Mobile App Development: Flutter vs React Native 2022
Choosing the right tech stack for mobile app development matters a lot. The technology used to build your mobile app determines how it will perform and allow you to update as per future trends. And when it comes to developing mobile apps in 2022, most app creators are often confused in choosing Flutter vs React Native.
Flutter is Google’s UI SDK and React Native is Facebook’s JS framework. Both technologies provide good features and support for developing mobile apps. However, there are many differences in terms of performance, speed, and other things.
Therefore, if you are planning to build your app in 2022 with Flutter and React Native. Then, you must know which framework suits best for your app. In this article, I will explain which framework between Flutter vs React Native is best in 2022.
So let’s start then
What is Flutter?
Flutter is an open-source UI SDK. It is primarily a cross-platform app development framework. Flutter is based on the Dart programming language. It provides rich support for creating beautiful user interfaces for web and mobile applications.
Flutter is a cross-platform app development framework. So, it uses a single codebase to build the app for all mobile operating systems. It means developers don’t have to write code separately for each platform. They can simply deploy the same codebase to Android, iOS, Windows, and other OS platforms.
As a result, it helps you reduce time and effort involved in mobile app development. Flutter provides a wide range of ready-made widgets and UI elements like buttons, text inputs, sliders. It offers various support tools for compiling code into native machine code.
So it allows you to build mobile apps that offer a native-like app experience. Therefore, businesses hire flutter app developers for creating user-centric apps that give personalized and rich UX.
Famous apps built with Flutter
- Google Ads
- Cryptograph
- Postmuse
- eBay Motors
- Alibaba-Xianyu
- Take Your Seat
What is React Native?
React Native is also a cross-platform app development framework. It is a JavaScript library that allows developers to build mobile apps for iOS, Android, and other platforms with a single codebase. React Native works on the JavaScriptCore runtime and Babel transformers. React Native is among the top mobile app development frameworks.
It has been used by the world’s various leading brands. React Native has been extremely successful in the mobile app development sector due to its highly useful features and benefits. And since it uses JavaScript programming language.
As a result, it makes it quite easier for developers to write code. Therefore, businesses hire React native app developers to build apps with React Native framework since it offers great features and support.
Famous apps built with React Native
- Facebook Ads
- Skype
- Walmart
- Airbnb
- Uber Eats
- Tesla
So you have got the overview of Flutter and React Native. Now let us compare Flutter vs React Native based on key factors and choose which framework is ultimately best for mobile app development.
Flutter vs React Native: Head-to-Head Comparison
Learning Curve
When it comes to determining which framework is easy to learn for developers React Native beats Flutter in this case. It is because React Native uses JavaScript as its programming language. JavaScript is quite popular among developers and it is also developer’s friendly language. So writing code for mobile apps becomes easy for React Native app developers.
On the other hand, Flutter utilizes Dart as its programming language. Dart, however, isn’t so much complex or hard for developers to learn. But since Dart is a comparatively new programming language. It is not as popular as JavaScript. Dart also uses a bit of different programming syntax. Hence, developers might put some additional effort into learning Dart.
Performance in mobile app development
React Native’s architecture is built on a bridge module. It creates interaction between JavaScript and native UI components. And due to this bridge-based communication functionality, React Native offers a slower performance. However, React Native has got a new bridge module (JSI-JavaScript Interface). It enables component communication. As a result, React Native offers faster mobile app development than before.
Whereas, Flutter isn’t built on a bridge module. Its core graphic machine-Skia complies the user interfaces to native code in the mobile app. Hence, as compared to React Native, Flutter offers faster mobile app development performance.
Debugging
In React Native app development, debugging could be a complex task. Especially when an error occurs in some part of your native mobile application. React Native developers have to look at both side-in React Native and the app’s code to find out the bugs.
However, Flutter offers good support in debugging. It provides a range of tools for mobile app development with Android Studio and Visual Studio. Some of them are DevTools and OEM Debugger which allow flutter app developers to efficiently detect bugs in the code of the mobile application.
Packages and Libraries
React Native has a big ecosystem. It contains tons of ready-made widgets and a large-size UI library. React native has a node package manager which is a repository of packages. Aside from this, React native has a rich UI library that gives wide options to developers to build multiple types of mobile applications.
Flutter, however, also offers a good number of widgets and support tools for mobile app development. But as compared to React Native, it lacks some additional resources. So in this case of Flutter vs React Native, React Native wins.
Documentation
React Native doesn’t fully satisfy documentation support. It lacks features that are required for crafting documents. React Native’s documentation doesn’t have features as per the level of topical organization and depth. However, developers can take assistance on Stack Overflow, Github, and Reddit for this. Whereas, Flutter provides good support for documentation. It is better, in-depth, and offers smooth navigation than React Native.
Final Verdict: Which is better between Flutter vs React Native in 2022
So, which is the best framework between Flutter vs React Native? Well, there is no straightforward answer to this. It depends on your use case, budget, business goal, and other factors.
You should use Flutter for mobile app development when
- You have a small budget
- You have limited time or deadline for launching
- To create UI-centric mobile apps
- Requires iteration
And you should use React Native for mobile app development when
- You have big budgets and advanced-level projects
- Complex cross-platform mobile apps
- Reuse code for mobile and desktop apps
Hence, which better framework suits best between Flutter vs React Native depends on your specific requirements.
Conclusion
The debate between Flutter vs React Native is never-ending. Both frameworks provide great features and support for mobile app development. But there are differences in various aspects. You need to choose between Flutter vs React Native once you accurately understand your requirements. Therefore, if you plan to use React Native then find an expert React Native app development company. And for Flutter the same.
About the Author
The author is a Senior React Native developer at MobileCoderz- a well-reputed mobile app development company that builds world-class web and mobile applications for startups and global businesses. She has been developing mobile apps with React Native for the last 5 years. Her experience and expertise in cross-platform development have made her a leading name in the industry. Besides this, She is an avid gamer and likes to participate in snorkeling.