Both Flutter and React Native are cross-platform technologies. This means that you can use them to create software that works on different devices. Cross-platform applications can not only imitate native iOS and Android applications, but also web or smart device applications.
Flutter Development
Flutter is one of the most popular cross-platform technologies in recent years. This application development framework created by Google, although relatively new, has already convinced many developers from around the world.
Its popularity is not coincidental because applications created with Flutter development services are often high-quality software solutions. The most important benefits offered by programming in Flutter are:
- fast development due to working on a single source code and solutions such as Hot Reload,
- the ability to create an application that runs on any platform,
- an extensive library of ready-made UI components,
- coverage of the vast majority of native features,
- high performance, and more.
An additional plus are regular updates and full documentation kept by the creators and the community of developers. In 2022, over 40% of developers worldwide declared that they use Flutter, and observing the development of cross-platform technologies in recent years, further increases in this area can be expected.
React Native Development
However, Flutter is not the only hybrid technology that is triumphing in the IT industry. Created and developed by Facebook, React Native is an equally popular framework for developing iOS and Android applications using React.js.
As the creators write on their website “Many platforms, one React”. In React native code is written in JavaScript, however, it is rendered as native code, which allows for quick iterations and speeds up the software development process.
Which of these technologies is better? It’s hard to say for sure, because the decision can depend heavily on personal preferences, but in the next section we will try to look at these two technologies from different perspectives.
Flutter Or React Native -Which One Is Better?
In order to objectively assess which of the technologies is better, we looked at factors such as popularity among developers and community activity, frequency of updates and fixes, the number of job offers on the market for specialists in a given technology, performance results, tools and SDKs , testing environments, and pros and cons in general.
How Big Is The Community?
According to the JetBrains 2021 State of Developer Ecosystem survey Flutter is the world’s most popular technology for creating hybrid applications. Its popularity in numbers is:
- 138k on GitHub
- 178k followers on Twitter
- 60k members on Meetup
- 42% developers worldwide declare using Flutter
The creators of Flutter make sure that developers working in Flutter have enough space to exchange their experiences with this technology.
There is not only a dedicated website flutter dev community, but also social media channels such as Discord, Slack, and Reddit. How is the popularity in these channels compared to React Native?
Facebook:
- Flutter 188k followers
- React Native 159k follower
Twitter:
- Flutter 167k followers
- React Native 130k followers
LinkedIn groups:
- Flutter 36k members
- React Native 45k members
GitHub:
- Flutter
- 134k stars
- 20k forks
- 957 contributors
- 2,7k commits
- React Native
- 100k stars
- 22k forks
- 2,2k contributors
- 24k commits
Reddit:
- Flutter 84k followers
- React Native 87k followers
Stack Overflow:
- Flutter 112k questions
- React Native 121k questions
dev.to:
- Flutter 2k posts
- React Native 2,3k posts
Until recently, there was a belief in the IT world that React Native was the more popular technology due to the much larger community. As can be seen from the above statistics, this situation has changed over the years.
Both technologies may prevail depending on the medium, but in 2022 over 42% of developers declared that they use Flutter, making it the most popular cross-platform technology in the world.
How Often Technology Receives Updates?
Both technologies are constantly being developed and receive regular updates. Both Flutter and React Native maintain a changelog of changes on their official pages.
Performance
Both technologies work great in terms of performance. In the past, developers had a lot of objections to hybrid technologies due to the fact that they did not perform as well as native iOS and Android.
Additionally, React Native was criticized for using native modules and external libraries. Over time, cross-platform technologies have made up for a lot of gaps in relation to native technologies and continue to develop.
UX/UI Design
Flutter and React Native in terms of design strongly meet the expectations of users. Their domain is simplicity, which allows creating applications that not only give the user the impression of using an app that looks and feels the same as the native one, but also make using the application intuitive and pleasant.
Conclusion
Looking for an answer to the question of what is the best cross-platform development framework, it is hard to come to clear conclusions.
Certainly, these two technologies, which are React Native and Flutter, stand out from the competition. Their popularity is not accidental, however, we still have to wait to find out which of these two technologies is better.
Ella Marcotte
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