React Native – How Does the Framework Fare Against Other Popular Frameworks

The digital age today warrants quick information access and great user experience from all mediums through which any business operates and communicates with its audience. With the customer getting spoilt for choice, businesses have to come up with new ways of impressing and keeping their users interested in order to stay relevant in the industry. Developing an app that delivers all the desired parameters is of paramount importance for any business and for this reason, businesses hire dedicated react native developers to design the app that is a hit.

What is React Native?

React Native is a cross-platform mobile app development framework, which is used to build scalable and high performing apps for Android and iOS smartphones. It is an open-source framework for mobile app development that was launched by Facebook. The decision to hire a react native mobile app development company is the most common fad amongst businesses these days. A large number of tech giants like Skype, UberEats, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tesla, Vogue, Bloomberg, etc. are already using this framework. These have turned towards React Native for iOS and Android platforms owing to a large array of benefits that it presents.

When planning to develop an app, a person needs to ensure that the basic features such as their requirements, desires, budget, and time available for app development are aligned with the features offered by the framework.

While React Native is a clear winner in many ways, a number of frameworks are available for developers today. Let us understand their pros and cons and how React Native compares against them.

Flutter 

Flutter is regarded as the second most popular framework available today and is in neck-to-neck competition with React Native. The main features of Flutter include:

• It is an open-source and cross-platform mobile app development framework.
• Its use depends on the type of app being built as it has relatively limited application.
• Requires expert developers as the framework is not as easy to work with.
• Best choice for building a minimum viable product.
• 2D mobile apps that are meant to run on iOS and Android can be built using Flutter.
• Especially useful when building interactive apps that can be run on desktop or web pages.
• It boasts of the hot reload feature, which allows developers to make changes during development, and immediately see the changes reflected in the app.
• Easier to run tests and work on test results.
• Adding features and fixing bugs is easier.

When compared with React Native, Flutter has a steep learning curve for developers. 

While React Native uses JavaScript (a very common and popular programming language), Flutter is Dart-based. Dart is an object-oriented programming language that requires specialist knowledge. 

Ionic

Ionic is an extremely popular framework that is used for cross-platform application development. The main features of Ionic include:

• It is an open-source development framework.
• It is based on HTML.
• The main focus of the framework is the look and feel of the user interface of the app.
• It is a web as well as mobile app framework in one.
• It is time and budget-friendly.
• It does not have a Hot Reload function.

Ionic is used for cross-platform application development using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Ionic’s performance, as compared to React Native, is diminished at times when it is used to develop native applications. The framework depends on the use of various plugins.

Xamarin

Launched by Microsoft in 2013, the Xamarin framework utilizes .NET to build modern and high-performing cross-platform applications for Android, iOS, and Windows.The main features of Xamarin include:

• It is a powerful cross-platform application development framework.
• It requires the developer to be familiar with platform-specific codes.
• It does not have enough community support as compared to other frameworks.
• It offers a very flexible development environment, which is very convenient for the developer.

Xamarin is one of the best choices for developing cross-platform applications today. Xamarin is not be as developer-friendly as React Native, but has a number of features that make it a great option.

Phone Gap

PhoneGap is another extremely popular open-source, cross-platform mobile app development framework. When compared with all the frameworks mentioned above, PhoneGap has a relatively smooth learning curve. The main features of Phone Gap include:

• It does not require extensive knowledge of programming languages.
• A basic understanding of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS is enough to operate with PhoneGap.
• It helps avoid sudden complexities when developing cross-platform applications.
• It is not suitable for heavy gaming applications as it might not align with hardware-intensive apps.
• In some situations, it does not provide a suitable development environment, which hinders the process of iOS application development.

While PhoneGap is a great choice of a framework, it is not as versatile, user-friendly, and powerful as React Native. Thus, out of the two, React Native is the obvious choice for application development.

In order to develop a multi-dimensional mobile app that is user-friendly, budget-friendly, and enables fast development, hiring a React Native mobile app development company is all you need to do. As mobile apps take on the digital space and become bigger than web apps and websites also, it offers a reliable and quick approach to app development. Developing a React Native mobile app is sure to make all the positive difference to your business that you need.

When compared with the most popular development frameworks, React JS development services are deemed the most effective in building cross-platform applications. Start-ups hire React JS developers to develop new-age feature-rich apps with the help of this framework. React JS development companies use the platform-specific modules to create apps that at times even beat native apps in overall user-interface and performance.