How Flutter Is Overtaking React Native in Mobile Applications By James Tredwell on August 20, 2021 If you’ve been looking for various methods to develop cross-platform applications, then there’s no doubt that you would have come across the most prominent tools Flutter and React Native. Surely there is a point where it is difficult for you to settle upon one option, right? Let’s settle your uncertainties here in this blog. A complete interpretation of both the ruling cross-platform dialects, their pros and cons is illustrated here just for you to help you identify why Flutter can be the best fit. Cross-platform development- a brief overview Cross-platform development is a process through which developers can create apps that are compatible with different platforms with one single codebase. This means a company could release the product quicker and with better quality. For businesses aiming to reach a broader audience, this can serve as a great method. Among a lot of current cross-platform development tools and technologies, the two most popular tools adopted worldwide are Flutter and React Native, to 42% and 38% in 2021 respectively. What is that minor change that makes Flutter the top choice for the developers and businesses? What are the benefits that it is offering? Let’s look at it. What is Flutter? Flutter is an open-source, cross-platform framework that helps one seamlessly create visually attractive, natively-compiled apps for mobile, web and desktop with a single codebase. It is a programming language developed by Google to build efficient apps, using a Dart language. What is React Native? React Native is a framework created by Facebook to develop a cross-platform app that runs on mobile, web and desktop and uses JavaScript as its programming language. The code reusability feature and ready-to-apply elements that quicken the development process are the reason behind its popularity. Benefits of using Flutter and React Native Lesser testing If you have the same application on both platforms, then your Quality Assurance process will be faster as you can take it through less testing. Perfect for MVPs In case you want to build an MVP to showcase it to the potential investors, these are the perfect options, given the time both the framework takes is short. Both seem to be quite good in their perspectives and performance, so why are they at loggerheads? Reasons why Flutter is overtaking React Native If you are to ask a developer what are the top-selling points of the toolkit- Flutter, they would be fast development time, alluring UI and native performance. But however, that’s not it. Learning curve Though one might bring many arguments showing that JavaScript is the most popular programming language, we can’t say that it is the easiest and most exciting language to learn. However, developers choose programming languages that are fun and convenient to work with, but if observed carefully, Flutter is easier to learn than React Native. Of course, React Native is not a bad framework itself, but one might get lost somewhere in the learning process if one is not familiar with some nuances. Whereas, Flutter is much more developer-friendly than React Native and its Dart language is easier to work and understand since Dart is closer to programming languages used in native mobile app development. Performance The architecture of React Native requires a bridge that allows interaction between JavaScript and native user interface components and some specific elements like Bluetooth, sensors, camera etc. Due to this bridge-based communication, React native is slower than Flutter. Flutter sets up a standard to a greater level than it would make one feel like it is no different from a native app platform. Cross-platform apps tend to depend on various interruptions and intermediate code representations. However, with Flutter, you get a unique coding environment, reduced risks. Community support Once the developers start to show their interest in technology and adapt to its development process, they would form a community to share knowledge. The stronger the community, the better the solutions are born. React Native has gained great popularity ever since it was launched. And it has a wider community supporting. Flutter beholds an incredibly larger community on the lookout. Though Dart is not as widely used as JavaScript, it is still catching up to the React Native community. Nonetheless, from the 2020’s Stack Overflow Survey on popularity, it is seen that 68.8% of developers love Flutter when compared to the 57.9% of developers who like React Native. The Github stars seem to be more for the Flutter community. User Interface (UI) React Native uses native components that can change after every up-gradation, which might lead to breaking the app’s UI, though it might happen only rarely. Flutter doesn’t rely on native system components and has its own array of custom widgets. Therefore, it guarantees an expressive and adaptable UI that can be built with the unmatched creative flexibility that the toolkit offers. It equips a native app development with maximum customization, letting you create UI elements that can stand out. The app UI is a lot more stable when compared to React Native. Quicker time to market Though the development is just as fast, since React Native uses a bridge and a few native elements, it might require optimization for every platform, making its development time longer than intended. Unlike conventional programming, Flutter utilises Dart, a simple-to-learn programming language that offers smooth application development. As it follows a transparent language structure and smooth coding modules, many companies had to only take a minimum effort to create mobile applications and have an ideal opportunity to market to the app proprietor. Hot reload From a developer viewpoint, Flutter offers dynamic and faster app development that is appreciated by every top mobile app development company. The developers could make modifications to the codebase and see their changes immediately reflected in the application. This is the best aspect given, development is all about creation and updating. The hot reload feature allows developers to add features, fix technical issues and experiment with new ideas. Thus Flutter enables fast application compilation. DevOps and CI/CD support For any app to dodge releasing buggy code and to get continuous feedback it is crucial to follow Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery practices. React Native doesn’t contain any official documentation on setting up CI/CD. Though there are articles concerning this CI/CD for React Native apps, Flutter’s effective command-line interface tools allows developers to set up CI/CD easily. Advanced cross-platform capabilities Flutter gives the ability to go beyond just a mobile phone. It has launched many innovative development tools that will help you in making your app compatible with different platforms. You can smoothly run your app on a browser without even modifying the source code or in simpler terms, you won’t have to worry about changing anything in the Dart. Just a developer can use a single codebase for both web and mobile development. Documentation Though React Native came into existence much longer before Flutter, the documentation of the React Native lacks organization and depth. Whereas, Flutter’s documentation is more developed, comprehensive and easy to understand for any developers from different technical backgrounds and different levels of experience. Code reusability Code reusability is a big talking point between React Native and Flutter. React Native framework will allow you to write code once and apply it to every platform but the compatibility on every mobile is questionable. Therefore the developers must load a different set of components that works. This might take a longer development time. However, Flutter’s codebase is very much reusable, allowing developers to define a single UI widget tree and reuse the defined logic. Release In React Native’s defence, though the release process for every react native app development company is a standard one, the companies, however, need a third-party tool to deploy the app automatically. This brings us to the understanding that the release process can be tiresome and slows down the development speed. Whereas, Flutter has a seamless release process which will make it easy to launch it on the App Store or Google Play. Further evolution Since February of the year 2020, the users’ search volume for Flutter exceeded the volume of React Native. This shows well the potential of future growth and market distribution, as the software development community had shared questions, solutions and knowledge and backgrounds with their colleagues. Wrapping up Many people presume that Flutter’s popularity will grow significantly in the coming years, as companies like Uber and Google Ad already have their platforms built on Flutter. Flutter app development services are an extensive SDK for building applications and are not just a structure. As mentioned earlier, Google Trends also shows Flutter to be the most searched term. The app development market is one of the fastest-growing areas in the business and technology environment. As many businesses are depending upon the insightful ventures for a quick turnover, Flutter is gaining upper hand over other competitors and is advantageous over React Native in many ways in cross-platform app development offering answers to all the demands. You can discuss your project requirements with a Flutter app development company to discover the benefits specific to your project by choosing Flutter for your Hybrid App Development. Author Bio: Monish Sinthala, CEO of the mobile development company, Pyramidion Solutions, loves to author in-depth content about the recent mobile app development trends, all-important blockchain technology employments that small to large-sized companies can implement to manage and expand their business. Get chances to know the nuances of the tech world by following him.
