When it comes to developing a new project it becomes hard to choose between Flutter and React Native, especially after the recent development and improvement of 2022. Recently, Flutter released its version 2.8 with advanced features like reduction in startup latency, enhanced tracing feature, improved web experience, improved memory footprint, and others.

While React Native upgraded itself to 17.0.2 and added features like fast refresh, better window dimension hooks, cocoa pods support, etc. Thus, it is important to have an in-depth understanding of both these tech stacks to the right one for your project.

Flutter was developed by Google in the year 2017 and was designed to work across different platforms. As a result, it is considered among the leading open-source frameworks that we have around today. It offers a complete development ecosystem, and hot reload functionality and is free to use. However, its large size and immense reliance on native tools slightly affect its popularity.

React Native was developed by Facebook in the year 2015 and is seen as a well–used cross-platform app development technology. Its immense flexibility allows developers to use it and JavaScript together along with other native platforms too. As a result, this highly reliable, open-source framework makes it easier to implement, provides hot reloading, and has platform-specific code and more. However, its complex UI and navigation impact its seamless experience.

Let’s closely understand the features of React Native and Flutter better to draw a suitable conclusion for the App development.

Programming Language
The React Native framework allows the use of Javascript, the widely used programming language that makes it more flexible. On the other hand, the Flutter framework uses Dart, the programming language which makes Flutter a little faster than React Native. However, using Java is easier than Dart making React Native the global choice.

Architecture
React Native uses Flux architecture from Facebook that requires Javascript to integrate it effectively. However, this architecture makes app design run a little slower. On the other hand, the Flutter framework uses Skia, a 2D graphics facilitating library, and Dart language to create native code. These codes are elegant and offer speedy solutions for both Android and iOS devices.

Development Time
React Native is popularly used for development as it is easier to understand and use whereas Dart which is the core of Flutter still lacks support from text editors and IDEs. As a result, understanding Dart takes more time and hence the development process.

Installation
Neither React Native nor Flutter offers one-line installation and a native package manager for OS. As a result, there is no ideal installation edge that anyone of them has. However, React Native and NPM are generally preferred due to their node package manager. On the other hand, Flutter needs to download the binary for specific platforms which is a complex process in itself.

UI and Development API
React Native uses third-party applications or components while Flutter relies primarily on its inbuilt and customized development language. This adds a remarkable difference to Flutter’s UI experience. As a result, for better UI and development options Flutter is mostly preferred.

Code Reusability
React Native does not support code reusability whereas Flutter’codebase is more reusable. As a result, a single UI widget tree is reused to define the logic for the Flutter framework and also has an elegant framework.

Quality Assurance and Documentation
The React Native framework is weak in integrating unit test features and hence uses a third-party framework like Jest and Detox to fill this gap. On the other hand, Flutter integrates several quality–control testing features and provides detailed testing documentation. The native documentation of Dart Flutter allows a better transition from one framework to another and optimizes the project. While React Native relies on the third – party sources for quality assurance and documentation.

DevOps Support
It is observed that React Native has huge third-party libraries that guide and provide DevOps support. Since Flutter lacks community support, therefore, its several links make the addition of CI/CD for applications a little slow. Thus, with wider usage Flutter might overtake React Native in terms of DevOps support too.

As per the Stack Overflow’s Developer’s Survey of the year 2019, 75.4% of people preferred the Flutter framework while only 62.5% of individuals showed interest in React Native. Thus, indicating the wider growth and acceptance of Google Flutter in the coming days. However, the choice of the tech stack completely depends on the need and nature of the project. Thus, to seek the right consultation over which tech stack would be best for your project, reach out to our team at www.centrelocus.com.