Flutter vs. React Native: What to opt in 2021

If Flutter vs. React Native is your burgeoning question for the year, you’re not alone. It’s natural to be worried about what software can lead your business to future growth. It’s 2021, and there is a great resolution for businesses to carve out space for themselves in the mobile phones of their users. Regardless of the business, each business needs to make a mobile application to offer a far-reaching and customized solution to every customer. However, making native applications for Android and iOS is very tedious and, hence, cost-intensive. So the idea of cross-platform development has acquired force, and "Flutter vs. React Native" has become the community's #1 trendy buzzword.

Cross-platform applications are quick to develop because they let you use the same code for multiple platforms. However, different frameworks offer different features and advantages for efficient cross-platform development.

In this blog, we will read about the comparison between the two most popular cross-platform frameworks—Flutter and React Native—and which platform you can opt for for mobile app development.

What is React Native?

React Native is a JavaScript framework for writing real, natively rendering mobile applications for iOS and Android. React Native is a JavaScript framework built upon the React library, both created by Facebook. It’s used primarily by Facebook, Instagram, Airbnb, and many others. React Native started out as an internal hackathon project at Facebook back in 2013, and in 2015 it was released to the public.

Top features and advantages of using React Native for cross-platform development

• A rich components library reduces manual development time.
• Fast Refresh is a step ahead of Hot Reloading
• Declarative UI
• Strong community support

What is Flutter?

Flutter is a free cross-platform mobile development framework and open-source mobile UI framework created by Google and released in May 2017. It allows you to create a native mobile application with only one codebase. This means that you can use one programming language and one codebase to create two different apps (for iOS and Android).

Top features and advantages of using Flutter for cross-platform development

• Easy bug fixing with Hot Reload
• The layered architecture enables high customization
• Clear separation of UI from the native controls

Comparison of the React Native and Flutter side by side, on significant considerations

React Native needs to depend on JavaScript Bridge to interact with native components. So clearly, it takes more effort to stack the components. Then again, Flutter compiles the code in front of application run time. So the performance is much, much faster in Flutter apps.

That implies your Flutter application can yield an animation runtime speed as high as 60 frames per second.

However, I am not saying that sort of speed is not to be expected to be created in React Native applications. You can certainly use third-party libraries that provide the same app speed. However, there are always more complications with the app the more libraries you integrate it with, especially when you build hybrid apps.

Without a doubt then, Flutter is a clear winner when it comes to building high-performing hybrid mobile apps!

Flutter vs React Native: Testing Support

Once more, since Flutter utilizes Dart, it offers thorough help for automation testing. Flutter developers and testers have access to tons of testing features for unit, integrated, and widget testing of the app.

 The most important thing is Flutter's definite documentation for making as much as possible from its testing highlights. The documentation likewise assists you with automated app releases on both the Play Store and the App Store.

Then again, React Native has totally zero official testing support for UI level and incorporated testing. The tools that it does offer are only for unit testing, and that’s a very limited set too.

It means React Native developers have to depend on third-party tools like Appium and Detox for UI-level testing.

Besides, there is no help for automated application development on the Play Store or App Store, all things considered. You need to manage Xcode/Android Studio to manually deploy the app to their respective stores.

Flutter vs React Native: Code Maintainability

In React Native, upgrading and debugging the code can be a torment. At the point when you fork the code to suit your application, it meddles with the framework's logic, thereby slowing down the development process.

Likewise, a large portion of the native components may host a third-party library dependency. Frequently these libraries are obsolete and can't be maintained properly because of the issues that show up with them, of course.

Conversely, maintaining a Flutter application is a lot simpler. The simplicity of code assists developers with spotting issues and supporting third-party libraries.

Moreover, the time taken for delivering quality updates and rolling out quick changes in the application is viewed as preferred in Flutter over the hot reloading limit of React Native.

Flutter vs React Native: Developer Productivity

In the event that the React Native developer is skilled in JavaScript, it's genuinely simple to utilize those abilities for cross-platform application development. React Native has a hot reload feature, which saves developer time while testing the changes in the UI.

As far as IDE support, developers are allowed to utilize any text editor or IDE of their choice.

Flutter also has a hot reload feature, and it’s very easy to get started with the demo application.

In any case, as the intricacy of applications develops, developers would have to learn and receive the new Flutter concepts. What's more, Dart is not a common programming language, and there is a lack of support for it in many IDEs and text editors.

When to go for React Native and when to use Flutter?

Before choosing, take a look at some of the popular apps built with Flutter vs React Native. That by itself will give you a thought regarding which one is appropriate for which sort of application.

React Native is a good framework to build simple native and cross-platform applications, and Flutter does a great job at creating multiple iterations and MVP applications.

Select React Native if:

• You have sufficient time and money to invest in the project.
• You are looking for possibilities to create shared APIs out of the box.
• You want to scale your existing applications with cross-platform modules.
• Your goal is to create an application with an asynchronous build and a highly responsive UI.
• Your requirement is to develop lightweight native applications.

Select Flutter if:

• You want to write codes faster and deploy them into the market quickly.
• Your requirement is to customize the UI with widgets and less testing.
• The budget and delivery timeline are tight.
• You are aiming at creating applications that perform at a speed between 60 FPS and 120 FPS.
• Your idea does not require complete native functionality.