Flutter or React Native, which one to choose for mobile apps and web development? Nowadays, mobile apps dramatically affect the world of development and one can be financially strong and lead their business to future growth. Everything runs on mobile today because of the availability of awesome apps. These apps are created with hybrid frameworks for app development such as flutter and React Native. They both are mobile development technologies and serve the same purpose. Flutter and React Native possess a huge number of features, have open-source frameworks, and are powerful enough to develop almost any application. Which one to choose for 2023? This article will help you choose the best that fits you. Let’s have a closer look at them.
Introduction to Flutter
Flutter is a mobile app Software development kit that is used to develop a cross-platform application. It was created by google in May 2017. Flutter uses a reactive programming language called Dart, making development faster and easier. The main purpose of flutter is to give higher performance and high fidelity on cross platforms like Android iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and the web from a single codebase.
It has a hot reload feature that makes changes quickly and easily to your apps without restarting them. In addition to it, the Flutter apps are compiled into native code. As we all know flutter is an open-source platform that’s why it is free to use and anyone can contribute to cross-platform development. The framework is user-friendly, fast, responsive, and extensible too. Apart from this, users can add new features and functionality. This software is the best fit for the projects like startups, businesses with limited resources, and businesses that needs to create an MVP(minimum viable products).
Similarly, it is enriched with multiple sets of widgets. Flutter apps can access the full range of hardware and software capabilities. Another benefit of using flutter is, it has automated testing and easy debugging. Moreover, this can save a lot of time and effort when developing mobile apps and creating web applications. It offers you significant support from experts as well as applications can be designed to work on various screen sizes and aspect ratios. For Instance, Google Ads, Reflectly, Xianyu by, Alibaba, and Postmuse are some of the popular applications created with Flutter.
Introduction To React Native
Similar to Flutter, React Native is also one of the preferred cross-platform app development framework. It is a framework developed by Facebook on 2015 March 26 for creating native-style apps for iOS & Android under one common language, JavaScript. React Native is an open-source platform that presents app developers with all-time access to a super large community of the React world. It uses the JavaScript programming language and allows developers to build natively-rendered mobile apps for macOS, tvOS, Web, Windows, and UWP iOS and Android. React Native uses the UI blocks for mobile app development which is why developers should not build blocks separately on Java, Swift, or Kotlin.
React Native is highly dynamic and ensures stable growth. Code reusability is another great advantage of React Native mobile app development. Code reusability saves you additional code writing time which translates to your business saving a fortune as well. Likewise, it has hot reloading features that allow the React Native app developers to see the changes they make in real-time. React Native provides countless ready-made solutions that help in enhancing the mobile app development process. Moreover, it is an open-source free platform and community-driven technology.
Building native apps? If yes then you can use to create individual or group views. React Native also lowers the cost of mobile app development. Further, it is more beneficial if the target audience of your website and mobile apps are the same. Indeed, it is a JavaScript library for building user interfaces that are both powerful and cross-platform compatible.
Flutter Vs. React Native
Flutter and React Native both are top picks and are popular for building cross-platform applications. They have some peculiarities that make them more or less in comparison. Here is a comprehensive table for your convenience to show you the differences and similarities in points.
| Flutter | React Native |
| It is created by Google. | It is created by Facebook or a meta platform. |
| It was first introduced in 2017. | It was first released in 2015 on March 26. |
| It is used to develop cross-platform applications for Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and the web from a single codebase. | It is used to develop applications for Android, iOS, macOS, tvOS, Web, Windows, and UWP to use the React framework along with native platform capabilities. |
| This is powered by Dart, a language optimized for fast apps on any platform. | It uses the JavaScript programming language and allows developers to build natively-rendered mobile apps. |
| Flutter has very brief documentation. | It has loose documentation. |
| Flutter uses Dart which is a statically typed language. | React Native uses Javascript which is a dynamically typed language. |
| Apps made with flutter are; Google ads, Alibaba, Square, eBay, Reflection, etc | Apps made with React Native are; Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Pinterest, etc |
| It has in-build app components. | It has third-party libraries available but in limited numbers. |
| To use it, one should download a ZIP file, extract and update the PATH variable, and more other steps. | Much easier to install. |
| There is no interconnecting bridge for initiating interactions so it is faster than react native. | Needs JavaScript to connect to native components via a bridge so it is slower than flutter. |
| Comparatively new and is used less by companies so it offers fewer job opportunities. | It is popular and has better job prospects. |
Conclusion
As you can see above, both flutter and React native have many things in common. They both are free open-source platforms developed by leading companies. Whereas React Native app development renders great productivity and is very easy to set up. Flutter is easier to use as it is more resistant to system updates. Currently, Flutter supports Android 4.1+ and iOS 8+, while React Native supports Android 4.1+ and iOS 10+.
After all, both are great choices to save time and money on mobile app development. Basically choosing a framework will depend on your company’s needs and developers’ preferences.