What is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source technology used for coding and creating native apps for Android and iOS. Google introduced it in 2018 and its programming language Dart was initially intended as a replacement for Javascript. There are nearly about 50,000 Flutter apps on the Google play store and the number is increasing rapidly. The framework lets you build compiled, cross-platform applications from a single codebase. The programming language, Dart, lets you build faster applications and it is the most productive programming language for multi-platform development. Flutter is considered a cross-platform SDK that can be used to build front-end and back-end applications. The best thing is that Flutter programming saves more time and money than native development.

What is React Native?

React native is a Javascript-based mobile app framework that lets you build natively rendered mobile apps for Android and iOS. With React Native you can create an application for various platforms using the same codebase. It was released by Facebook as an open-source project in 2015 and soon became a top solution for mobile app development. It has the best-in-class Javascript library that is used for building high-end user interfaces. React native is considered best for mobile apps as it provides a smooth and responsive user interface and also reduces load time significantly. Some of the world’s popular applications like Facebook, Instagram, and Skype have been built using React Native. React native empowered front-end developers to create robust, production-ready apps for mobile platforms using the pre-built components and libraries that it offers. It is considered suitable for apps that require high responsiveness and intuitive use.

Flutter vs React Native:

Comparison

When it comes to building your project it becomes difficult to choose between the two as both frameworks offer tremendous functionality and pre-programmed modules that can be used to build high-end applications. To help you decide upon the framework that is aptly suited for your next project, we will be comparing the two on the most relevant aspects.

Programming Language

Flutter: Dart Flutter is powered by Dart, a language that is optimized for fast apps on any platform. Dart supports many core developer tasks like formatting, analyzing, and testing code. It is particularly suited to client development prioritizing both development and production expenses across a wide variety of compilation targets. It is the most productive programming language for multi-platform development and is modern, type-safe, and easily accessible. It offers a flexible execution runtime platform for app frameworks.

React native: Javascript

Javascript is a lightweight, interpreted, object-oriented language with a rich set of features and functionalities. It is used to create dynamic and interactive applications and is the most used programming language in the world. With the pre-built modules that it offers you can save a lot of time and money. Its popularity is justified by the fact that there is a huge developer community using Javascript and there are many tutorials available.

Installation

Flutter

For installing this framework, the binary for the specific platform you choose needs to be downloaded first. For the installation on macOS, an additional .zip file needs to be downloaded and added as a PATH variable. This makes the framework slower to install.

React Native

With the node packet manager, the installation of this framework is easy and seamless. You need to install Android Studio which by default installs the latest Android SDK. React native also needs Java SE Development Kit (JDK) which can be installed from the manual download page.

Architecture

Flutter

Flutter uses Skia, an open-source 2D graphics library that provides common APIs that work across various hardware and software platforms. The Skia engine has taken cross-platform app development to a new level. This rendering engine helps in faster mobile app development. Because of this engine, UI built in Flutter can be launched on virtually any platform.

React Native

React native has Flux which is a pattern that manages how data flows through a React application. The method of working with React components is by passing data from the parent component to its children components. Flux makes this model the default method for handling data.

Development time Flutter

Developing a common cross-platform app with Flutter takes around 250 hours. Developing an iOS app takes 400 hours and for Android, it takes around 250 hours. Also, this framework lacks the support of many text editors and IDEs which inevitably increases the development time.

React Native

As the majority of code in React is reusable, this reduces the development time for both Android and iOS by up to 90%. With React Native you can keep time under control and achieve faster results. One of the reasons why development time is less in React Native is Javascript which makes the process easy.

Quality Assurance

Flutter

Whether you want to test an individual widget or want to run integrated tests, Flutter lets you do that with many integrated quality control testing features. Once the app is done you can carry out Unit tests to add and remove operations, Widget tests for home and favorite pages, and also UI and performance tests.

React Native

With repetitive tests, the stability of the project can be improved drastically and these tests can be done at any time. React native lets you do Unit testing, Component testing, integration testing, and End to end testing. But still, this framework is low on integrated unit test features.

Code reusability Flutter

Flutter lets you reuse the code that is, code written for developing an app can be reused for developing the same app for any platform. It lets you reuse 90% of the code which saves a lot of time and effort. This considerably reduces the cost of application development. With the code reusability feature, the development time can be reduced to half.

React Native

React native lets you reuse 85% of the code and the native code can be used to customize your application. With the code reuse in React native, you have the freedom to modify shared components. But still, compatibility on every type of mobile app platform isn’t guaranteed.

Performance

Flutter

Creating an app with Flutter is faster and the development process is comparatively easier. With Flutter it is easy to create animations and quality UI components. It lets you create high-quality apps with high performance. Flutter is relatively faster as no Javascript bridges can slow it down. This helps in saving a lot of development time.

React Native

With React Native advanced applications can be created with flawless performance and speed. It has a strong OS-embedded connection between the app and the device that lets you build top-performance apps. React native is suitable when it comes to developing niche applications with advanced features like GPS or rich animation.

Community support

Flutter

Flutter was introduced in 2017 and it’s a relatively new framework. But it’s gaining popularity and its support is growing steadily. It is estimated that in the future Flutter will be a framework trend that will continue to grow.

React Native

React Native has a flourishing community with plenty of conferences and events happening annually. It has a large community of contributors and there are many community channels available.

Release

Flutter

Flutter has a seamless release process that makes it easy to get an app in the Play store or App store. It has out-of-the-box CI support that reduces the chances of human error and improves handoffs that increase overall operational efficiency.

React Native

The release process is fairly standard with React Native but it is entirely manual. It requires third-party tools for any automatic deployment which slows down the development speed.

Documentation

Flutter

The Flutter documentation is good but when you go a little deeper you won’t find any sample code. But that’s not an issue as you can find more in Flutter repo test files. The docs site is organized and contains more information and tools. You can always find helpful graphics and videos that are available within the framework.

React Native

The onboard documentation of React Native is not as expected and developers often end up going to third-party sources. So it can be said that React Native offers general documentation. The documentation is user-friendly but it is quite disorganized.

The future of Flutter and React Native

Both Flutter and React Native are optimized frameworks to build mobile apps for Android and iOS. But the trend says that Flutter will surpass React Native as the most preferred cross-platform mobile application framework. Google has been regularly releasing stable updates to the platform which makes Flutter preferred by developers worldwide. Also with the release of Flutter 3, the number of Flutter-based apps has surpassed 50,000. Talking about React Native, the meta community is working continuously to bring large-scale changes and improvements to the framework.

Conclusion

Flutter and React Native are both cross-platform app development solutions and each has its own distinctive characteristics and functionalities. Both frameworks are designed to encompass the requirements of today’s business. With regular updates provided to each framework, both are future-proof and preferred by developers worldwide. But there are many aspects that need to be considered while deciding upon the framework for your next project. The detailed comparison in this article will definitely help you in choosing between the two. You can always refer to this article if you are unclear about deciding the right framework.