Confused Between Flutter and React Native? Here’s Your Guide

With the growing need to build a mobile app, two frameworks have emerged as top contenders – React Native and Flutter. Both support building natively compiled apps for iOS and Android from a single codebase. But which one is better for your needs? Which one is worth it for your business software solutions?

This comprehensive guide will compare Flutter vs React Native across various parameters to help you make the right choice.

What is the need to compare? React Native vs Flutter

Cross-platform app development as a service is gaining popularity among businesses and enterprises of all types and sizes as it allows faster development and publishing to iOS and Android app stores without maintaining two separate native codebases. Flutter and React Native have emerged as two leading cross-platform development frameworks.

Both React Native and Flutter have their own merits and disadvantages. Comparing them head-to-head helps you understand their key differences so you can choose the right framework based on your app requirements, resources, and capabilities.

Some key reasons to compare Flutter and React Native:

• Understand their technical architecture and how they achieve cross-platform capabilities
• Evaluate performance, UI capabilities, documentation, etc.
• Assess which among Flutter or React Native aligns better with your app features and business needs
• Consider capabilities for building web apps in addition to mobile apps
• Gauge community support, availability of developers, and other resources
• Consider factors like app size, development speed, code maintainability, etc.
• Choose the SDK or framework that fits your budget and capabilities most appropriately

Flutter vs React Native: Essentials

An Overview of Flutter

Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit created by Google. It is used to develop cross-platform applications for Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows, Google Fuchsia, and the web from a single codebase.

The key highlights of Flutter are:

• Uses Dart programming language
• Has a fast-growing catalog of customizable widgets for building UI
• Hot Reload feature to quickly view code changes
• Excellent native performance through Flutter’s high-performance rendering engine
• Single codebase across mobile, web, and desktop

Flutter is commonly used for developing mobile apps, desktop apps, embedded devices, and web apps. Its robust architecture makes Flutter popular for complex apps with brand-first designs like e-commerce, logistics, social platforms, etc.

You can hire Flutter developers to build high-quality, cross-platform mobile apps leveraging Flutter’s powerful UI framework and hot reload capability. With Flutter’s extensive widget library, your developers can quickly build beautiful, responsive UI flows for iOS and Android from a single codebase. The hot reload feature enables faster iteration and experimentation during development.

An Overview of React Native

React Native is an open-source UI software framework created by Facebook. It is used to build native mobile apps for iOS and Android platforms using JavaScript and React.

Some key aspects of React Native:

• Uses React architecture for building user interfaces
• Builds mobile apps, not web apps
• JavaScript code is compiled into native app components
• Allow accessing native APIs through a bridge
• Near-native performance with some limitations
• Large ecosystem of third-party libraries and support

React Native is ideal for simpler apps like task management, apps with heavy forms, and apps prioritizing cross-platform code reuse. It has a lower learning curve for React developers. You can hire React Native developers to build mobile apps using popular JavaScript and React web technologies while still accessing native APIs and UI components.

Are React and React Native different?

With React Native, you benefit from reusable React components and patterns while platform-specific code is abstracted. Additionally, the asynchronous and event-driven architecture makes it easier to choose React Native for startups.

Different Perspectives Compared for React Native vs Flutter

Let’s compare them from various perspectives:

Developers’ perspective

Flutter

• Uses Dart programming language
• Widget-based UI building approach
• The steep learning curve for non-Dart developers
• Rapid prototyping with Hot Reload
• Limited IDE and debugging support
• Smaller widget ecosystem compared to React Native

React Native

• Uses JavaScript for coding
• Easier learning curve for React developers
• UI uses React architecture and native components
• Slower development due to compile cycles
• Excellent IDE support and debugging tools
• Huge ecosystem of third-party libraries

Designers’ perspective

Flutter

• Expansive catalog of customizable widgets
• Pixel-perfect control over iOS and Android designs
• Complex animations and gestures support
• Can completely customize UI beyond platform norms
• Performance tradeoff for highly customized UI

React Native

• Provides native UI components for each platform
• Follows iOS and Android design conventions
• Animation capabilities via libraries
• Easier to build simple, conventional UIs
• UI performance close to native apps

Business owners’ perspective

Flutter

• Faster time-to-market with a single codebase
• Completely custom UI designs and experience
• A steep learning curve can impact timelines
• A smaller pool of Flutter developers is available
• Lower mature ecosystem than React Native

React Native

• A large pool of React and JavaScript developers
• Slower initial development due to compile cycles
• Follows native UI conventions for simplicity
• Huge ecosystem of tools and support
• Proven framework with higher adoption

How do Flutter and React Native compare? The key differences

Flutter or React Native takes different technological approaches to enable cross-platform development. Let’s compare React Native and Flutter across various parameters:

Native performance comparison of Flutter and React Native

Flutter has a rendering engine that provides excellent native performance. Its widgets compile to native code, so the performance is very close to native apps. React Native provides native-like performance for most standard UI, but a JavaScript bridge is required for complex animations and gestures, which can impact performance.

In the context of better Flutter performance, it is worth noting that you must include the latest Flutter version to assure optimum functions and facilities with improvements like a faster Dart compiler, reduced app size, and enhanced scroll smoothness and launch times.

Apps built with Flutter’s latest version would benefit from the upgraded Dart compiler and the introduction of web-focused features like Fast Refresh. Users experience faster launch speeds, smoother scrolling behaviors, and more responsive performance.

Overall, Flutter for app development has a performance advantage over React Native, especially for advanced UI capabilities. But React Native performs well for simple, conventional UI requirements.

Building UI/UX for Flutter vs React Native

Flutter provides the maximum flexibility and customization for UI design. Flutter widget catalog allows pixel-perfect custom designs irrespective of platform conventions.

React Native provides native components that adhere to platform norms. The approach makes building apps with conventional UI easier but less flexible for custom designs. React Native depends on third-party libraries for complex animations.

For highly customized UI, Flutter is usually a better choice. React Native is preferable for apps that follow native UI conventions.

Code sharing with React Native and Flutter

Flutter app development framework allows the sharing of 100% code across iOS and Android. React Native allows code reuse for business logic, but UI code needs to be tailored for each platform.

Flutter has better bi-directional data binding support, reducing the need for UI-specific code. React Native requires writing platform-specific modules for any native capability.

Documentation for Flutter or React Native

React Native has been around longer and has excellent documentation with many resources and references. Flutter’s documentation is relatively new but rapidly improving with contributions from the Google team and Flutter community.

Debugging with React Native or Flutter

React Native offers powerful debugging tools, like Chrome Developer Tools, React developer tools, etc., that make debugging easy. Flutter is still catching up in this regard, and its tools, like DevTools, are still evolving. Debugging is trickier in Flutter currently.

App size for Flutter and React Native

Flutter apps are larger than the equivalent React Native apps. A default Hello World Flutter app can be around 7 MB, while for React Native, it could be around 5 MB. This gap in app size remains as the apps grow larger.

Web development – Flutter vs React Native

React Native currently does not support building web apps – its focus is only on mobile apps for iOS and Android. Flutter can compile web apps using standards like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in addition to mobile apps. So, using Flutter for web development provides a distinct advantage over React Native.

Flutter is still maturing its web capabilities, while React JavaScript provides a much stronger ecosystem for web development. React or ReactJS, as it is widely known, is the base language used with React Native. But Flutter also allows reusing mobile app code for building web apps, which React Native does not support.

Flutter application has enhanced security thanks to Flutter’s layered architecture, use of Dart, robust platform interop, and protection against common vulnerabilities. Flutter’s code is structured in layers for better separation between UI, business logic, and data layers. Dart helps prevent issues like SQL injection or XSS. Access to native platform features is carefully controlled.

When to choose React Native and when to choose Flutter? – Making the right choice

Consider Flutter if:

• You need excellent native performance for complex visuals, animations, gestures, etc.
• Pixel-perfect custom UI designs are a priority over platform conventions
• You want extensive control over visual design and experience
• Code reuse across mobile, web, and desktop is required
• Fast prototyping is important
• App size is not a major concern

Consider React Native if:

• You have React experience or JS/Web developers on the team
• Following native platform UI conventions is preferable
• There is a need for a huge ecosystem of third-party libraries
• Development speed is a priority over extensive customization
• Your app UI is fairly simple and conventional
• You want mature community support and proven technology

Flutter vs React Native: In a nutshell

Parameter	Flutter	React Native
Launched	May 2017	March 2015
Created by	Google	Facebook
Architecture	Skia graphics engine	React framework
Programming language	Dart	JavaScript
Native API access	Platform channels	Native bridge
UI building	Widgets	Components + APIs
Learning curve	Steep	Easier for React developers
Performance	Very high	Comparable to native
Developer Community	Growing	Large and mature

Flutter and React Native both enable building cross-platform apps but take different approaches. Flutter offers maximum UI flexibility, while React Native prioritizes convention. Performance, documentation, ecosystem, etc., also vary for both the platforms and their purposes.

For highly customized UI, Flutter is recommended. For simpler apps, React Native is easier. Evaluate React Native and Flutter app development frameworks against your specific app needs and development capabilities to make the right choice. This guide is intended to highlight their key differences on multiple parameters to help you decide the best one for your business objectives and project scopes.