Two dominant mobile application platforms – iOS and Android is accounting over 99% of the app development market. Businesses often need to make a difficult choice, when it comes to choosing an application development platform, such as iOS vs. Android first or native vs cross platform application development. Considering all the relevant factors involved, entrepreneurs need to choose between lower cost of development and native performance.
React Native: Cost-Effective Alternative To Native App Development And Far Superior To Other Hybrid Frameworks
Unlike most of the cross-platform and hybrid tools, React Native is a viable alternative to the native iOS and Android application development. It lets you develop native applications faster in term of time and at an economic cost without compromising the end product. In this article, I will cover the pros of React Native and will share my thoughts on how it compares with other cross-platform tools and technologies, including React Native vs. Xamarin and React Native Vs. Ionic.
iOS and Android
More and more mobile and web developers are getting into the application of building ecosystem. As per the stateofjs.com, 78% of programmers are curious in learning React Native – a new kid on the block. React Native has a 92% interest and satisfaction rating and that too for a very legit reason.
Web, Hybrid Or Native Apps? What’s The Difference?
There are 3 proven ways to develop mobile applications:
- Native:
- Hybrid:
- Mobile Web:
Phone applications that run on Native code – Objective-C or Swift for iOS and Java for Android
Pros: Performs well
Phone apps with a browser view that run on HTML5
Pros: Economic development as only required to write one set of code for both iOS and Android
HTML5 apps are already loaded in your mobile browser.
Pros: Users can access the application by writing a URL in their browser rather instead of downloading from the app or play store. Only required to write one set of code for iPhones, Android phones and web.
Why do we use React Native?
React Native let the developers write one set of Javascript code and enjoy a performance of a native application. React Native is superior then Native and Hybrid applications for the 4 key reasons that I have listed below.
- Community- Driven
- Cross-platform
- Reusability
- Maintainability
React Native framework incepted as a hackathon effort in 2013 responding to the need of the software developer community. There was a clear need for mobile alternative that would leverage the benefits of mobile app development with the agility and power of the native React environment. It resulted in React Native framework, developed by Facebook and supported by the development community.There are other significant advantages of community-driven environment with a huge team of enthusiastic JS and native developers to avail their expertise and knowledge of freely available components.
Initially and originally it was specifically developed for iOS support; however, due to its success and popularity, Facebook decided to offer its support for Android as well. So, the development for both iOS and Android both can be done through React Native simultaneously through one code base that undoubtedly translates to lower development costs.
It’s a significant key in React Native. Building blocks are treated as the native components and can be easily compiled directly into the languages of Java for Android and Objective-C for iOS. Typically, web development approach is agile and more rapid. React Native offers the same speed in mobile app development without sacrificing quality as well as usability.
React Native makes use of JavaScript, combined with the intuitive architecture of the framework that allows developers to jump from each other’s projects with relative ease. Various parts of a specific application written in React Native will have no trouble uniting with parts written in the native languages for iOS or Android.
React Native programmer is commissioned to develop an app for both operating systems. The workflow would comprise writing most of the code on React Native and then making use of native languages to optimize certain fundamentals of the application. However, it is completely up to the software programmer as how he wants to develop new applications. Along with optimizing an application, it can also be used to write part of the application. Without any trouble, native elements can be combined in React Native.
It is possible to place React Native components into the existing application’s codebase. Live reload let the developers see real-time changes as you’re writing code that makes the process of developing an app much more efficient as well as intuitive.
What Does This Mean For You?
React Native makes use of JavaScript, combine with the intuitive architecture of the framework that allows developers to jump from each other’s projects with relative ease. Various parts of a specific application written in React Native will have no trouble uniting with parts written in the native languages for iOS or Android.
The use of React Native brings the agility and speed in web development to the mobile app development environment. React Native enhances efficiency and helps to reduce the workload by almost 50%. Conventionally, a business wanting to deploy to both iOS and Android would be required to develop both apps natively; however, with React Native it is possible to specially focus on building one app that runs on both operating systems. So the project that is technically small enough, requires only proficient programmer well-versed in JavaScript.
The Instagram case study is the perfect example for such productivity boost, where 90% of the code were reused in Android and iOS. Due to its accessibility and flexibility it can be greatly improved allowing the programmers well-versed in JS to contribute wherever required.
The Bottom Line
The ease of development, quality of the application, the richness of the platform, ecosystem and the huge cost efficiencies makes React Native a viable solution for corporate mobile app development.If you are an entrepreneur or a startup company and if you are looking to cutting costs and speed up the development time, without compromising on quality or performance, hire React Native developer from us as it’s a prime time to go for it and you will undoubtedly benefit from React Native. We are top-notch react native development company and hold a pool of proficient react native developers who have already built a number of cross platform native apps for Android & iOS platforms.
