the mobile ecosystem.

Now that we have taken a quick recap of both the technologies, let’s dive into the comparison of the two app development technologies:-

Flutter vs React Native: A Detailed Comparison

Installation and Set Up

When comparing Flutter with React Native on the basis of the Installation process, Flutter wins at the back of the convenience it offers along with being a valuable tool to inspect system error, called “Flutter doctor”.

Programming Language

In case of React Native app development, coding is done in JavaScript which is popular among web developers. This makes it easier for web developers to enter the cross-platform mobile market. However, the language is dynamically typed language which makes it a bad choice for building secure applications.

Flutter uses Dart programming language which is rarely used and less known in the market but is quite easy to understand, secure and supports most of the Object-oriented concepts which make it a better choice.

Code Structure

Flutter, unlike React Native, do not separate data, style, and templates. This prevents the need to introduce any extra templating language like JSX or XML into the process of creating a layout. Everything can be done on the same screen, which boosts convenience.

Also, Flutter has a feature called Outline View and Flutter Inspector which helps the mobile app developers which again simplifies the layout building process.

UI Components and APIs

React Native provides the developers with just UI rendering and device access APIs, which means there’s a dependency on the third-party libraries for delivering an impressive native experience.

Flutter framework is bundled with UI rendering components, device API access, navigation, testing, stateful management and loads of libraries. This rich set of components removes the need to use third-party libraries.

When you invest in Flutter framework, you get everything needed for developing mobile apps. Flutter also has widgets for Material Design and Cupertino that allow developers to easily render the UI on both iOS and Android platform.

Lifecycle Management

When it comes to Lifecycle management, React Native has a plus point over Flutter framework because of its simplified app lifecycle handling and optimization.

Documentation

Created by Google, Flutter has a well detailed and managed documentation which renders the freedom to explore and search for any particular element and create a pleasant experience.

This is not possible in case of React Native since it heavily depends on external development kits, which implies you have to search for documentation of each individual kit on your own.

Community Support

React Native, being in the market since 2015, has a bigger community on GitHub - making it easier for mobile app developers to discuss and share their code and work for higher performance and experience.

Flutter, being novice as compared to React Native, has lower community support. But, as per the market trends, the popularity of Flutter is growing significantly, which indicates that Flutter might become even more popular than React Native in the coming years.

Conclusion

Both React Native and Flutter have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, but Flutter has come out as the Winner as compared in the article. It has proved to have the potential to be an ideal framework for Cross-platform app development and disrupt the mobile world. So, if you are looking forward to entering the mobile market in 2019, invest in Flutter app development.

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