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There are many options for designing and building an app. You can use native methods, e.g. Swift and Objective C are used to create iOS apps, and Java is used for Android apps.
These are Apple and Google's official software programming languages. They provide support, as well as frequently updated features.
You can also use cross-platform frameworks like Flutter or React.
What Is Cross-Platform Application Development?
Let's first define "cross-platform application development" before we start and then divide it into two categories: Hybrid Development (for hybrid apps) and Native Development (for native apps).
Apps that are cross-platform can be created using a common codebase, and they function almost identically across both iOS and Android.
In this article, the focus is on mobile app development.
Hybrid Development
Hybrid apps use a combination of web technologies, such as HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript. Hybrid apps can share code between platforms (e.g.
The HTML/CSS/JS shared code is run in the webview of the target platform.
WebView apps, also known as hybrid apps, are hybrid apps that use embedded web views for rendering their user interface.
You can customize them using HTML5, CSS or JavaScript.
WebView apps may not be able to access the device API right out of the gate and will require additional work in order to get some of the functionality native apps offer.
These apps are cross-platform right out of the gate, saving time.
Apps that are hybrid may appear the same but behave differently on each platform, depending on the APIs they have access to.
E.g. A weather app could check on both platforms the API for the weather service of the current location and return data that differed depending on what was available on each platform.
Native Development
Native apps can be developed using the SDKs native to their respective platforms (e.g. Android or iOS). Android or iOS.
The code for each platform is unique and is only written once.
Native apps offer a better experience for users than hybrid apps. They also look more native across platforms. However, they are more expensive to develop.
It is best to use the native tools of your target platform (e.g. Android Studio (or Xcode) is a good choice.
Cross-Platform Frameworks: Flutter and React Native
Flutter and React Native both rank among the top cross-platform frameworks today.
Both frameworks use native widgets for a highly customizable and responsive UI while sharing code between different platforms.
These tech giants are both developing frameworks, Flutter and React Native, with large teams working on everything from documentation to support.
Flutter and React Native are both native apps, but they have an advantage over traditional native development as they can share significant portions of their codebase between platforms.
Instagram reports that the React Native feature on iOS and Android has a codeshare of over 90%.
History of Flutter Native
Flutter and React Native have become the most popular frameworks used by developers to build mobile apps. Both frameworks have revolutionized mobile app development by allowing developers to create highly-functional, fully-functional, and visually-appealing applications that work seamlessly on various platforms.
- Google created Flutter in 2017. Since then, the high performance, easy-to-use, and large library of widgets has made it a favorite among developers. Flutter is based on the Dart language. It was designed to be simple to use and learn. Flutter's feature of hot reload developers to see changes immediately in the app after making changes to code. This makes the development process more efficient.
- React Native, on the other hand, was developed by Facebook and is used widely by developers to build cross-platform mobile apps. React Native is a JavaScript-based platform that allows developers to build applications for both iOS and Android. React Native is popular because it provides a native-like experience for users even though the app was built with JavaScript.
It all depends on what the project needs are.
Flutter, for example, is known for being a high-performance and easy-to-use platform, which makes it a great choice for developing complex applications.
React Native provides a native experience for users and is perfect for applications that need a lot of animations and complex interaction.
Flutter and React Native both have their own unique strengths, and they have played an important role in the evolution of mobile app development.
It will be fascinating to see how, as technology advances, these frameworks innovate and push the limits of mobile app development.
How To Do Cross-Platform Development Frameworks Work?
Software tools called cross-platform development frameworks allow developers to develop applications that run smoothly across different operating systems and platforms.
- The frameworks allow developers to write code only once and deploy it on multiple platforms, such as iOS, Android, and Windows. This approach is also time-saving, as it eliminates the need to write code for each platform.
- These frameworks also work by utilizing a collection of libraries and tools which abstract away differences between platforms. These libraries enable developers to create platform-agnostic codes, which can be run on any platform.
Cross-platform frameworks offer a consistent experience for users across devices and platforms. It is also easier for developers, who only have to update one codebase, to maintain their applications.
Several cross-platform frameworks exist, including React Native (also known as React Native), Xamarin (also known as Xamarin), Flutter and Ionic.
Developers must select the framework that fits their needs. Each has its own features and benefits.
Cross-platform frameworks can be a useful tool for developers who want to create apps that run on multiple platforms.
These frameworks are a cost-effective way to create applications. They also reduce the development time and improve the user experience.
While cross-platform mobile frameworks have many similar features and concepts, each is designed with a different goal.
React Native is designed to combine native code performance with the ease of React web development. It is not the intention to share components between iOS, Android and the Web.
Instead, it is to wrap completely different UIs into a JavaScript bundle. This allows you to ship nearly half of your app's code at a time.
Flutter was developed primarily to satisfy Google's need for... Google. This is another attempt to marry fast development cycles and native code performance and build reusable UI elements that can be used in iOS and Android applications.
Google's Flutter, on the other hand, is much faster than React Native.
Flutter is also designed to make app development more accessible. It allows developers to write code in Dart, which can be learned over a weekend or mastered within a few days.
We believe Flutter is the best mobile framework for companies that need to quickly create a large number of native apps without sacrificing features or performance.
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Compare Flutter and React Native
The main difference between Flutter vs. React Native is that React Native doesn't compile its JavaScript into a mobile native language (Java Swift or Objective-C); it simply runs the JavaScript code.
Flutter compiles the Dart language to native code, which may impact performance.
React Native uses vanilla JavaScript instead of JSX to write components. Facebook developers recommend TypeScript or Flow when using React because of its dynamic nature.
Google also recommends Dart as a static typing system for Flutter.
We believe that the choice between these two technologies should be made based on your personal preferences rather than their features and capabilities.
It's important to be familiar with all the programming paradigms so that you can quickly pick up new frameworks and languages, even if you don't know them.
React Native is much easier for programmers who have experience with JavaScript (ES2015+), TypeScript/Flow, or TypeScript/Flow.
It is especially true for developers who have worked with React on the Web. There is a lot of overlap between React Native and React.
JavaScript has a large market share for mobile development. However, since both React Native (also known as Flutter) and React Native allow you to select your preferred programming language, there's no way to predict which will be the most popular by 2023.
Other factors, such as:
- Preference of companies for a particular technology stack
- Developers' familiarity with the given language/framework
- The availability of developers who have the skills required to use a particular technology
React Native and Flutter will both be major players in 2023. It's your choice which option is best for you.
Building Mobile Applications Is Now Fun!
- Google Flutter was announced, and developers were shocked by its performance in comparison to other technologies designed specifically for building cross-platform applications.
- React Native, which shares UI code with iOS and Android, was a good idea, but the resulting apps are not as performant as native ones due to React Native limitations.
- Flutter is a tool that comes with many features you won't find anywhere else. Dart, a powerful language designed specifically for mobile app development, is a great tool.
- Dart is the fastest available language for creating Android and iOS applications. It makes it easy to create performant UI components.
- Google can make important decisions on your behalf, so you can focus on what is really important: building apps.
Flutter comes with a complete set of tools and beautiful widgets similar to Material Design that developers can use in their apps.
Google has created integrations for 3rd-party libraries, such as image processing libraries that handle images efficiently and SQL databases made accessible via abstractions and text editors.
This is all presented to developers in a package designed for speed, simplicity, productivity and performance.
The Pros and cons of React Native and Flutter Native Apps
Flutter apps are virtually indistinguishable from native apps. The apps have the same performance, look and feel (except for some platform-specific styling aspects).
People usually complain when they build apps with React Native because its runtime environment is more complex than managing separate processes to support each architecture.
React Native will not allow you to achieve the performance of a native app, but you can come close.
Flutter doesn't offer the same benefits as React Native, such as supporting existing JavaScript codebases or allowing the reuse of certain components between iOS and Android apps.
Let's now dive deeper into the technical advantages and disadvantages of these two frameworks.
Native Performance: Pros and Cons
React Native includes a faster JavaScript virtual machine than V8 due to its JIT compiler. It is also a framework that has been compiled ahead of time, so you can ship any codebase because it will be compiled to a native executable.
React Native can be as fast as native apps in practice because it is able to achieve the same performance as an iOS app without having to make any changes to iOS build settings.
Once you build your project, Flutter's Ahead-of-time compiler will generate optimized code for iOS and Android. Like React Native, you can get native performance by not shipping the entire codebase with your application.
App Size: Pros and Cons
React Native apps come with a JavaScript Runtime that is about 300kb when gzipped. However, it's possible to reduce the size of this runtime by changing some options like Bypass Filling (which forces React Native not to fill its virtual DOM and instead compare it to the native UI) or by setting useDeveloperMode (which resizes images in memory to reduce their quality).
Flutter includes an advanced compiler that allows developers to only ship the codebase required for the application they are developing without having to bundle it with anything else.
If you wish, you can run Flutter within an existing JavaScript VM. This will save you space for your application.
Cons and Pros of the Minimum SDK Version Required
React Native is usually compatible with any iOS 9+ SDK or Android 5.0+ SDK. However, to get the best performance, it's important to use the latest SDK version available at the time you release it.
In practice, React Native can be built using older iOS and Android SDKs, but only a limited number of features are available at runtime.
To get all features, you will need to use the latest SDK version.
Apps can be developed for Android versions 21 (Lollipop) and later, but it is best to use the latest SDK version available.
Flutter is compatible with iOS 8 and newer, but some APIs can cause runtime crashes because Apple has deprecated many of the APIs Flutter relies on.
The Pros and Cons of UI Design
Flutter has its own widgets to render the UI. This means you can reuse your existing iOS or Android app code when creating Flutter apps.
Third-party libraries exist to make it easier to reuse native components. However, this is still progress in the making as it's not easy to map existing iOS and Android UI elements to Flutter widgets.
React Native includes a bridge that allows you to reuse your existing iOS and Android code in JavaScript modules.
It also exposes some APIs that allow you manually create the bridge between native UI components and the JavaScript code responsible for rendering them.
Read More: What Is React Native Complex Guide for 2023
Debugging: Pros and Cons
React Native has its own debugger, which can be added to an app running on iOS or Android. This gives developers a preview of what the JavaScript virtual machines are doing and provides various tools for inspecting the memory usage or tweaking certain options on the spot.
Flutter also comes with its debugger, which you can attach to your app running on iOS or Android. This gives developers a preview of what the rendering engine is doing at the moment.
It also provides various tools that allow them to inspect memory usage and tweak some options while on the go.
Pros and Cons of Code Reuse on Mobile Platforms
React Native has its own APIs, which can be used to develop both iOS and Android. While most React Native companies develop their apps first on iOS before porting to Android, you can also write components that are shared between iOS and Android if desired.
It is not possible to use the same code for both iOS and Android apps. Third-party libraries make it possible to reuse native components.
Which Is Easier To Learn, Flutter Or React Native?
React Native and Flutter both have similar APIs, but this depends on the developer's expertise. Both have an active and large developer community, which can assist new developers.
They also create new tools and components.
React Native is a good choice for a new developer who has little or no experience in coding. It comes with predefined components which can be used to create iOS and Android applications.
This allows you to learn one thing without worrying about all the APIs that are used to render views.
We would recommend Flutter to a developer who has some experience in coding because the APIs that Flutter offers are more similar to those found on iOS and Android.
The development team behind Flutter also focuses on making sure that Flutter's SDK can compete with other SDKs (including React Native).
The Best Flutter Backend
Although it may appear that a Backend as a Service like Google's Firebase is the ideal choice to support a Flutter application, the truth is quite different.
Cisin is a complete backend solution that's affordable for Flutter applications. Cisin Flutter SDK allows you to interact with Flutter Web for desktop and web apps as well as mobile apps.
Cisin contains all the necessary elements for a complete, scalable backend. These features include:
- Secure real-time database.
- User management and authentication.
- Cloud Code, including timers, event handlers and other server-side logic.
- Pub-sub messaging capability.
- Both Android and iOS can receive push notifications.
The Best Backend For React Native
React Native does not have an "on-brand" backend. React Native apps development, like Flutter, integrate well with BaaS platforms such as cisin.
cisin offers the same features for React Native developers as it does for Flutter developers. BaaS can help React Native developers maximize their efficiency by taking a lot of the backend development off their hands.
This allows them to concentrate on creating the best UI/UX.
Flutter vs. Native React in 2023
React Native was released in 2015 and has since been adopted by many companies. React Native, like the JavaScript world, has evolved to include new features over time, thanks to contributions from the open-source community.
Flutter is an entirely new technology and can be quite confusing to those who are used to the Android or iOS platforms.
Google has made it very easy to learn. Most people who are familiar with iOS and Android development will be able to pick it up quickly.
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Conclusion
Flutter and React Native both make excellent choices for developing cross-platform applications. They both have some similarities but also some differences you should know before choosing one.
The right cross-platform framework depends on a number of factors, including your experience in developing apps and your team's expertise, as well as the native elements that your app needs to be able to access.
This article is intended to help you make a more informed decision on which framework will work best for your next project.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between web development and mobile application development?
Both web development and mobile application development create online and offline applications. However, they do so in different ways.
Mobile apps run only on mobile operating systems such as iOS and Android, whereas web applications can be run by any device that has a web browser.
What is Flutter?
Google created Flutter, an open-source framework for mobile app development. It allows developers to build native mobile applications for Android and iOS using a single codebase.
What is React Native?
React Native, an open-source mobile app framework developed by Facebook is a free and open-source development platform.
It allows developers to build native mobile applications for Android and iOS using a single codebase.
Can React Native apps be developed for the Web using React Native?
React Native, however, is only a framework that allows you to create native mobile applications. React Native, however, is the mobile version of ReactJS, which is a popular web application framework.
This article compares both frameworks in detail.
Can Flutter be used for developing apps for the Web?
Yes. Flutter allows the generation of web content using web technologies based on standards, such as HTML and CSS.
You can compile Dart code into a web client that can be hosted on any website.
