Today we all have been glued to our smartphones and have experienced things which mankind has never experienced before with the help of apps. Now that the world is moving fast towards the apps after their success numerous famous app development companies offer their app development services to businesses. Businesses are getting aware that just with data and IT services they can’t go beyond and to truly be impactful in people’s life they need to be available to the end-user in form of an app.
That’s where this race begins. Now everyone is trying to develop an app for their own business and there is nothing wrong with it. Although there is one hurdle that comes between such aspirations and that is to choose between Android or iOS as a platform to start developing an app for. Now this question in itself is very difficult to answer and has no absolute answer at all.
Some people prefer to approach a larger audience with Android and some want to get into the Apple ecosystem to make their business more profitable. Here both the approaches are correct and there is nothing wrong with it but they are not absolute.
The only answer to this is according to the need of the business. If the business needs to approach a larger audience at first then they should be solely focused on Android at first. On the other hand, if a business is established and now wants to expand its user base then iOS is the correct option for them. They will be required to focus their attention on iOS to win over the Apple ecosystem users.
However, the common problem with this approach is that you will have to leave one behind to get farther from another one. Many businesses don’t want to do that and some don’t have enough time to spare because of the increasing competition.
People are quick to steal an idea and implement it on a different platform and for numerous other reasons businesses now are attracted to the idea of approaching both platforms at once. There has been the aid of technology in this too. The problem that is created by the technology is however solved by itself too.
Thanks to the app development companies’ rise there has been cross-platform app development which is becoming popular with every passing day. The dream of releasing an app both on the App Store and Google Play Store is fulfilled by React Native and Flutter.
Although the problem that they try to solve is once again resurfaced with the two different cross-platform platforms, to begin with. Now that you know that you want to create an app for both Android and iOS, now you will have to choose from React Native and Flutter.
You should be well aware of whether the platform you are choosing is beneficial for you or not, is it cost-effective? Here we will dive into this question and make sure that you can come up with a solution with one of these platforms as there is no absolute answer.
Even if one is better than the other, the other still exists and it proves that numerous people benefit from it, maybe you are one of them too.
Flutter
Let’s start with Flutter and figure out what it is in terms of software and technology. On the surface level, flutter is an Open-source UI development kit software that is developed and created by Google. It can be used to develop applications for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows, and the web from just a single codebase.
What this means is that by just coding once you can make applications that run on all of these platforms without you having to code them separately for each one. It was introduced by Google back in 2015 and is an application framework by its nature.
React Native
React native too is an open-source application framework that is created by Facebook. It can be used to develop applications for Android, Android TV, iOS, macOS, tvOS, Windows, and web by using the react native framework which then works in all these platforms with their respective native capabilities.
Numerous criteria can be used to compare these two popular frameworks for cross-platform mobile app development. We will compare them in each of these criteria to find out the best one for you and this will save the cost of your data and IT services budget.
- Programming Language
React Native uses JavaScript as its base language. Particularly, ReactJS is a JavaScript library that is used to build interfaces for apps and the web. Due to this working with React Native makes the job easier for web developers.
Another reason why React Native may work for you is because of JavaScript’s increasing popularity in recent years. JavaScript is also one of the most commonly used languages for more than 5 years in a row. What does it mean for an app development company? This makes it easier for you to train a React Native team and assembling a team together to work on a project will be much more economical. This basically means that app development services will be much more efficient and economical with your app project.
Flutter on the other hand uses a programming language which is created by Google called Dart. As opposed to React Native which uses a very popular programming language, Dart is mainly focused on developing applications for Google.
It is a client optimized language that offers many advantages of its own. This difference may be huge when compared as learning a new programming language can be challenging and having a team to learn and work on that language may not be economical.
Although it may seem difficult to learn a new language and can be a hassle in itself. But people providing data and IT services will be well versed with the concepts of Object-Oriented Programming. Dart is also an OOP language and highly resembles Java and C++ which are very popular languages.
This makes Dart easier to understand and learn. On the contrary to common belief, Dart is loved by developers more than JavaScript due to its ease and comfort.
- Architecture
The architecture of any language is important to know how well it will perform in a certain situation. On the other hand, can be used to know if it’s of any use to you or not.
Learning about architecture is important as here we are not using the native platform but a different language and the key here is the communication between both.
React Native uses a JavaScript bridge to enable communication between JavaScript and the native language. The communication on both sides is done using sending the JSON messages. However, the messaging is asynchronous which means that the UI of the app should be smooth enough to cancel out any lag because of it.
Even though the UI is smooth and runs well, there is still a chance that the lag is experienced due to the bridge because it impacts the rendering speed of the app.
For an app development company, this type of app will be useful for creating apps that can be rolled out to the market with some compromises with the speed of the app. If your app doesn’t require much processing then React Native will be enough for your data and IT needs.
On the contrary, Flutter doesn’t make use of a bridge to communicate with the native components of the architecture. All the things it needs are in the language itself in the form of frameworks such as Cupertino and Material Design. Due to the lack of a bridge, the Flutter apps are more immune to lag and are hence much more stable.
Flutter apps are predictable and more stable than their React Native counterpart.
User Interface
For an app development service, it is crucial to know what the customers want from an app and the user interface is a big part of it. We need to focus on the UI capabilities of both languages.
React Native renders the native components for each platform due to the JavaScript bridge that it utilizes for this purpose. This allows app development services to create a look and feel that of a native Android or iOS application. One of the most compelling features of React Native is the ready-made components that can be used as building blocks for lots of components.
However, it does come with disadvantages too. It gets extremely hard for app development services to replicate a complex UI in a React Native app and even if you managed to do so, it has a tendency to behave differently on different platforms which makes it unpredictable in this circumstance.
On the other hand, Flutter has UI packages within its own framework which in easy language translates to that making an app that resembles a Native app will be easier. It can ease the task of an app development company as there is no need for third-party libraries as there is a large database of widgets framework which are enough for even the most complex of apps.
Flutter’s other advantage is that it is consistent across all platforms and behaves in the way intended on all the different platforms.
Developer’s Productivity
In the end, that’s what boils down to the developer’s productivity. If you are an app development company then you need to make sure that your developers are efficient with a language and are productive enough for the job to get done. Hence, it comes out to be a very important criterion for any programming language.
React Native provides very high code reusability across all the platforms it supports. The dev support that the framework has is amazing and can be used to your advantage. There are a lot of new libraries created by these dev communities which can be used to speed up the development by using these libraries as a building block for it.
React Native also features one of the most demanded features in any programming language which is hot reload. It basically means that this allows the developers to view changes in the app without having to recompile it before each and every small change which can make the process difficult to the point that it becomes unproductive.
Flutter on the other hand focuses on being fast. Flutter has a faster app compilation than React Native which enables it to compile the whole app fast, wasting less time in a compilation. Flutter also features hot reload even though still offers a fast compilation.
So this is it for the comparisons and now you will have to decide on your own which works the best for you and your app development needs. If you are in contact with an app development service and they recommend one of these languages you can figure out either why they did so or are they just getting the cost down for their own profits.
The increasing app development needs have resulted in various different app development companies and they can use this as an advantage to themselves. Knowing what you are getting will enable you to get what you want without much hassle.
If you want to get your own app and don’t want to get into this big hassle then you can use our app development services which will never disappoint you and provide you with a hassle-free experience.
Also, Read How Agile Development Testing Redefines the Quality of Software Development