Due to the flourishing mobile apps, almost every company requires mobile applications to stay ahead of the competition in the market. In fact, companies are searching for options to build mobile apps particularly for Android and iOS with few resources and faster speed.
Although Google and Apple have rendered native tools to build apps, iOS app developers can build apps with the use of Swift and Xcode while Android developers make use of Java/Kotlin.
This demands the engineers to study two separate sets of technology. Consequently, companies have started adopting cross-platform solutions to build applications for iOS and android both with the use of a single language.
Introducing a certain application on Google play and app store is each business’s desire. However, before shipping a mobile app, you need to select a technology stack. This is where React Native and Flutter comes to play.
While it is not recommended to be selective while picking the correct technology framework, this guide is going to put some limelight on 2 frameworks to show a more defined approach. For helping the decision-makers in picking the appropriate tech stack, this guide shows a detailed comparison between the two famous frameworks, Flutter and React Native.
However, before jumping into the detailed comparison, let us look into why businesses require cross-platform on an urgent basis. The image given below portrays how the introduction of digitalization is setting new milestones for a variety of businesses around the globe.
With the introduction of Google’s Flutter back in 2018, developers have become fortunate enough with the advanced SDK (software development kit) that helps the app to run faster and easier.
Consequently, Flutter has turned out to be a stiff and eminent competitor for several other cross-platform app development frameworks such as React Native launched in 2015.
However, the matter is each survey has distinct facts and stats to state. While on one hand, Flutter gained 94.9k and React Native gained 88.3k stars. On the other hand, under the statistic, React Native is seen as the top choice for cross-platform app development framework with 42% of developers using it. However, 39% of developers prefer Flutter.
There is absolutely no doubt that React Native and Flutter are having cut-throat competition in the market making it difficult for developers to select one particular framework.
Hence this guide. Let us dive into the detailed comparison between React Native and Flutter.
React Native is defined as a “popular open-source framework that runs on JavaScript.”
It chiefly focuses on rendering native apps that are chiefly compatible with iOS and Android. React Native is noted with the amalgamation of XML- JavaScript and Esque mark-up (also known as JSX). With more than 50 skilled engineers working on it presently, React Native is backed by the famous social media giant Facebook.
React Native is a framework for mobile applications suitable in android, iOS, and web applications.
Flutter is defined as an open-source framework that operates with a certain language known as Dart created by Google. Generally addressed as an improved UI toolkit used to build and create cross-platform applications, Flutter uses a single codebase.
Flutter offers accessibility for developing flexible and expressive UI along with native performance. In addition to it, Flutter is contributed and supported by a wide team of Google developers along with the entire community of flutter.
Flutter is a UI SDK (software development kit) for Linux, Mac, and Android, Ios, Windows, and web applications.
Before dwelling into the more detailed distinction, here is a summary of the basics about both the technologies to remain on the same page.
React Native is a comparatively more familiarized framework in the company of developers as it is based on JavaScript. On the other hand, Flutter is based on Google’s in-house language. This is why it is an appropriate option for beginners who are new to the field of app development process.
As per the Google trends, 61% of developers prefer Flutter whereas around 81% of developers still prefer React Native for application development.
When it comes to cross-platform application development technology trends, both of these frameworks are quite alike if judged as per the popularity.
Since both these frameworks are young and own wide community support, both are ruling the cross-platform community equally.
To be more precise, React Native was introduced and launched back in 2015, and Flutter in 2018. This is another strong reason why React Native owns a bigger community and users compared to Flutter.
On the other hand, Flutter is all and all supported by Google. This pretty much concludes that the time isn’t far when Flutter will catch React Native in no time!
Flutter is popular in regions like Bangladesh, Jordan, Kenya, Japan, China, and more.
React Native is thoroughly used in Canada, Ireland, Belarus, Argentina, and more.
When you hire any mobile application development company, you must realize the amount of proficiency and expertise that their team has on a specific programming language.
As React Native is preliminarily mentioned in JavaScript, it is one of the most preferred software development languages for many developers.
On the other hand, Flutter makes use of Dart. This is why it is considered an object-oriented programming language.
Additionally, as it is known that JavaScript holds a prominent place in terms of modern application development, it is considered the default language for each browser. This is another reason why most of the crowd prefers to opt for React Native development company.
On the other side, the dart is a demonstrative and secured language to start with development. This is why Flutter is very often used for creating mobile, desktop, and web applications.
Flutter is usually a new language for the developers, thus it needs additional learning efforts. On the other hand, developers are familiar with React Native as it is based on JavaScript.
According to the developers, react native is easy to learn with the familiar JavaScript language that has been around for years now.
On the other hand, Flutter uses Dart that is a whole new language to the developers. Though it is not hard to learn, the introduction of a new thing takes time to analyse and interpret. Because of the new language, developers need to extend their learning capabilities.
Both of the technologies are simple to support and code hot reload features. However, both follow a distinct set of configuration and installation process. This creates a difference in the productivity among the two.
Based on three important parameters, let us evaluate the productivity of React Native and Flutter.
When the comparison is about the performance of these frameworks, Flutter is relatively faster in terms of coding than React Native.
While investing in mobile application development solutions, application performance is the first and foremost thing that each of the developers looks for. There is absolutely no doubt why react native is a power pack language but regrettably it is slower than Flutter.
React is built by the mix of Native and JavaScript languages. Therefore, to extend the level of performance of React Native, the developers need to merge additional interactions with native ones such as the touch events, notifications, etc. however, in Flutter, there is absolutely no need to amalgamate additional OS components that keeps the performance fast and smooth.
According to Google trends, since February 2020, the volume of users finding for Flutter crossed those of React Native. This inclination is an early sign of prospective for the growth of Flutter’s future and market distribution.
This is the twin trend that we have noticed on Stackoverflow. Flutter crossed React Native at the initial stage of 2020. Thus, the software developer community faced more questions on it, and shared backgrounds and knowledge for their clients.
In the modern world filled with modern tech, everything is changing at a fast pace. The more primarily you appear in the market, the bigger half of it you can gain. One of the dominating reasons behind React Native ruling the cross-platform development is the time. Launched 2 years before Flutter, people prefer React Native over it. However, Flutter is on the appropriate track. It is commendable to see the adoption of Flutter at such a rate. There will be no surprise if Flutter takes over React Native in the long run.
Under the TIOBE index, JavaScript preserved 7th place among the most popular programming languages in the last year. This is not astonishing looking at the number of frameworks and solutions where it is utilized. On the other hand, the popularity of Dart grew from 24 to 20th place last year. The height of popularity matches with the launch date of Flutter.
Back in 2019, the Google team at an I/O event indicated an early beta of Flutter’s web app support with mobile. Currently, this portable feature is in progress and development. Once completed, released, and launched, it will act as a game-changer in the market for cross platform development.
Looking at the adoption side, at the moment React Native is ruling the market. No doubt Flutter has shown remarkable growth in a very short period. However, with the growing popularity of Flutter, it will still face an uphill battle to take over React Native.
Ever since the launch of React Native back in 2015, the community of React Native has been growing immensely. An eminent proof to it is the number of contributors to React Native on GitHub. At present, over 2207 professional developers share their experiences regarding React Native actively. Even a beginner or learner can look for help in developing React Native applications.
There are more than 19.8k live projects where developers conduct a meeting to resolve the existing issues in the framework.
A few of the common platforms where you can find React Native developers, conferences, projects, and live events are,
Ever since the launch of Flutter back in 2017, Flutter is achieving a tad bit more traction as compared to React Native. Over 662 professional contributors contribute for flutter that is quite low as compared to the React Native. However, the count of live projects being introduced by the community of Flutter is around 13.7k. Few popular platforms that connect the global community of Flutter is,
You can choose React Native when,
You can pick Flutter when,
In the detailed comparison of Flutter and React Native, Flutter is better in terms of performance, engineering productivity, UI, support, and market trends.
On the other hand, React Native is better in terms of finding software developers. The availability of skilled engineers straight away impacts the time to market. For many of the companies, it becomes essential to opt for React Native as the best technology suitable for an application.
This concludes that in the detailed comparison neither of them stand as winners or losers. Each framework has its own strengths and weaknesses. It completely depends on the developer to opt for the one that best suits their needs.
| Flutter | React Native | |
|---|---|---|
| Programming language | Dart | JavaScript |
| Who can start | C# or Java Engineers | Front-end JavaScript developers |
| Architecture | Uses its own widget library for displaying Flutter UI | Transferred to UI thread through the React Native bridge |
| Ready- made widgets and elements | Huge library of plugins and widgets | Utilizes native UI elements of the OS |
| Development tools and documentation | Brilliant documentation and starter toolkit | Extensive documentation and tutorials. Not user friendly to start development from the bottom |
| Choose if: | UI is your chief priority | You wish to have universal code for web, desktop and mobile. |
| Do not choose if: | Your app is smaller than 4MB | You require brilliant efficiency for calculating tasks. |
As we come to the end, this guide speaks about the detailed comparison between React Native and Flutter without being biased. The motive is to help developers to select the appropriate programming language that best suits their needs and skills.
Although Flutter is a powerful competitor to React Native, we can say that React Native is the best choice for developing cross-platform applications for your business growth. Hire Remote developers from ZydeSoft as we have skilled and experienced talent that transcends your business.
