Flutter vs React Native: A Comparison

The current lifestyle of people worldwide enjoying the comfort of access to everything from their phones has given a competitive edge to the mobile apps industry. But the question of what to use to create these apps has been around for a while. Developers often find it difficult to choose between Flutter vs React Native. Both have been created by the current tech giants of the world, Facebook and Google. 

As per Statista, 38% of developers used React Native in 2021, whereas 42% used Flutter for development. The high usage of React Native and Flutter is because of their ability to develop cross-platform apps with the same code. This saves cost and time and gets the same convenience as native development. Moreover, it is easier to maintain and update hybrid apps than native applications. 

In this guide, let us learn about the differences between Flutter vs React Native and will also understand what makes them so special. 

Flutter

is an open-source UI framework developed by Google in 2017 that aims to design cross-platform apps to run on mobile, Windows, macOS, and Linux as well as on the web. Flutter’s framework is built upon Dart. A lot of big companies like Alibaba, Philips Hue, Hamilton, etc., choose Flutter for development. Moreover, Google frequently provides updates for Flutter, improving its performance with each update. 

Advantages of using Flutter

1. Great UI
2. Has a number of widgets
3. Apps are faster
4. Helps build web apps (Flutter 2)
5. Well-structured documentation and community
6. Helps replicate and create the same UI for different devices 

Disadvantages of Flutter

1. Not native
2. Apps are larger
3. Has a limited set of tools

Creating a Cross Platform App using Flutter

Now let’s see how to create a cross-platform application that has a very basic UI using Flutter

If you want to set up Flutter in your local system, you can refer to its official guide. 

The flutter application displays the code in its UI, which is written in the main.dart file. Hence, this is the most-important file while writing Dart in Flutter.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() => runApp(MyApp());

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return MaterialApp(
title: 'is flutter better than react native',
theme: ThemeData(
primarySwatch: Colors.white,
),
home: MyHomePage(title: 'Flutter and React Native App'),
);
}
}

class MyHomePage extends StatelessWidget {
final String title;
const MyHomePage({Key? key, required this.title}) : super(key: key);

@override
Widget build(BuildContext context) {
return Scaffold(
appBar: AppBar(
title: Text(title),
),
body: Center(
child: Text(
'BrowserStack Flutter vs react native: HomePage ',
),
),
);
}
}

Test Flutter Apps

React Native

Facebook developed React Native in 2015. It is an open-source framework that is based on JavaScript. It also provides a similar feature, using the same codebase to create cross-platform apps, thus eliminating the need to compile other technologies for creating mobile apps. Skype, Instagram, Uber Eats, etc., depends upon React Native for development. 

Advantages of using React Native

1. Uses JavaScript
2. Can create apps for multiple platforms using a single codebase
3. Understands the importance of code reusability and promotes it
4. Growing and active community
5. Helps in accelerating coding time

Disadvantages of using React Native

1. Not native
2. Does not provide innovative, out-of-the-box components
3. Limited choices
4. Abandoned libraries and packages
5. UI can be hampered easily and needs to undergo vigorous UI testing
6. Larger apps

Creating a Cross Platform App using React Native

Now let’s see how to create a cross-platform application that has a very basic UI using React Native

Setting up the project for React Native is far less complex than setting up the Flutter project. You can install React Native from the command line using NPM. You might also refer to the official guide of React Native for better clarity. 

In the React Native project, the UI displays code which is written in the App.Js file.

import * as React from 'react';
import { Text, View, Button, StyleSheet } from 'react-native';
import 'react-native-gesture-handler';
import { NavigationContainer } from '@react-navigation/native';
import { createStackNavigator } from '@react-navigation/stack';

const AppBar = createStackNavigator();

export default function App() {
return (
<>
<NavigationContainer>
<AppBar.Navigator initialRouteName="App Title">
<AppBar.Screen name="Flutter and React Native app" component={HomeScreen} />
</AppBar.Navigator>
</NavigationContainer>
</>
);
}

function HomeScreen() {
return (
<View style={style.container}>
<Text>BrowserStack Flutter vs React Native: HomePage</Text>
</View>
);
}

const style = StyleSheet.create({
container: {
flex: 1,
alignItems: 'center',
justifyContent: 'center',
},
});

Test React Native Apps

Differences between Flutter vs React Native

React Native and Flutter are amazing choices for developing a cross-platform application, however, they share several differences which make them unique from each other. 

• One major difference is the programming languages both frameworks use. React Native is based on JavaScript and uses JSX. However, Flutter uses Dart programming language. 
• The architecture for both frameworks differs. Flutter uses a 2D graphic rendering library, Skia, whereas, React Native uses the Flux architecture, which also requires JavaScript bridging. Here, JavaScript bridging is necessary for React Native to allow JavaScript and Native code to interact with each other. However, there is no programming bridge in Flutter. 
• Flutter and React Native documentation guides are very good. However, Flutter shares more organized and structured documentation. React Native documentation is poorly maintained because it depends heavily on third-party libraries. 
• Installing Flutter requires you to download the binary from GitHub and also to set up the environment variables on your system. On the other hand, React Native is installed using node package manager (NPM) with one command on your terminal. 
• Flutter relies on its developed widgets for customization, whereas React Native incorporates third-party customization components. Therefore, flutter offers more compatibility. Moreover, Flutter development is solely constructed upon Widgets, whereas React Native uses JSX.
• React Native has better support for 3D, whereas, Flutter does not support 3D. 

Flutter vs React Native – Which one to choose?

Which is better, Flutter or React Native? There’s no one-line answer to this question. Either of them could be better, it depends upon the developer’s preferences and the requirements of the project. 

• Since Flutter uses Dart, it has a higher compiling rate than JavaScript and thus delivers high performance by default. However, Dart is only used by 6.54% of people, according to Statista, which states fewer developers can learn Dart. Moreover, since it is not widely used, it is restricted by several IDEs, providing no support for the language. 
• Since React Native architecture uses JavaScript bridging, it is one reason which makes it slower than Flutter. Although Flutter is faster, it turns into a huge file size, which is another problem for Flutter developers. 
• React Native has higher community support because of the ease it provides by incorporating JavaScript. It saved a lot of time for developers’ saving them from learning a whole new language. 
• If you want to test a React Native app, you use a third-party testing framework such as Detox. However, Flutter is enriched with integrated testing features. 

This guide explains the reasons behind the great popularity of the two emerging frameworks Flutter and React Native, for creating cross-platform applications. Flutter and Native solve the issue of creating separate code for native platforms like Android and iOS. Now, you can create an application for all the platforms using entirely the same code. 

Moreover, picking the best framework for yourself depends upon your experience, requirements, and the business needs of your project. If you’re already aware of the JavaScript programming language, then there’s no doubt that React Native is a good choice. However, if you’re targeting a highly stable and fast performance, Flutter has several advantages over React Native. 

Irrespective of the framework that you choose, it is necessary to test your application thoroughly before releasing it. BrowserStack allows you to perform cross browser testing and cross platform compatibility across 3000+ browsers, devices and operating systems. You can seamlessly test the apps that have been built using Flutter and React Native.

Try BrowserStack now