The development of mobile apps has changed the whole concept of development in the world of technology. There are about 3.6 million smartphone users in the world and is increasing faster assuming the number to go to 7.6 million in the Year 2027. This increasing number shows how important is to create, develop and design mobile apps with new solutions which are less time and effort-consuming. Talking about the year 2021, there were two main hybrid app development frameworks, Flutter VS React Native. The common thing between them was they both kept on becoming popular in their own ways.
If you observe the pie chart above, you will notice that during the years, slowly and gradually, the number of smartphone users are assumed to increase sharply. Talking about mobile app development, choosing the right framework is the most important aspect in terms of productivity and the set of features the app must work. Therefore, it is important to choose the right flutter developer or the React Native developer who can understand the aim and goal of the mobile app which needs to be developed. If the productivity is not met and the app is not designed as it should be, there is a possibility where due to a low-quality designed app can cause overheating in the user’s device and can malfunction.
Here comes the role of cross-platform and native platform development. We can particularly mention the two main streams of cross-platform development framework – Flutter VS React Native.
Before we understand who we need to choose – whether we should hire flutter developer or go further to hire React Native Developer, we should understand which cross-platform framework is best for our project. What are the main differences between both platforms?
Flutter VS React Native: Main Difference
Before we initiate the process of hiring developers who are suitable for the project, we must know the general difference between both the cross-platform. This piece of information will help you understand to choose the right platform for the mobile app development project.
| Aspect | Native Platform | Cross-platform |
| Talent Aspects | Native Developers are found after analyzing many developers, hard to find, expensive, and specialized with the development skills as they focus on the single platform | As Cross Platform developers are in demand now, they are found easily (Cross-platform has gained every developer’s attention, resulting in its popularity). Cross-platform examples are React Native and Flutter. |
| Costs depends on the deployment process on multiple platforms | Mostly Native platforms are required to develop the code from scratch. The processes are not easily automated and so it becomes more expensive and time consuming process to develop the apps. | Cross platform is a platform designed in a way that the projects are compiled on all the targeted platforms. This makes many things automated and results into cst saving and timelessness process of mobile app development. |
| Project Accomplishment Time | Native platform takes less time in coding and completing the project in comparison to Cross platforms. However when we talk about the project to run on different platforms, native development requires new code for every new platform for compilation | Cross platforms take time to code the development from scratch but when the code is completed, there is no requirement to coding a whole app for the new platforms to run on. However, there are possibilities of hindrance according to the platform the app needs to run on. |
| Challenges | The challenge on the native platform is the app’s design and functionality which can be restricted by a target platform. However, the features inherent from the platform are easy to implement | The features which cannot be implemented by the target platform and if needed, is to implement by hand by coding. |
| Target Audience exposure | Depending on the platform, the target audience who chooses Native platform is low. | Due to the high popularity and easy implementation, cross platform target audience coverage is high. |
| Performance | Native apps have the speciality of utilizing the hardware they work on in the best possible way. They are easier to fix the bug and improve the version of the mobile apps developed. | There are possibilities that the app performance might differ on different platforms. Some elements might not be available in the different platforms and might not render properly in the way it should be |
The differences show that choosing the Cross platform will help the mobile app development process make more easier, cost effective and timely to accomplish and complete the project. Talking about the most popularized two cross platform, React Native and flutter, now the question arises that which one to choose from both?
Lets get introduce to both the platforms.
Flutter
Flutter is an interface development tool which uses Dart programming language. In simple words, layman words, it’s a Google Ui framework.
Flutter uses single code base to target different platforms like desktop, mobile and web. It uses its own Dart compiler to develop hardware optimized apps for ARM architecture.
The Pros of Flutter
Even though, mobiles have dominated everyone’s day to day lives, it never means that flutter is limited to mobile apps only. Flutter is used for development of different platforms like:
Flutter embedded, Flutter Web, and Flutter Desktop
There are advantages of choosing Flutter and hiring flutter developer for the project of development. Describing the advantages:
- Faster Development and Deployment
- Quality Documentation
- Feature rich user interface
- Compatibility with older version devices
With every advantage of anything even if it is a framework, there comes a disadvantage. Flutter also has its own disadvantages.
- Framework age : As the flutter is young, building new and complex projects sometimes become difficult due to low volume of use cases.
- Dynamic Evolution : More changes to the development environment in less time means it will have an effect on the product’s behaviour every time it updates.
- Project Size : Flutter’s Ui with stability and integrity comes with a price to be paid. This means, the project files covers more space in comparison to the other files created with different tools.
React Native
React Native was one of the popular platforms at the time of year 2018. React native is a Facebook led Ui framework which is developed from React JS. This platform is an open source platform making the github repository the top second judging by the community contribution numbers.
Not just flutter comes with advantages and disadvantages. React Native also have some advantages and some disadvantages.
React is probably the best software to be named as it is real easy to find a JavaScript developer now a day. The demands of these React Native developers are on the peak. The advantages can help you to choose whether to hire react native developer which will be suitable to work on the project development or not.
- Platform specific Native components
- Web and ReactXP libraries
- Popularity of the platform
- Excellent performance work on natively built apps
- Hot Reload
- CodePush
- Github repository with 2200 contributors to make it better
The way we have advantages, in the same way we have disadvantages
- Poor Documentation
- Libraries which might not fit to implement the functionality of the project
- Partial independence from Native platform
So who will you choose to Hire? Flutter Developer or React Native Developer?
Flutter and reactnative both the frameworks are popular levels and ad ain the attention of software developers, due to its popularity in software development where they share the similar features. With no doubts both the cross platforms are good on their individual positions to build a mobile cross platform MVP where the developers keep the possibility of reusing the code and extended with any of the free official or community provided adorns. They both are known for reducing time to market and project expenditures while developing for multiple and diverse platforms. For choosing the best developers whether it is use to hire a flutter developer or react native developer it is important to know the differences between both the developers.
Support form flutter VS react naïve platform
Flutter not only targets web and mobile but also desktop and embedded. It is used when the app is used in any kind of device like phone, tablet, laptop or a vehicle infotainment system screen.
Performance for react native VS flutter
Flutter is best in overall performance where it comply to native codes. However, flutter runs into performance issues when a particular graphic Is not optimise periodically.
Easy use of Flutter Vs. React native
There is no doubt, when the former JAVA script developers mention that it is easier to learn react native than flutter. It is because flutter requires the knowledge of DART programming language.
Which one is best as managing project size : Flutter or React Native?
React Native is popular for being more lightweighted. Eventhough, it is not really important to give the importance to the project size these days, it affects a lot which adding a new feature to the app.
The Most Important question to ask: which one is better to choose for your app?
Both the frameworks are young and are not really rock stable at a moment. In world of technology and software developments, performance drops can happen at any time. However, both are getting improved by their developers and the community of developers. So which one to choose?
Looking towards the advantages and disadvantages of both the frameworks, we can conclude that Flutter is the advanced solutions to go forward with. Hiring flutter developer can provide you the advance solution for your mobile app development projects. Despite of the fact that react developers are easier to find, flutter is backed up by Google makes a serious alternative and competitive against hiring React native developer.
Moreover to this, flutter comes up with its own rendering engine which provides with the creation of genuinely unique designs but with the expense of more weighted project sizes. Because of these reasons, you can totally go further with hiring flutter developer for your project.
Some frequently Asked Questions
- General Difference between Flutter and react native
The first one is backed up by Google and Dart programming language is used. But the other one is led by Facebook and JavaScript is used. However both are open source and community contributions are accepted by them.
- Which one is faster?
Dart is the faster as it produces various binary codes for different platforms whereas React Native shows low performance.
- Which one is better overall?
Flutter is better in terms of performance, features and portability when compared to React Native.