Superior Cross-Platform Framework: Flutter vs React Native

Choosing the right cross-platform framework is key to application success. The ideal framework will sidestep issues, avoid roadblocks, and set you up to do things right. What that ideal framework looks like for your projects and teams depends entirely on the way it’s used within your firm.joijopeqk

React Native and Flutter are two of the most highly popular and capable frameworks in use today. Each has areas of strength and weakness that should be carefully considered before being fully adopted into your workflow.

Both of these solutions provide exceptional development environments with the capability to rapidly iterate over features and functionality. Both are mature and stable enough to offer tools, libraries, and support that your development teams can depend on well into the future.

Each one can offer outstanding runtime performance and UI capabilities that are often better than native development. These modern cross-platform frameworks can ensure your teams are able to create attention-grabbing applications that succeed in the marketplace long into the future.

When it comes to React Native vs Flutter development, choosing the right option comes down to the unique shape, experience, and requirements of your team and project. In short, both will work for most tasks. However, choosing the right one for your tasks will enable you to excel in a way that an ill-fitting framework won’t allow you to do.

And if you need help with selecting the right React or Flutter developer, just tell us what you need. We can do the work for you and connect you with up to 5 companies within 72h that match your need- all for free!

Advantages of a Framework

Both React Native and Flutter are frameworks that can do a lot for you when it comes to mobile application development. But why should we choose a framework to develop your next application at all?

Before we look at the choice between React Native vs Flutter, we once again have to look at what a framework can deliver for your teams.

With strong native development tools available for Android, iOS, desktop, and web platforms—native development is always an option worth evaluating. It can avoid the overhead and maintenance of an additional framework and easily create a UI that matches the underlying platform. Using the right framework, however, should result in advantages and applications that go above and beyond to make it an easy choice for teams to make.

The benefits of a modern cross-platform application framework should include:

• Less code. The primary selling point of a framework is that teams should be writing drastically less code to target multiple platforms
• Less testing. With less code to write, the burden on testing should be dramatically reduced
• Excellent support. A capable framework should have a strong user base, documentation, and a community that works to suggest solutions and strategies to make the most out of development time
• Do more with less. The right framework should speed progress both between multiple platforms and when targetting a single environment. With excellent tooling and support, frameworks should make ideal candidates for targetting a rapid and capable minimal viable product (MVP)

By creating opportunities to re-use and reduce the amount of code written, frameworks create huge advantages for teams to save time and effort at every stage of the development process.

The ideal application framework should do a lot more too. It should create an app that looks and feels just right in the hands of its users and deliver a stellar user experience that works across multiple platforms at once.

Flutter

Developed by Google over many years, Flutter has been on the radar of developers since early 2018. Since then, the platform has grown to be the most popular cross-platform framework used by mobile application developers.

Built on Google’s own Dart programming language, some developers have been hesitant to embark on the learning curve necessary to get to grips with the framework. Those who have, however, have found the task less difficult and faster to pick up than otherwise imagined. Noting too, that the framework offers some distinct advantages in speed and reliability.

Most notably, Flutter can offer near-native performance for its mobile applications. In some scenarios, the framework has even proven to improve on runtime performance capabilities over native applications.

For developers, the IDE support offered by Flutter stands out as being exceptionally strong in comparison to similar frameworks. Integrations with Android Studio, IntelliJ, and Visual Studio makes working with or transitioning to the framework particularly straightforward.

Similarly, the learning resources made available by Google are some of the best of any framework out there today. Flutter’s site alone offers a huge amount for developers approaching the framework with a knowledge of other platforms or purely native application development.

Drawbacks of Flutter

As with any technology solution, there are drawbacks to Flutter development that should have developers pause to evaluate whether the platform is the best choice for their next application. Some may be easy to overcome with tools and resources; others may mean evaluating a different kind of solution for your project.

Some of the drawbacks to Flutter development include:

• Application components look unique and not necessarily native to the platform they are running on
• The Dart programming language can represent a barrier to entry, particularly in teams pressed for time
• Getting developers familiar with best practices and good coding style in a new language will take some additional time
• As a relatively new framework, the libraries available aren’t as rich as other frameworks (React Native, for example)
• Without the maturity of other frameworks, Flutter lacks the same degree of long-standing support and stability that other platforms have
• With limited use inside Google, if the company withdraws support for the project, then your apps could be in trouble in as little as a year or two

React Native

Facebook’s React Native framework, in comparison, offers a more mature and trusted solution that has been used time and time again by some big names in tech. Since its release in 2015, Skype, Tesla Motors, and Uber eats have been amongst other major players who have leveraged the Javascript framework for their major tech projects.

The platform’s component-based design sets react native apart from other cross-platform frameworks. The architecture of React Native makes components front and centre in the React ecosystem.

The result is a modular framework that creates a more testable, maintainable, and re-usable solution for application developers. This unique advantage isn’t all that React Native has up its sleeve either.

The framework is designed from the ground up to create SEO friendly web apps, native code rendering on mobile devices, and data flow that scales incredibly well. As a mature and trusted cross-platform solution, React Native is a framework that handles the tasks of application development exceptionally well.

Drawbacks of React Native

The architecture that underpins React Native can come with some drawbacks too. Just like Flutter, or any unfamiliar toolset, there is a learning curve to climb. In React Native, the unique architecture and framework choices make that curve a little steeper than other solutions.

Some of the drawbacks of React Native’s development approach includes:

• Performance impact is incurred by bridging from React Native code to native UI elements and their underlying system
• Many apps may require separate optimisations and ‘final touches’ to be made production-ready
• Despite being relatively mature and well tested, the React Native platform is consistently changing to bring in new features and make improvements. For developers, this can feel like building for a target that is consistently
• Similarly, it feels as if the guidelines, language, and its best practices are still being written to some degree

Clearly, there are many benefits and drawbacks to both React Native and Flutter development. If you want help picking between the two, just tell us what you need! Within 72 hours we can connect you with up to 5 companies specializing in the subject, all for free!

React Native Vs Flutter: Ecosystem

One of the most valuable aspects of a framework, the ecosystem defines how well a platform will use your developer’s time. Creating an environment appreciated by engineers means getting more done on the same amount of resources and creating fewer roadblocks to future projects.

Flutter Ecosystem

Flutter’s framework boasts some of the best documentation and development tools of any framework available today. Despite being relatively new, it has established a strong community in a short time and provides more than enough resources to bring engineers on board fast.

The framework’s 3rd party package management system, Pub, allows developers to browse and download libraries and widgets created by the community. In comparison to React, however, there are fewer libraries and tools available as a newer framework in a new language.

React Native Ecosystem

By using Javascript, React Native ensures developers have a wide range of libraries to import into the framework. Additionally, as the most popular language in use today, it’s a tool that developers can easily pick up in a short amount of time

Both backed and used by Facebook, the framework enjoys a strong and active community of developers consistently working on improvements and fixes. Instagram, Facebook ads, and Facebook itself are all backed by React Native.

React Native Vs Flutter: Language

The language used to write applications can make or break the decision to adopt it into your teams. Dart, as a comparatively new and unproven option, can dissuade some from adopting Flutter. On the other hand, Dart also offers some distinct advantages such as static typing and null safety.

React Native Language

Built on Javascript, React Native has the advantage that developers will often face a less steep learning curve when adopting the framework. In addition, Javascript allows developers to leverage a huge number of existing projects and libraries out there into modern applications.

As a trade-off for accessibility, however, it’s a language lacking in native support for modern features such as static typing or sound null safety.

Flutter Language

A relatively obscure and unproven language amongst developers, Dart can be one of Flutter’s biggest drawbacks. What many learning the language find, however, is that it’s so remarkably close to Javascript in syntax and style that picking it up is not much of a challenge at all.

Development teams will have to balance the advantages of Dart with the drawbacks and challenges inherent in adopting a new language and the toolsets necessary to use it.

React Native Vs Flutter: Runtime Performance

How an application performs in the hands of its users is often the first thing people think of when evaluating a new framework. If the overheads are too great, the time saved in development and testing is all for nothing when an unusable app is all that’s produced.

Modern devices have such capable hardware, however, some performance setbacks may not even be noticeable to most users. Figuring out the balance between acceptable performance losses and framework usability gains is a difficult task to undertake.

When it comes to application development, there are three areas of performance that are worth careful consideration:

• Interactions with the underlying system (file system access, media access, GPS, Bluetooth etc.)
• UI Rendering speed (frames per second (FPS), how smooth animations run, UI effects)
• Business logic (Typically, CPU heavy tasks that require computational effort on the device)

Flutter has been shown to be notably faster in benchmark testing than React Native. When it comes to UI rendering, Flutter is particularly performant, achieving a consistent 60 fps with ease. The comparison, however, isn’t entirely straightforward.

With its unique rendering engine and custom widgets, Flutter’s memory footprint can be significantly larger than applications built on React. The higher FPS and improved user experience of Google’s framework comes at a significant memory cost.

React Native’s architecture choices, to leverage platform native components via an application bridge, come with a CPU performance overhead that can’t be avoided. Without the need for a bridge, Flutter is more performant and capable in most side-by-side tests.

React Native Vs Flutter: Longevity

We’ve already touched on Google’s tendency to pull the plug on some well-used and highly appreciated products. Indeed, that is much more of a risk in Flutter’s case than it is for React Native.

React Native, used by Facebook to support the social media giant’s apps, is more likely to see long-term support from the company as a result. Flutter, in comparison, is used in only a handful of Google’s more minor products.

This shouldn’t dissuade developers from taking either option, however. In reality, both frameworks are expected to have a long-lasting and bright future ahead of them. Recent architecture changes to React Native hint at the framework going from strength to strength in the future. Similarly, Flutter is still being continuously updated and developed by Google.

Developers can approach both platforms with the assurance and confidence that the tools and support will be here to stay for a long time to come.

Choosing the Right Framework for Your Teams and Projects

With a careful analysis of the benefits and drawbacks inherent to both frameworks, the answer to which is superior when it comes to React Native vs Flutter should be clear.

The ‘best’ framework for your future apps is the one that fits your development teams, app requirements, use case, existing and future development with the best efficiency, ease, and results.

Both Flutter and React native offer outstanding applications across multiple platforms and devices. Both will result in remarkable and potentially game-changing applications for your firm. Both will need some degree of learning, investment, and re-tooling for those not familiar with their architecture.

Which one is superior for your development requirements is all about the features and functionality that matter most to you and precisely what you want to get out of each.