Flutter and React Native are the two most well-known names when it comes to cross-platform development frameworks. Both offer the ability to develop applications for different operating systems with a single codebase, significantly reducing development time and maintenance. But what are the similarities and differences between React Native vs Flutter?
How does cross-platform app development work?
If you want to capture the attention of a large digital audience today, what do you do? One of the most effective answers is to offer an app. But how do you ensure that your app reaches as many users as possible, while also applying a straightforward development process?
The solution lies in using cross-platform frameworks. With these, you can develop applications for iOS and Android and potentially provide versions for MacOS, Windows, Linux, and the web—all with a single codebase.
Although the use of cross-platform frameworks is becoming increasingly popular, there are different approaches and technologies. Each company has its own preferred tools.
Cross-platform app development: Is it necessary for your business?
The leading frameworks are Flutter from Google and React Native from Meta. Which one is best suited for your needs? This decision depends on some specific factors and will determine the future course of your cross-platform development. The goal of Flutter and React Native is to create a unified development process where a single codebase covers all relevant platforms. Before deciding between the two frameworks, consider why your company wants to use such a framework in the first place.
The main reasons for cross-platform development lie in significantly shorter development times and reduced complexity during development. Companies want to provide the best possible digital experience, but end users use a variety of devices and operating systems—including iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows, Linux, and the web—and they expect high quality across all platforms.
It's usually not an option to ignore major platforms, as it pays off to reach the largest possible audience, especially when it comes to B2C applications. Your company could split the development team into several groups, each developing native apps for different platforms. However, this traditional approach is often costly and time-consuming and requires expertise for each individual target platform.
Which framework is the right choice depends on clear strategic criteria, which we explain in detail in this guide for CTOs and Tech Leads..
Switching to a cross-platform framework like Flutter or React Native addresses these issues and offers numerous advantages:
- Better collaboration: All developers work with a single codebase, allowing everyone to pull in the same direction. This avoids functional silos and ensures that all platforms are equally well maintained.
- Faster updates: Whether it's bug fixes or new features—using a single codebase speeds up development, coding, and testing processes.
- Less maintenance effort: Maintaining multiple codebases can quickly become unwieldy. Managing a single codebase is more efficient and reduces the effort for bug fixes and updates.
- Improved communication: If the development team is split into separate teams for each platform, differences in development styles and rhythms can complicate overall communication and slow down the development process.
- More cost-effective and faster development: Ultimately, the cost and time factor is a strong reason to opt for cross-platform development, as you only develop one application, not several.
This helps your company stay on track with your app's roadmap, respond to user feedback, fix bugs quickly, and deliver new features on time. So let's learn more about the two frameworks.
What is the Flutter Framework?
Flutter is a modern and versatile framework specifically designed for developing cross-platform mobile applications. Developed by Google, Flutter is characterized by its high performance, flexibility, and user-friendliness.
Unlike traditional frameworks that rely on native languages like Kotlin (for Android) and Swift (for iOS), Flutter uses the Dart programming language. Dart is also a programming language developed by Google, designed for efficiency and developer-friendliness.
Thanks to Dart's reactive programming Flutter enables rapid development of user-friendly interfaces while providing outstanding performance across various platforms. Additionally, Flutter's hot reload feature allows for quick iterations and instant feedback during development, significantly boosting developer productivity.
Overall, Flutter offers developers a modern and effective way to create cross-platform mobile applications.
Flutter and Dart are easy and quick to learn, especially if you come from a JavaScript background. The development documentation is excellent, and the framework itself is consistently implemented, allowing you to derive much on your own over time without needing to consult the documentation.
The architecture is based on the very popular programming paradigm of reactive programming, following the same style as React. This allows for efficient and dynamic handling of GUI interactions and data flow within the application.
Flutter offers widgets from its own high-performance rendering engine. These are performant, visually appealing, and customizable. By using these widgets, Flutter apps can already provide a decent appearance and excellent user experience out of the box.
While you can still create your own custom app design by using existing UI elements that follow specific platform guidelines, Flutter makes it easier for developers to create a consistent and attractive user interface.
Overall, Flutter provides a powerful platform for developing mobile applications that is not only easy to learn but also offers high usability and customizability.
Perhaps the most important feature of Dart is that it transpiles to machine code. From the unified Dart codebase, bytecode is generated that runs natively on the respective platform (Android, iOS, ...). Optionally, source code in the respective platform language (Kotlin, Swift, ...) can be added and interact with the Dart code. The ability to generate a natively compiled program on each platform is also one of the biggest differences from React Native:
What is React Native?
React Native is an open-source framework developed by Facebook that allows developers to create cross-platform mobile applications using JavaScript/JSX or TypeScript. React Native is based on calling native APIs of the devices and essentially offers the same functionality as a native app.
The React components are designed to wrap native code and function across different operating systems. The connection between native code and JavaScript occurs through a bridge module, which can lead to performance losses.
React Native is an open-source framework and welcomes contributions from its community. Thanks to the involvement of the React Native developer community, the framework has been able to extend beyond its iOS and Android roots. There is also the possibility of creating Windows, MacOS, and web applications.
React Native vs. Flutter: Which is Better for Your Project?
When deciding between React Native vs. Flutter for your project, there are a variety of factors to consider.
For both multi-platform frameworks, it is important to note that whenever very good performance and intensive OS interactions are involved, developing a native app should be considered.
Regarding whether Flutter or React Native is the best choice for you, one major difference should be mentioned again:
Flutter apps compile into the bytecode of the respective target platform.
A React Native app is merely wrapped. This step results in a loss of performance.
Thus, Flutter is a good consensus of the discussed advantages it has when working with just one codebase, combined with more speed and in-depth platform functionalities.
Advantages of Flutter
- Compiling to the code of the respective target platform offers better performance and more development possibilities compared to React Native.
- Better suited for performant animations and highly-customized UI.
- By using Skia/Impeller for the rendering engine, Flutter provides excellent performance, leading to smooth and fast apps.
Disadvantages of Flutter
- Learning curve: Many developers are already familiar with JavaScript, but not with Dart (due to the syntactical similarity to JavaScript, learning Dart is certainly not rocket science).
- Smaller ecosystem: Compared to React Native, there may be fewer libraries and resources for Flutter, although this is constantly evolving.
Do you need support in creating a Flutter application? As a “Flutter agency,” we can help you with the planning, development, and optimization of your application so that you achieve your goals efficiently and successfully.
React Native on the other hand, is based on JavaScript and benefits from a larger developer community than Flutter, as well as a greater abundance of libraries and packages.. It allows for the integration of native features and offers solid performance, although generally worse than an app developed with Flutter.
Advantages of React Native:
- Familiarity with JavaScript: Developers who already master JavaScript can become productive with React Native more quickly.
- Larger developer community: The broad support from the developer community means that developers can more easily find solutions to their problems.
- Existing libraries: React Native has a variety of libraries and packages that can speed up the development process.
Disadvantages of React Native:
Teams often decide against React Native when the application to be developed:
- requires specialized background tasks, such as complex calculations, which cannot be efficiently performed with React Native.
- Hardware-near functionalities are to be fully utilized, such as Bluetooth communication, where challenges often arise with React Native.
- is developed only for Android, as React Native has a stronger support for iOS and developers often prioritize iOS platforms.
- As mentioned above, React Native can have performance impacts.
In these scenarios, another development platform may be better suited.
We develop applications with both platforms. Do you need support for your React Native project? Feel free to contact us -> for more info on React development from Lean Coders.
Ultimately, the decision between Flutter and React Native should be based on the specific requirements of your project It is advisable to carefully evaluate both frameworks and make an informed decision that best aligns with the goals and needs of your project.
We are happy to assist you, in defining your project and providing support for both frameworks.
A few more questions & answers:
Below, we describe some common questions and answers related to the topic.
Is Flutter a programming language?
No, Flutter is a framework for developing applications in the Dart programming language. Flutter to Dart is equivalent to React Native to JavaScript.
What are hybrid apps?
There are various definitions in use here. In mobile development, a distinction is often made between native apps (explicitly written for Android or iOS), web apps (apps that run in a web browser), and hybrid apps – as a consensus solution between both worlds.
For a long time, hybrid apps referred to apps that use web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create a cross-platform user interface – React Native is a prime example of a hybrid app framework.
Flutter apps, therefore, do not fit into this perhaps somewhat outdated definition schema, as they do not use 'web technologies.' However, Flutter is still counted among the 'hybrid app frameworks,' even though the code technically produces a native app.
Hybrid apps in app development: Verdict
Regardless of how one defines a 'hybrid app' - they are a central part of modern app development, as they allow developers to create applications that can run on different platforms, saving time and complexity in software development, and getting to market faster.
However, hybrid apps also have some disadvantages, such as potentially poorer performance compared to native apps and limited access to certain hardware features of the device. Additionally, they may sometimes be less seamlessly integrated into the operating system and not provide the same user experience as native apps.
Overall, hybrid apps are an attractive option for developers, who want to create applications for various platforms without having to write separate source code for each platform.
Which companies use Flutter?
Here is a list of companies that use Flutter:
Which companies use React Native?
Here are some companies that use React Native in their mobile applications:
