It has been 4 years since React Native was launched by Facebook. It was a step which allowed the developer community to move on from HTML. And it changed the way we use apps in the mobile phones, be it iOS or Android. Just a few months back, the stable version of Flutter was launched by Google. Both, React Native and Flutter are open-source mobile app development frameworks. React Native is popular but Flutter has climbed up the ladder of popularity in a very short span of time. The reason? Now you can build faster, natively-compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase - Flutter.
So, the rivalry between Google and Facebook has opened up yet another front, this time it is mobile app development frameworks: React Native vs Flutter. At the end of the day, people will get to use better apps and it will improve our quality of life. And along with SDK such as Flutter, which is evolving really fast, we can hope to see innovation and better tools for the developers to use.
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Flutter gives better scope for customization, across multiple platforms
Developing an app using Flutter is easy and fun for the developers. It allows the developers to focus on the user experience and customize the app’s architecture for different platforms. One of the biggest plus point for Flutter is, it gives the apps amazing ‘platforms awareness’, there by giving a great user experience. As React Native depends a lot on native system, customization gets limited scope.
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Flutter is backed by DART which is a comprehensive programming language
React Native is a JavaScript based framework, which is quite popular and allows development of cross-platform native apps. However, many a times, the developers use TypeScript or Flow to create apps using JavaScript. It requires extra abstraction layers to make the development process object oriented. DART on the other hand, is intuitive and it is a combination of everything that developers need.
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Better GUI (Graphical User Interface) for a pixel-perfect design on all devices
Flutter has its own graphics engine with a custom widget catalogue while React Native uses the OEM widgets from the system’s native UI components. So, the display may vary on different platforms for a React Native app but as Flutter has its own graphics, the app looks same on all platforms. So, if you want your app to use native UI elements, go for React Native and if you want uniform GUI across all platforms, go for Flutter.
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Growing developer community support for stronger Flutter ecosystem
The numbers of StackOverflow question views related to React Native has been in the range of 150,000 to 225,000 since the beginning of 2018. Interestingly, the same for Flutter had crossed 225,000 in the first 8 months of 2018. So, a strong developer community support is now available for Flutter, which is good for developers.
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Flutter’s functionality and configuration documentation is well-organized
Because React Native has been here for some years now, there is a lot of information available out there. And finding a specific answer in the chaotic documentation is a herculean task. On the other hand, Documentation of Flutter is extensive and comprehensive. The developers can get official tutorials, tips on best practises, and all kinds of useful resources on DART and Flutter very easily.
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The growing popularity of Flutter indicates, that’s what the people want
While comparing the market share, in terms of percentage of installs in new apps, Flutter has 0.61% market share with 0.87% of installs while ReactNative with 2.09% market share, has 0.68% of installs. Instagram, Zomato, Uber, Flipkart and Amazon Prime apps are created using React Native while Google Ads, Alibaba B2B, AppTree, Ulike and The Weather Network apps have been created using Flutter.
Ultimately, the App will depend on three basic things for a good performance: good device, good OS and good codes. We can’t control the first factor and we can manage the second factor by creating a cross-platform app. But the most important part is the third factor: Good Codes. If you are thinking about creating an app with Flutter as its framework, you need to make sure that you hire a team that can dole out good code bundles. You need an experienced team who have passion to learn the latest. IConflux offers you the best team of mobile app developers at the most cost-effective price. Contact us on [email protected].
