Flutter vs React Native: Head to Toe Comparison

Quick Summary:

Being a product owner, if you are baffled in choosing the right mobile app framework for your business and dangling between the two giant frameworks, Flutter vs React Native, then this blog post is for you.

This blog post will clarify your thoughts and help you become decisive as you move forward with the comparison aspects with stages of performance, popularity, technical architecture, learning curve, testing, community support, and other such parameters for React Native vs Flutter comparison.

Preface

Flutter vs React Native 2022, let’s decide what’s the best for you and how to choose between the two. After the years of gossip, rumors, and cold wars, both technologies are going to be answered in today’s tech press conference. Last year, there was constant debate amongst the development community on Flutter vs React Native 2021.

Both the cross-platform frameworks have successfully proven to minimize the time to market, and hence the selection becomes even more difficult. By the end of the guide, you will come to know things that will help you choose the right app development partner framework for your business. We’ve added a final check on hiring cost comparison of both the frameworks’s developers.

Overview: Flutter vs React Native

Before discussing either of the frameworks in detail, here is a basic definition for you to understand the concept better. In the opening round, let’s begin with the React Native and Flutter introduction.

What is Flutter?

Developed by Google, Flutter is programmed with the Dart programming language. It is open-source. Developers use this framework as an improved UI toolkit to build cross-platform applications by relying on its single codebase. Flutter is the most suitable UI SDK for all platforms like Linux, Mac, Android, Windows, iOS, and web apps. Using the framework, you can also develop flexible and expressive UI and native performance.

There is a common belief that the programming done in Dart is a bit faster to run than React Native. Though Dart’s syntax complements the statement, the object-oriented concept can be a complex factor in learning.

What is React Native?

React Native is a well-known open source JavaScript framework that holds specialization in rendering native apps. The framework is highly compatible with iOS and Android. It uses the combination of XML and JavaScript Esque mark-up JSX. React Native enables developers to create native elements and user interfaces that seem to have a native look and feel.

Pros and Cons of Flutter and React Native

Both frameworks have their own set of advantages and disadvantages to offer. Let’s have a look at them one by one.

Flutter: Pros

• It has a rich set of widgets available that comply with Cupertino(iOS) guidelines and material design(Android).
• Flutter’s power function lies in the hot reloading feature, which shows alterations in the output without losing the state of the application.
• The framework empowers its developers for seamless integration, which doesn’t ask for re-writing the code because Flutter itself implements Objective C or Swift for iOS and Java for Android.
• Offers quick shipping by swift iteration cycles because developers need to store and test for a single codebase.
• Enables code sharing across various platforms, which is ideal for MVP development.

Flutter: Cons

• Despite having attractive and impressive tools and plugins, it lacks as many as its competitor React Native.
• Flutter lacks in the user interface because its animation support and vector graphics find it difficult to provide plugins on time.
• Developers can not build apps for android auto, watchOS, tvOS, and CarPlay using Flutter.
• You cannot push patches and updates instantly into the applications without going through Flutter’s standard release progress.

React Native: Pros

• React Native uses Native rendering- the host platform to natively help APIs without needing CSS mark-up or HTML.
• It maintains its high performance for certain applications by mimicking the authentic UI components.
• It provides you with intelligent debugging and error reporting tools.
• The framework holds a rich ecosystem that supports UI third-party libraries to naturally re-render the application appearance with every state alteration.
• It provides you with the hot-reloading feature to attach new codes directly to the live application.

React Native: Cons

• React Native does not support the specific native components, but it completely supports APIs’ native rendering.
• It does not support parallel multiprocessing and multithreading. Hence, developers find React Native low performance more often.
• It does not have in-built plugins and tools. Hence, you will have to use third-party tools that often tend to be outdated.
• It has a chrome debugger, and thus you might find it inconvenient to inspect codes or edit UI elements easily.

Flutter vs React Native in 2022: A Detailed Comparison

Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit for creating beautiful, natively compiled, multi-platform apps from a single codebase. At the same time, React Native is an open-source UI software framework for developing apps for Android, Android TV, iOS, macOS, tvOS, Web, Windows, and UWP. It also allows developers to use the React framework and native platform capabilities.

React Native has dominated the market since 2015 and though Flutter came two years after but is giving tough competition to React Native. This head-to-head hustle between these frameworks gives rise to the curiosity about which of the two is better. Let’s give you a cure to this curiosity with a Flutter vs React Native Comparison Table. After that, we would jump onto the Flutter vs React Native detailed comparison.

Above given was a brief comparison table between the two frameworks. Let’s jump onto the other detailed aspects of the Flutter vs React Native comparison.

At Bacancy, we are familiar with React Native and Flutter platforms, as we are using them on a regular basis.
To choose between Flutter or React Native based on experience, get in touch with our cross-platform mobile app expert.

Flutter vs React Native Popularity

Popularity plays a massive role in choosing which is better, Flutter or React Native. Isn’t it? Let’s take a look at the renowned Stack Overflow Survey 2022. Regarding the survey, in terms of popularity, Flutter beats React Native with 12.64% votes, while React Native stays below Flutter with 12.57% votes. But, if we dig a bit deeper into the survey and consider the professional developers, React Native beats Flutter with 13.62% votes, while Flutter stays with 12.56%. However, considering people learning to code, the table turns to Flutter again with 17.63% votes, and React Native stays with 11.39% votes.

According to the TIOBE index 2022, JavaScript (React Native) maintained 7th place among the most popular programming languages last year. This isn’t surprising considering the number of frameworks and solutions where it is used. Dart’s popularity plummeted to 32nd place just last year. The peak of its popularity matches Flutter’s first release date.

With this data, we can easily infer that when it comes to popularity React Native is more prevalent among professional developers while Flutter is taking up pace among people learning to code. However, it is not a deciding factor that one is better than the other.

React Native is more dominant in application development, while Flutter came in 2017, two years after React Native, but still has managed to beat React Native in popularity.

On this note, we can conclude that referring to the survey, Flutter beats React Native with a minor difference.

Flutter vs React Native Market Trends and Further Technologies Evolution

Since February 2020, the volume of users searching for Flutter in Google exceeded those of React Native. This trend is an early sign of future growth and market distribution potential.

React Native is more experienced in the market compared to Flutter which is the main reason it dominates cross-platform development. However, Flutter seems to be on the right track, as its adoption rate is growing quicker. It’s time before Flutter overtakes the market’s leadership.

Flutter vs React Native Ecosystem

Flutter was introduced in 2017, which is 2-years after React Native; So, frankly, Flutter is behind React Native in terms of its ecosystem, providing a competitive edge to React Native over Flutter. However, Flutter is picking up the pace with many mobile development core packages for public use. Thanks! To the dedicated community. Presently, there are over 23,000 packages available for Flutter.

As mentioned earlier, React Native was introduced 2-years before Flutter in 2015, which allows React Native to have a considerable set of development packages and impacts developers. React Native also supports hot reload, and being a senior in the arena, it is more mature and stable than Flutter.

Community Support for React Native and Flutter

The community has never been a concern for either React Native or Flutter. Both frameworks have tremendous community support, with React Native having 105k stars on Github while Flutter having 145k stars on Github.

No doubt that React Native has a larger community that has brought many ready-to-use libraries and packages though sometimes it is an issue to choose one from several similar solutions for one problem.

At the same time, Flutter came two years later, but as Google backed it since the beginning so has taken up a tremendous pace in terms of community. It offers better documentation and limited pre-set widgets, which are updated timely.

Comprehensively, Flutter has more qualities than work, while React Native requires researching and connecting third-party libraries.

React Native vs Flutter - Minimal Required SDK Version

React Native can quickly be built against iOS 9 or above or Android 5.0 or above SDK. However, you can create React Native apps against versions of iOS and Android SDKs but with a limited set of features. But it’s always better to choose the latest SDK versions before release, to achieve optimal results.

You can build Flutter apps in Android version 5.0 or above. But, as mentioned above, you must go with the latest SDK version to obtain the best optimal performance. For iOS, Flutter is suitable for iOS 8 or above but calling some APIs sometimes results in runtime crashes as Apple has deprecated most of the APIs that Flutter uses.

Flutter vs React Native Documentation

This segment makes Flutter more extensive and detailed than React Native, as Flutter has perfectly structured documentation that answers all your queries. Though its development process is slow, it is still the ideal choice for many product owners due to its well-defined and extensive documentation. The only backlog you would face in Flutter documentation is that you must visit docs.flutter.io ( the open-source website for Flutter documentation) to check something. However, the documentation is so well-structured that the inconveniences are barely noticeable.

But, even after this extensive documentation, there is a common belief among a segment of the community that the library of Flutter is not as well-structured as the library of React Native.

Compared to the Flutter documentation, React Native documentation is not as extensive but is more user-friendly. The reason is that the React Native documentation contains more illustrative content than hard-core technical. It includes guides and popular topics every product owner wants more of, making it preferred by a vast portion of the community.

Flutter vs React Native UI Components

🟠 Flutter UI Components
Flutter has a rich set of components when compared to React Native. The framework includes many UI rendering components, navigation, libraries, API access, and many more that allow you to build exceptional apps. The widgets offered by Flutter make UI designing on Android and iOS a cakewalk. It is 100 percent customized, using its widgets. And this is the key advantage of Flutter over React Native as the widgets are automatically consistent with Material Design for Google and Cupertino for Apple.

🟠 React Native UI Components
React Native doesn’t possess as rich a component set as Flutter and uses third-party or custom components. The result can often be called the patchwork effect in the code. It only furnishes UI rendering, relying on third-party libraries to access native modules. The developer community often believes React Native is far more dependent on third parties than needed. However, in comparing which is better, Flutter or React Native, Flutter wins the day.

Flutter vs React Native Performance Comparison

Flutter vs React Native Performance is quite debatable. Here is a quick comparison for you to understand the performance of the two better.

Compared to React Native, Flutter is undoubtedly faster and superior. It is an excellent fit for CPU-heavy operations and memory standpoints. Hence, if your application requires attractive animations and exclusive UI, you know which one to choose! Of course, Flutter.

Flutter has its animation standard set at 60 FPS, which is enough to present its performance. It is also directly compiled into the native ARM code for iOS and Android, which again doesn’t hamper its performance. A simple Hello World APK file in Flutter might turn up around 5.6 MB, which is pretty good. It will be lightweight, hence performant.

Although React Native is a power-packed framework, it lacks performance. It uses the combination of native and javascript languages specifically. Hence, developers need additional interactions to keep their application performance fast and smooth. The basic Hello World APK file size in React Native will turn out to be 8 MB, which is comparatively larger than that of Flutter.

🟠 Desktop Performance
Considering a comprehensive benchmark study of JavaScript and Dart by Debian, they have performed under ten scientific tasks and illustrated use cases to specify the technologies’ strong and weak points. Execution time demonstrates performance and memory consumption—resources efficiency.

Now you know JS executes faster than Dart and consumes lesser memory, making JS more powerful and resource-efficient on desktop devices for server programming and other environments that are “native” to it. That also gives React Native a solid head start for the rest of the platforms and devices.

Considering the performance study by the Startup community on Medium of native and cross-platform approaches in mobile app development. They ran multiple tests on real Android and iOS smartphones and compared the execution time for Pi-digits calculations implemented with Flutter and React Native. Check out the unexpected results in the table below.

You can now observe that React Native is slower than FLutter in all aspects; hence, under this, Flutter takes one point over React Native.

🟠 Web Performance
React is the king of website development, and JS is one of the primary front-end languages, along with HTML and CSS. On the other hand, Dart is not a very popular language in web development. It doesn’t have any decent advantages on the web, ready-made infrastructure, and solutions compared to JS, PHP, Java, or Ruby.

You can build a website from Flutter mobile app code very fast, and it will probably perform even faster than a mobile app. However, if the site’s performance is crucial, you should better consider making it with different technology tailored specifically for the web.

So, the ability to create a website with Flutter is more of a nice-to-have feature that increases time to market significantly in case you have a working prototype of a respective mobile app.

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Hire React Native developer from us who are well-versed at fulfilling the varying parameters such as security, scalability, reliability, user experience, testability, and so on.

Flutter and React Native Application Architecture

In the battle between React Native vs Flutter application architecture, what you choose for your application depends on what these two frameworks have in their pocket. Let’s check who is the winner of Flutter vs React Native development speed.

Flutter follows a layered architecture, be it web or Flutter mobile application architecture. If the developers want a separate presentation layer and business logic, they must consider using the Flutter BLoc architecture.

Flutter uses Skia, an open-source 2D graphics rendering library that provides common APIs that work across various hardware and software platforms and the Dart language VM in a platform-specific shell. It compiles Dart’s source code priorly, creating native code. This point is critical. Its code is a simple and fast solution, integrating seamlessly with iOS or Android.

Flutter is free from the hassle of programming bridges for making things functional. There are no need of programming bridges to make things work. This part only gives Flutter an upper hand over React Native due to its design.

React Native uses a bridge between the native thread and the JavaScript thread. With this functioning, the JavaScript code communicates with the native API. React Native mobile app architecture uses JavaScriptCore to function in iOS and Android apps.

React Native vs Flutter Compatibility, App Features, and CI/CD

Flutter supports several resolutions on various devices having Android 4.1+ or iOS 8+, while React Native supports Android 4.1+or iOS 10+. React Native and Flutter require add-on native development under a few sensitive features. Though writing native parts can be hard to crack, it reduces the maintenance benefits of using cross-platform development as it requires different resources to make minor changes.

Moreover, it takes more time and effort compared to native Android or iOS development. Widgets in Flutter and ready-made libraries in React Native often contain native code injections too. This enables near-native performance with complex features and communication with devices’ hardware.

The Flutter vs React Native App Features include:

• Geolocation and Mapping: Flutter has many official plugins by Google that offer an exceptional experience when used for tracking features in the apps already released. React Native, on the other hand, works like a charm for one-time location tracking. Still, sometimes it could be an issue when continuously tracking, which can be resolved by creating some parts in native device programming languages.
• Camera, Video Chats and Streaming: With normal camera usage, Flutter didn’t observe any issues but React Native observed some issues that need additional time, investment, and resources to resolve and achieve optimal performance. Flutter enables using some external plugins for custom video chats, but choosing the right one can be daunting. However, considering the paid solutions, a few can be handy. With React Native, you can do it natively.
• Analytics: React Native and Flutter; support popular 3rd party analytics solutions like Google Analytics, Firebase, AppsFlyer, and Adjust. Flutter performance is unaffected using the analytics tools, but React Native observed a few performance drops if there are many analytic events to report.
• Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD): Flutter allows you to deploy your app using the CLI or the command-line interface. However, the CI/CD tools for the iOS app store are a bit complex and need additional effort. React Native, on the other hand, doesn’t have any integrated tool or official documentation on this topic but has several renowned third-party CI/CD services support like Fastlane, Gitlab CI/CD, Github Actions, and Microsoft AppCenter.

Flutter and React Native Testing

This is another essential aspect of choosing a particular framework for smoothly carrying out your business operations. Below is the testing capacity of both frameworks.

Flutter serves the developers extensively with the automated Flutter unit test because of its powerful object-oriented programming language, Dart. It provides detailed documentation for performance testing in Flutter apps at all levels- integration, widget, and unit level.

Officially, React Native does not support UI level or integration testing. However, it has a few unit levels for the React Native testing library. The best part is that developers can use Apium, Detox, unearth bugs, etc., tools to test react native apps. Developers need to deploy their apps using Xcode.

Flutter vs React Native Market Share

Under the Statista graph, Flutter is overpowering React Native quite well. It stands on top of the list. The previous year has grown from 38% to 42% in the flutter market share.

Tip: If you choose between flutter vs react native app development, community support plays an essential role in the selection process.

Following the same report, React Native stands second after Flutter in the list of cross-platform applications with a 38% market share.

Learning Curve of React Native vs Flutter

Learning React Native or Flutter is no rocket science; both are easy to learn when it comes to APIs, though it is relative to the developer’s expertise. React Native and Flutter have extensive communities readily available for assistance and consistently working on new tools and components for new developers.

Coming onto the details, the concept here is easy. If you know the basics of javascript, then getting used to/learning React Native is relatively easy. However, note that you should thoroughly know arrays, array manipulation, Node.js, and React.
React Native is preferable for new developers as it has predefined components that are handy in building iOS and Android apps. You can learn one thing at a time without worrying about knowing all the APIs used for rendering views.

Comparatively, Flutter is new to the developers. Hence, beginners may find it challenging to learn Flutter’s programming language, Dart, from scratch.
But, Flutter is ultimately recommended over React Native for experienced developers as the APIs offered by Flutter are similar to that of iOS and Android. Additionally, Flutter is focusing more on competing with the development experience of React Native and other SDKs.

React and Flutter both can provide significant security for mobile apps to comply with regulatory requirements like HIPAA. The min. Suggested measures are as follows:

• Better to store less data on the client-side
• Better to use lesser third-party libraries
• Authentication tokens should expire as soon as the user leaves the app or lock the screen; additional login verification should be requested
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
• Data encryption for mobile client data stored

Flutter vs React Native Developer Rates Comparison

Cost is the most crucial factor in deciding the framework for your project. Here is a cost comparison for hiring a Flutter developer and React Native developer based on Glassdoor statistics.

Here is a straightaway cost comparison table comparing the React Native app development cost and Flutter app development cost.

React Native vs Flutter - Top Companies using these Frameworks

Regarding Futter vs React Native, both frameworks have made a mark for themselves in the market with their features and amenities. And this can also be realized with the names of a few giants who have entrusted React Native or Flutter for their products.

React Native vs Flutter - Use Cases

We have done a lot of research, conducted several checks and surveys, and brought you a list of apt use cases that would help you make a better decision in React Native vs Flutter for your web app development based on your needs and requirements. Let’s have a look:

Flutter Use Cases

• Apps running on OS-level features
• Apps having a material design
• High-performance applications with Skia-rendering engine
• MVP mobile apps
• Advanced OS plugins with simple logic
• Flexible UIs with enhanced widgets
• Reactive apps with massive data integration

React Native Use Cases

• Apps having remarkable and responsive UX using Flexbox
• Apps with simplified and easy UI
• Quick prototype apps
• Synchronous APIs
• Apps using reusable components

React Native vs Flutter Comparison: When to Use What?

You can choose React Native when:

• You want to scale your existing app with cross-platform modules.
• When developing a lightweight native app.
• To generate out-of-the-box shared APIs.
• When your project budget is high, you have sufficient development time.
• When you aim to create an application with an asynchronous build and a high-responding UI.

You can choose Flutter when:

• Your project deadline is strict, and you have a limited budget.
• When you wish to deduce development costs by writing a single codebase for various platforms.
• When you are not bound to develop native functionality.
• When you want to write codes rapidly and launch them into the market fast.
• You need to personalize UI with widgets and less testing.
• You are focusing on creating high-performing applications.

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Connect with us today and hire Flutter developer to build fast and successful application development using Flutter

Flutter vs. React Native: Which one is better for 2022?

Finding a clear winner is the most tedious task when the battle is between two aces in the arena. Similarly, for React Native vs Flutter, finding a clear winner is difficult. But, you can choose the ideal framework for your web app development based on your needs and requirements.

Flutter has vast community support, which is increasing by the day, as with React Native. Flutter has very extensive documentation, while developers like the user-friendly documentation of React Native. React Native uses JavaScript, renowned among developers, while Flutter uses Dart, which is not as renowned in the market. Though Flutter is growing at a tremendous pace but still lacks behind React Native in terms of preference of expert developers as they still prefer going with React Native in comparison to Flutter as per Stack Overflow Survey 2022. So, you can choose either of the two as both frameworks would be an ideal choice for your project.

Conclusion

This blog discusses the detailed comparison between React Native and Flutter without bias. The motive is to help developers to select the appropriate programming language between Flutter vs React Native in 2022 that best suits their needs and skills.

Although Flutter is a powerful competitor to React Native at some points, both overtake each other in specific fields. At Bacancy, we empower all our skilled developers with the Agile methodology for software development, which will benefit your business. Depending on your business requirements, you might want to choose the best Flutter app development company or React Native app development company.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Is Flutter faster than React Native?

Yes, the Flutter app’s performance is much better than that of React Native application.

Is Flutter more difficult to learn than React Native?

As React Native came to the market much early than Flutter, developers do take more time to learn and adapt Flutter. But, it has superb documentation which helps developers clarify their doubts.

Flutter vs React Native- which has a better future scope?

Looking at the Google trends, Flutter has an improved scope in the future.

Is React Native going to be dead?

Of course, Flutter is giving React Native a tough competition in terms of performance, features, documentation, and portability, but looking at the strong history of React Native, and its popularity, it is no way going elsewhere out of the market.