Flutter or React? What to choose for your next mobile app development?
In today’s world, it is possible to do almost everything on your fingertips using your smartphone. Whether you need to book a cab, an appointment with a doctor, buy online shoes, or consult with your physiotherapist, there are a plethora of mobile applications which allow you to do such things. People are looking for smarter ways to do things and want to save time. This is the reason why mobile app development has been a huge trend in the last few years. Every entrepreneur who is launching a start-up opting for mobile app development to showcase his services and make business. Every day, thousands of people develop a mobile app and are uploading it on different app stores which are getting millions of downloads. Initially, the most preferred platforms for the mobile application development are Android and iOS but now several other platforms have also emerged such as Flutter and React. These mobile app development platforms are leading this segment and it has been quite baffling to know what to choose for mobile app development among these two.
Hence in this article, we would be discussing among Flutter or React which platform you can choose for your next app development. We would know more about these mobile app development frameworks along with their pros and cons.
React was developed by the social media giant platform Facebook while Flutter was developed by one of the biggest IT companies Google. Both React and Flutter are cross-platforms by nature and also known as Hybrid platforms. Hence, you can develop Android as well as iOS applications by using these frameworks.
Flutter was initially launched by the name “Sky” but was later renamed to Flutter. It was released after two years of React Native in 2017. Flutter is based on programming language Dart. Using this framework, the developers can make edits in their code and also check the edits in the running application simultaneously. Before that, the developer has to wait for a few minutes to check the changes in the application.
React was just a project of Facebook in its internal hackathon but then it becomes a very popular framework. It was released for public in 2015 at the React js conference. It is based on the highly popular programming language JavaScript. Let’s delve about these frameworks.
React:
It is almost 5 years since the release of the React framework, and it is still the most popular native mobile app development framework. IT magnum opus such as Facebook, Instagram, Skype, Tesla, Facebook Ads, and many others are taking leverage of the React Framework. It is free to use and open-source. You can find many tutorials and solution by the vast community of React experts by Facebook. Hence if you stuck in any issue you can easily get help. The mobile application components will look similar to the native application ones. There are many such libraries by which you can use the same code for building iOS, Android, web and Windows apps. A developer can easily learn this technology. It is possible to reuse the code for web applications and desktop app development.
Pros of React:
- Fast refresh and coding
- Single codebase for multiple platforms
- Takes use of highly popular language JavaScript
- Developer has the choice of solutions to use as per the project’s requirements
- Active & Fast community
- Easy to learn
- Reduce testing by nearly 50%
Cons of React:
- Not completely native, the UI & performance can be close but can’t be the same
- Few components which are out of box
- Abandoned Packages
- Components also need to upgrade, after each update. It can break the UI
- Apps size are bigger than native ones
Flutter:
Flutter is also an open-source framework which is based on the Dart language. It was introduced by Google for mobile application development. It is a very popular framework for developing apps in Android, iOS, Window, Mac, Linux and other platforms. Platforms such as Google Ads, Dream 11, Groupon, Topline, Hamilton, Alibaba, and others are using this framework. It is a hybrid platform for developing mobile apps and continously get updates. One of the best things about this framework is that it uses a single code base for developing apps for multiple platforms. You can make use of Bluetooth, Wifi, and other background services to access by native apps. Currently, there are 300 thousand plus flutter developers who are continuously working for the framework growth.
Since there is a single codebase the look and feel of the apps on Android and iOS are almost the same. There are two sets of widgets in Flutter, Material design widgets which can imitate Google’s Design and Cupertino widgets which can implement Apple’s iOS design.
Pros of Flutter:
- Easy to make changes and reflect them in the app
- Attracting UI & UX
- Same app UI even on older devices
- Best framework for MVP development
- Less needs for Automated Testing
- Single code for multiple applications development
Cons of Flutter:
- Dart is less popular than JavaScript
- Libraries are good for Flutter but not as rich as native development
- No support for CI platforms, therefore for automated testing, building and deployment of apps, developers require custom scripts
- Size is greater than native apps
