The demand for mobile apps has risen rapidly. The reason? The modern customers proactively rely on them since these app brings convenience. This is the reason why many businesses are opting for a hybrid approach to development instead of native. Since the latter can be extremely expensive for many businesses, the concept of hybrid app development is gaining immense popularity these days. But which is the right framework since there are various options available? While the choice of framework will depend upon your specific requirements, in the blog below, we have discussed the top 3 frameworks–Flutter and React Native. Once you select the framework you can partner with a trusted hybrid app development company that will work with you closely to create a custom application.
What is Hybrid Mobile App Development?
By hybrid mobile app development, we mean an approach in which the app is created to run on multiple platforms, such as iOS, Android, and sometimes others, using a single codebase. This not only saves time that would otherwise be occupied in native development but also expedites the development process. The best characteristic of the hybrid approach is that it allows one to combine elements of native and web apps and build an app that provides a native-like experience. They typically leverage web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create intuitive user interfaces and implement business logic.
The most significant advantage one gets with this development mode is the capability of code reusability. One can write code once and deploy it everywhere across different platforms, simplifying the process and saving time and cost, leading to faster launch in the market.
Top Hybrid Mobile App Development Frameworks
React Native
This framework was developed and maintained by Facebook and is one of the widely adopted tech stacks for its performance and efficiency. It allows the experts of a React Native app development company to employ a single codebase for both iOS and Android platforms, ensuring consistency. React Native utilizes a virtual DOM for efficient rendering, resulting in smoother user experiences.
Flutter
Another hybrid framework is Flutter, developed by Google. It offers a rich set of pre-designed widgets, allowing firms offering Flutter app development services to build a consistent and visually appealing UI. This framework also consists of a high-performance rendering engine (Skia). This allows for smooth animations and transitions.
React Native vs Flutter: A Comparative Analysis of Hybrid Frameworks
1. Language and Syntax
Flutter is build on Dart progamming language for hybrid mobile app development. It is an object-oriented langauge developed by Google itself. Its syntax is clean and provides features such as strong typing and Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation for faster development. The utilization of Dart in Flutter makes it capable to build complex, large-scale application with ease.
On the other hand, React Native is build on Javascript programming language, which si one of the most popular languages in the technology world. React Native app development involves JSX (JavaScript XML), a syntax extension that allows you to write XML/HTML-like code within your JavaScript code.
2. Performance
Flutter utilizes a high-perfomance rendering engine called as Skia to help Flutter experts build graphics-intensive applications seamlessly. The applications build with this framework are compiled to native machine code, eliminating the need for a JavaScript bridge and improving performance.
In the case of React Native, it depends on Javascript bridge for initiating a communication between JS and native modules. This bridge might create overburdeing situations which is steadily being optimized in the latest versions of this framework. Moreover, React Native uses Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation mode which can affect startup times and overall performance.
3. Hot Reload
As mentioned above, Flutter is renowned for its hot reload feature which allows the experts offering hybrid app development servicesto make code changes and instantly view them without having to restart the entire application. React Native also supports this feature allowing experts to make changes and see it in real-time without the need to manually refresh the app.
4. Widgets and Third-party Libraries
One of the major comparative factors in both the frameworks is the availability of widget and level of reliability on third-party libraries. While Flutter has its own set of composable widgets and libraries one can use for development, the developers utilizing React Native for development have to repeatedly rely on third-party libraries. The widget and built-in libraries of Flutter enable developers to to render identical user interfaces for both Android and iOS. The testing phase is also impacted in both frameworks. While Flutter has it own widget testing support which make the QA phase easier, React Native has to again rely upon third-party libraries and tools for testing the application.
5. Documentation Support
Considering the fact that Flutter is developed and supported by Google, we can expect that this framework has a comprehensive documentation and resources available for developers. The resources are more detailed and informative. Whereas in the case of React Native, though the documentation is enough but it not such detailed and informative. It is more generalized and less helpful on the information part.
6. Popularity and Industry Adoption
Flutter is gaining immense popularity in the current scenario, especially for businesses who want to build a visually appealing UI for their application and ensure excellent performance are crucial. On the other hand, React Native is also widely adopted and has been used in the development of many successful applications. The support offered by Facebook and its extensive community contributes to its popularity.
Conclusion
To invest in hybrid mobile app development, the first step is choosing the best platform or say framework. Flutter and React Native are the top options. However, each has its set of features and limitations, as shared above in the blog. Hence, to make the right choice, identify your app requirements and consult a reliable Hybrid app development company that can handle the end-to-end development and deployment process.
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