React Native vs. Flutter: Select Best Cross-Platform App Development Platform

How well do React Native vs. Flutter fare while creating cross-platform mobile applications? Check out the differences!

Size of the business, requirements of clients, availability of resources, availability of time and budget, availability of skilled workforce – all play a crucial role in deciding about technology or framework required for developing mobile applications. Companies need to think about spending time, money, and resources while meeting deadlines without compromising on quality. They always look for marking their presence across multiple platforms to cater to wide audiences through a seamlessly performing, attractive application. It is, therefore, necessary to compare both traditional and technology-driven cross-platform mobile app development. As the current point of discussion, both Flutter and React Native are hybrid frameworks that can be used to create hybrid apps that are highly productive and quick mobile applications that can run across platforms.

What is Flutter and what problems does it solve?

Flutter can be used to build high-quality applications that can work across platforms. It is a mobile app SDK created by Google to provide a fast and expressive way for developers to build native applications of iOS and Android. This is because apps and interfaces made up of Flutter are made from a single codebase that is compiled directly with native on code that makes use of the GPU and access platform API and services. The applications thus built are quick, expressive and flexible UI (custom design) and native apps for iOS and Android. Apps and interfaces made up of Flutter are made from a single codebase that is compiled directly with native on code that makes use of the GPU and access platform API and services. Flutter allows creating apps with beautiful design, smooth animations, and great performance.

Thus Flutter can be used to build highly productive applications across platforms from a single codebase. It enables fixing crashes and continues debugging from where the app left off. Flutter comes with a rich set of material design and widgets. It works in a modern react style framework, 2D rendering engine and various developmental tools.

React Native

React Native brings React's declarative UI framework to iOS and Android. With React Native, you use native UI controls and have full access to the native platform. Writing the entire application all over again seems to be the only option in case of additional bandwidth requirements. Frameworks like React Native are always helpful in extending the functionality that a web page could offer like the integration of camera, GPS, Flash Light, Bluetooth, Rotation, Auto-Correction, etc.

React Native code can be declarative, component-based and portable. It can enable interactive UI. Declarative views make the code more predictable and easier to debug. It can be used to build encapsulated components that manage their state, and then compare them to make complex UI’s. Besides, any changes done to the program at compile or run time can be seen locally in seconds. Changes to JavaScript code can be live reloaded without rebuilding the native apps. Additionally, the same code can be used across platforms. React Native is currently being developed and supported by many companies and individual core contributors.

Flutter vs. React Native Comparison

S.no	Category	Flutter	React Native
1	User Interface	Flutter makes use of its interactive widgets and proprietary visual, structural platform. These widgets are built-in UI components that replace native components. The UI is flexible enough to enable widget customization.	The availability of external UI kits like React Native Material Kit, React Native Elements and Native Base goes beyond the widget combination provided in Flutter. It also supports iOS-style components which makes it support highly powerful user interfaces.
2	Programming Languages	Flutter is based on the Dart programming language.	React Native is completely based on JavaScript.
3	Code Structure	Flutter enables developers to code everything from one central location and provides access to all the tools you need. It leaves out the need for the separation of templates, style or data. Its code structure is well thought out and simple.	The code structure of React Native is complex.
4	Native Appearance	Flutter code has the potential to access device core functionalities giving a native experience to the entire application.	RN code is dependent on third-party API's which prevents the applications from having a native experience.
5	App Performance	Higher because of fps animation standard. Flutter stays ahead in performance as there is no JavaScript bridge for initiating interactions with the device native components, the running time and the speed of development and gets expedited drastically with Flutter.	RN app performance is low because Connecting to native components is streamlined in Flutter than in React Native and it makes use of JavaScript bridge for initiating interaction.
6	Maturity of Framework	Lower because it’s very new in the industry	Higher because the framework is 3+ years old
7	Configuration and Setup	More straightforward	Lacks a streamlining setup and configuration
8	Industry Adoption	Currently, it is low because it is not known to masses and is only a few months old.	Higher because brands are using it for years.
9	Tooling	It has greater compatibility with the IntelliJ idea, Visual Studio Code, and Android Studio	There are a large number of IDE’s and tools support React Native
10	Lifestyle Management	There are no tools that explicitly save the application action state. Widget inheritance allows for stateless and stateful conditions, for explicitly saving the application state without making use of any tools.	It is better at simplifying the app lifecycle, management, and optimization.
11	Documentation	Flutter offers regimented and efficiently smooth documentation, to assist app developers. Their documentation is thorough enough to help you and they address the questions posted within a reasonable time frame.	Still unclear.
12	Brand Presence	Present across brands like Google Adwords, Alibaba.com, Groupon, etc.	RN is famous too: Walmart, Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram, etc.
13	Community	Not a very strong community.	RN community is vast.

Flutter vs. React Native Verdict

Both React Native and Flutter come along with free and open-source code that can be used across platforms for creating a variety of applications. JavaScript, HTML, and CSS for the basis for almost every hybrid or cross-platform app development. These are widely preferred, being a convenient option for development teams looking for fast and cost-effective development. But the choice of hybrid development platform must depend upon available skillset, budget and client requirements.

Find more top mobile app developers worldwide on AppFutura.