Flutter vs. React Native – Which is Better for Your Project in 2024?
Looking to speed up app development and cut costs with cross-platform solutions? Unsure which tech to choose? This guide is for you. We’ve stacked Flutter vs React Native from an app owner’s lens to help you find your best fit.
Table of contents
At Droids On Roids, we build digital products for our clients using the best approach – be it native, Flutter, or React Native. It all depends on the project.
However, there is no denying that cross-platform solutions are gaining popularity. Flutter and React Native are the two leading market players.
So, as an App Owner, you probably want to know:
- Which option gets my app to market the quickest?
- Will my app be stable and user-friendly?
- Which route should I take if top-notch design is my top priority?
- Which framework should I choose for my project?
We will make your choice much easier. Just keep reading!
Introduction to the battle: React Native vs Flutter
We’re just playfully calling it a “battle” here.
Both Flutter and React Native have their pros and cons. Or maybe you’re thinking native for your app – that’s fine too. But since you’re reading this, you’re probably weighing your tech options for cross-platform app development. We’ll break down these two contenders to simplify your choice.
But first, a quick dive into the backstory of mobile app development.
The rise of mobile app development frameworks
Search ‘mobile app development frameworks’ today, and you’ll find cross-platform frameworks topping the list. Over the years, numerous frameworks and tools emerged to enable multiplatform development – a solution that App Owners have loved – so much in fact, that, reportedly, nearly 50% of all mobile app projects in 2023 were being developed using cross-platform frameworks.1
As shown in the charts above, Flutter is a more popular choice than React Native. Moreover, as reported by Statista, Flutter’s popularity has been steadily rising over the past few years.
- You may also like: 4 Most Popular Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks
But let’s back up a bit: app development used to be platform-specific, meaning that once you built an app, you could only release it on one platform, such as iOS or Android.
Developers juggled multiple languages and tools. For iOS, it was Objective-C (then Swift) with Apple’s Xcode. Android? Java, paired with Android Studio or Eclipse.
This setup implied duplicating code for an application idea that targeted both platforms. This meant more time, more cost, and the hurdle of making sure the two versions were the same in terms of performance and features. In addition, synchronizing updates was a challenge and often led to inconsistencies between platforms, which always frustrated your users.
Why picking the right framework is a game-changer?
Your framework shapes performance, scalability, maintenance, price, and the speed at which you can develop and deploy your app. The right pick will streamline everything, ensure a smooth user experience and reduce long-term costs. A bad choice? Well, that’s another story. Let’s see how you can choose the best cross-platform app development solution for your project.
Flutter vs React Native: Comparison table
Technology | Flutter | React Native |
What is it? | An open-source UI toolkit for cross platform development from a single codebase | A framework for cross platform development using React |
Official release | December 2018, Google I/O | March 2015, F8 Conference |
Created by | Meta | |
Free and open source | Yes | Yes |
Programming language | Dart | JavaScript |
Popularity | 162k stars on GitHub (May, 2024) | 116k stars on GitHub (May, 2024) |
Hot Reload feature | Yes | Yes |
Difficulty | Flutter is intuitive and easy to understand. For most beginners, it’s simpler than React Native, especially because you can use a variety of state management solutions, ranging from very simple to more sophisticated, depending on the project scale and complexity. | React Native can be a little harder to learn, but once you learn it, you know React, and vice versa. You can use them in many cases. Dart (Flutter’s language) is mostly used with Flutter. |
Platforms | • Android • iOS • Windows • macOS • Linux • Google Fuchsia • Web • Embedded devices • Other unofficially supported platforms (ie. Tizen for Samsung Smart TV, LG webOS, etc.) | • Android & iOS (supported by creators of React Native) • Windows (all devices that support Windows 10 such as PC, Xbox tablets; supported by Microsoft) • MacOS (supported by Microsoft) • Web platform & Android and iOS TV platforms (supported by the community) |
UI development | Flutter uses its own highly customizable widgets that allow developers to adjust their properties and styles to achieve the desired look and behavior across every platform. It also comes with a set of out-of-the-box widgets based on the Material (Android) and Cupertino (iOS) designs, so it retains the feel of native apps. Flutter’s custom rendering engine ensures that the UI is always consistent and performant across all platforms. | React Native uses native UI widgets under the hood so developers have the freedom to stay with the default platform’s styling or adapt it to the desired UI. There is usually more room for improvement here, and the application will be more elegant. |
Development time | Flutter excels at crafting apps with uniform design across platforms, while it may lag if designs vary between Android and iOS. React Native may have an advantage here. | JavaScript allows developers to use any IDE or text editor. If the iOS and Android designs differ, React Native may offer a speedier development than Flutter. |
Time to market | Quick with its library of prebuilt UI components, and ideal for MVPs. | Quick, but potentially slower than Flutter due to platform-specific optimizations. |
Maintenance | Easily update to the new version thanks to automated built-in tools. | Updating versions can be challenging and may demand extra effort. |
Documentation | Flutter’s documentation is clear and comprehensive, thanks to its organized and meticulous preparation. | React Native’s documentation, while not as standout as Flutter’s, is often deemed more user-friendly by developers, encompassing best practices and FAQs. |
When to choose what? | • You value fast development times. • You need highly customized UI or animations. • Performance is critical. • Your team is familiar with Dart. | • Your team is comfortable with JavaScript and React. • You need a native-looking UI on both platforms. • You value a large community and mature ecosystem. • 3D graphics are important. |
Basics of Flutter vs React Native
First, let’s cover the basic (yet essential) details about Flutter and React Native.
What is Flutter? An overview
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What’s Flutter for?
Flutter enables cross-platform app development. It gives developers an easy way to build and deploy visually attractive, natively compiled applications for mobile (iOS, Android), web, desktop, and embedded devices – all using a single codebase.
Flutter’s desktop support
- When it comes to developing desktop apps with Flutter, you can compile Flutter source code to a native Windows, macOS, or Linux desktop app.
- Flutter’s desktop support also extends to plugins — developers can install existing plugins that support the macOS, Windows, or Linux platforms, or they can create their own.
Flutter for Web
- Flutter’s web support delivers the same experiences on the web as on mobile. This means you can now build Android, iOS, and browser applications from the same codebase.
As we can read on the official Flutter website, Flutter’s web support is most useful in the following scenarios:
- Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
Flutter delivers high-quality PWAs that are integrated with the user’s environment, including installation, offline support, and a tailored UX.
- Single Page Applications (SPAs)
SPAs load once and transmit data to and from internet services.
- Existing Flutter mobile apps
Web support for Flutter provides a browser-based delivery model for existing Flutter mobile apps.
Some more facts about Flutter:
- It’s free and open source.
- It’s based on Dart – a fast, modern, object-oriented programming language.
*It’s relatively new and easy to learn, as Flutter offers docs for developers moving over from other frameworks. What’s more, Dart supports sound null safety.
- The architecture is based on the very popular reactive programming paradigm (it follows the same style as React).
- It provides widgets drawn from its own high-performance rendering engine – these are performant, attractive and customizable.
- Thanks to the widget experience, Flutter apps have a great look and feel.
*While you can still create your own custom app design using readily available UI elements that follow specific platform guidelines.
How mature is Flutter? A quick flashback on Flutter’s evolution
A team at Google built Flutter as an open-source project. Therefore, both Google and the Flutter community contribute to its development. Here is a brief timeline of its growth, highlighting key events.
What’s New in Flutter 3.24
Released in August 2024, Flutter 3.24 brings several key enhancements for app developers. A standout feature is the preview of Flutter GPU, enabling advanced graphics and 3D scenes within Flutter, elevating the app’s visual capabilities. Another exciting addition is multi-view embedding for web apps, allowing multiple Flutter views to be rendered simultaneously, enhancing flexibility for complex web applications. Moreover, the release introduces video ad monetization, opening new revenue streams for developers through in-stream video ads. These updates, alongside numerous performance and tooling improvements, make Flutter 3.24 a robust choice for future app development.
Flutter in action: App examples
- Google Ads (iOS, Android)
- Xianyu by Alibaba (iOS, Android)
- Hamilton (iOS, Android, Website)
- myBMW (iOS, Android)
- eBay Motors (iOS, Android)
- Groupon (iOS, Android)
- Philips Hue (iOS, Android)
- The New York Times (iOS, Android)
- Reflectly (iOS, Android)
- Nubank (iOS, Android)
Click here to see the latest use cases of Flutter in May 2024.
Want more examples? Read: Top Flutter Apps: Real-World Examples & Business Stories
See also a few of the apps we developed with Flutter for our clients:
Useful Flutter links
What is React Native? An overview
React Native, developed by Meta, is an open-source framework that uses JavaScript.
What is React Native for?
React Native is an effective framework for:
- Cross-platform development
- Building mobile apps using JavaScript language
- Developing applications for both Android and iOS using a single codebase
- Using the same design as React
But, you should also know that:
- Apps created using React Native are not mobile web apps.
*React Native uses the same fundamental UI building blocks as regular iOS and Android apps. This means that, instead of building in Java, Kotlin, or Swift, you’re putting the same building blocks together, using JavaScript and React.
- React Native uses components that are analogous to widgets in Flutter.
- To develop web and desktop applications with React Native with a single codebase, it’s best to use external libraries.
- Apps made with React Native can be updated without needing to go through the entire review process (e.g by using CodePush or Expo EAS Update).
Expo is a framework based on React Native that speeds up the development process by rich SDK for standard features (like camera, linking, SMS, splash screen, or even integration with Flutter’s skin graphics library). What’s more, it supports the web platform out of box. You can read more about the core concepts of Expo here.
How mature is React Native? A brief history
Here is a quick overview of how React Native has developed since its first release by Meta (formerly Facebook).
Looking at the above, two things are for sure: React Native is older than Flutter, and it boasts a bigger community. Not to mention that the Meta team has had plenty of time to stabilize the API and focus on fixing any underlying issues.
React Native has already optimized performance and reduced memory usage thanks to the new JavaScript engine optimized for React Native Hermes: the default engine since version 0.70. You can read more about it on this React Native blogpost.
And let’s not forget – Meta is working on several other notable enhancements as well:
- Lean Core – reducing an app’s size by moving optional components/features to separate repositories (to add to an app as/when needed)
- TurboModules – for improved handling of native modules
- React Native Fabric – re-architected UI layer
React Native in action: App examples
- Instagram (iOS, Android)
- Meta Ads Manager (iOS, Android)
- Pinterest (iOS, Android)
- Skype (iOS, Android)
- Microsoft Office (iOS, Android)
- Tesla (iOS, Android)
- Bloomberg (iOS, Android)
- Wix Owner (iOS, Android)
- Walmart (iOS, Android)
- Discord (iOS, Android)
If you’d like to see other examples of apps made with React Native, check out the official React Native showcase.
Talking about apps supported by React Native it’s worth mentioning that as of January 19, 2021, Facebook ended its official support for React Native wrapper around the Facebook SDKs for Android and iOS. You can read more about it on GitHub and in this blog post.
Useful React Native links
9 crucial differences between Flutter and React Native
Role-dependent perspectives
- Developers’ perspective
Flutter
By simplifying and speeding up cross-platform app development, it reduces costs. With a growing developer community and robust Google support, it also offers consistent updates and comprehensive guides. The framework’s portability allows for unmatched reduction of development time when releasing your product to new platforms.
React Native
Based on the widely-used Web React library, web developers can quickly transition to mobile development. Integrating React Native with TypeScript boosts developer confidence. Its vast community provides ample online discussions, solutions, and insights.
- Designers’ perspective
Flutter
Provides designers a blank canvas for top-tier user experiences. Celebrated as a top design idea of the decade, it turns visions into code without traditional framework constraints. And with tools like FlutterFlow and Rive, it makes room for lightning fast prototype and MVP development.
React Native
Boasts design flexibility for both iOS and Android, excelling in animation performance. It enables developers to seamlessly incorporate diverse designs.
- Business Owners’ perspective
Flutter
Allows engineering leaders and businesses to unify app developers into one team for mobile, web, and desktop and back-end development (Serverpod, Dart Frog). They can craft multi-platform branded apps from a singular codebase, with Flutter streamlining release schedules and hastening feature creation.
Read also: Flutter App Development and Agile Processes – It’s a Match!
React Native
Facilitates iOS and Android app development from one codebase. This framework offers time savings for companies with web apps in React due to its shared logic between web and mobile versions.
Native performance
Flutter
Uses its Ahead-of-Time compiler, which generates optimized native code for both iOS and Android after the project is built. Flutter renders the UI to the screen using a custom rendering engine called Impeller, which ensures native-level performance. And unlike React Native, which requires a bridge to communicate with native modules, Flutter interacts with them directly.
The Flutter engine is designed to render at 60 (and 120 on devices that support it) frames per second, ensuring a smooth user experience.
React Native
Has an enhanced JavaScript virtual machine that surpasses V8 with its JIT compiler. As a pre-compiled framework, it allows any codebase to be deployed and compiled into a native executable. Typically, React Native matches the speed of native apps, performing at the level of iOS apps without changing iOS build settings.
UI development
Flutter
Doesn’t rely on native system components. Instead, Flutter provides a unique set of widgets for drawing UI, enabling the reuse of iOS or Android code in Flutter app development. With a single code base, the apps look and behave the same on iOS and Android, including on the latest operating systems as well as the older versions.
Flutter includes two sets of standard widgets that conform to specific design languages – Material Design widgets (Google’s design language) and Cupertino widgets (Apple’s iOS design). This means that Flutter apps will look and behave naturally on each platform, mimicking their native components.
However, Flutter developers are not limited to the built-in widgets – new ones can be effortlessly created and customized.
Wondering if Flutter can go beyond widgets? Explore Practical Fragment Shaders in Flutter | Guide – Introduction
React Native
Provides a bridge that enables the integration of existing iOS and Android code as JavaScript modules. It also provides APIs facilitating manual bridging between native UI components and the corresponding JavaScript rendering code.
Therefore, application components look just like native components (for example, a button on an iOS device looks just like a native iOS button, and the same on Android).
If apps need to look nearly identical across platforms – even on older versions of an operating system (as Flutter does) – then consider using third-party libraries (like this one). They allow you to use Material Design components instead of native ones.
UI customization
Flutter offers greater flexibility in UI customization through its rich collection of pre-built widgets, enabling complete control over every aspect of the interface. Developers can easily build highly customized, interactive UIs that work consistently across platforms. In contrast, React Native uses native components, which provide a more familiar, platform-specific look and feel. While this ensures apps fit seamlessly into Android and iOS environments, extensive customization may require additional work or native code integration. To sum up, Flutter excels in flexibility and control, making it ideal for highly customized UIs, while React Native is better for apps that need to closely match native platform elements.
Sharing code
Flutter
- Single codebase: Based on the Dart programming language, Flutter allows developers to write a single codebase that runs on both iOS and Android. This can lead to almost 100% code reuse across platforms.
- Custom Widgets: Rather than relying on native components for rendering, Flutter uses a purpose-built graphics engine to render its own widgets. This ensures consistent behavior and appearance across all devices and operating systems
React Native
- High code reusability: React Native allows developers to write most of their application’s logic in JavaScript, which runs on iOS and Android. Typically, around 80-90% of the code can be shared across platforms.
- Native components (by default): As we said before, React Native uses platform components (e.g. React Native Button is translating to iOS UIButton/ Android android.widget.Button) under the hood. Thanks to that, an app’s widget will look and feel like a native one. On the other hand, Flutter recreates everything from scratch which can lead to inconsistency with native ones.
- Native modules: While much of the application logic is written in JavaScript, React Native allows native code (Swift, Java, etc.) to be included when needed, in order to improve performance or achieve platform-specific functionality. This sometimes reduces the percentage of shared code.
- Bridging: React Native uses a bridge to communicate between the JavaScript code and native modules, allowing for smooth interaction but this can sometimes introduce performance bottlenecks.
Documentation
Flutter
- Structured and comprehensive: Flutter’s documentation is thorough and covers a wide range of topics.
- Interactive widget catalog: Helps view and understand the UI components.
- Codelabs and tutorials: Flutter offers codelabs and tutorials that provide a hands-on coding experience.
- Clear guidance for different audiences: The documentation caters to developers from different backgrounds – such as Android, iOS, Web, etc – by providing tailored guides.
React Native
- Community-driven: React Native’s documentation has benefited greatly from contributions from the community.
- Examples and snippets: Documentation includes code snippets and examples, making it easy for developers to understand and implement features.
- Separation of core and community modules: The React Native ecosystem includes both core and community modules. The documentation clearly distinguishes between them.
- External resources: Given the age and popularity of the framework, there’s a wealth of tutorials, articles, and third-party documentation available.
In conclusion, you might lean toward Flutter’s documentation if you value structured, extensive, and interactive official resources. And if you prefer a large ecosystem with a mix of official and community-driven resources, React Native’s documentation may be more appealing. Nevertheless, community support for Flutter is also comprehensive.
Debugging
Flutter
Provides a set of devtools for all its supported platforms, offering developers insight into the rendering engine’s state, alongside tools for examining memory consumption and making on-the-spot changes. The Flutter Devtools support extensions, meaning the dev team can tailor their tools to whatever your project needs.
React Native
Features an integrated debugger for iOS and Android apps, allowing developers to view the current state of the JavaScript virtual machine and access tools for analyzing memory use and making real-time adjustments.
App size
Flutter
During compilation Flutter uses a tree-shaking algorithm that determines which parts of the Flutter Engine and imported packages are not being used by the app’s code. That mechanism allows Flutter to entirely remove unused code from the built app.
That being said, Flutter still adds a bit of an overhead – ranging from a few up to over a dozen megabytes (depending on the target platform). However, that overhead’s size is pretty much fixed, meaning it will not grow when the project scales up.
React Native
Apps typically include a JavaScript runtime that is approximately 300 kb gzipped. However, by adjusting settings such as bypass filling, which avoids the virtual DOM diffing process, and enabling useDeveloperMode to resize in-memory images and reduce their quality, this size can be reduced.
Backend compatibility
In terms of backend compatibility, there’s actually not much inherent difference between Flutter and React Native from a backend perspective.
Flutter:
- Works seamlessly with Firebase (which is also a Google product), making it a common choice for Flutter apps. Firebase provides easy integration for authentication, databases, cloud functions, and storage.
- Other options: Flutter can integrate with any backend service, including AWS Amplify, Google Cloud, and custom backends. This flexibility is due to Dart’s ability to handle HTTP requests and connect with any cloud service that exposes an API.
React Native:
- Pairs well with Node.js because both use JavaScript, allowing for seamless backend integration. Node.js is often chosen for React Native apps because of JavaScript’s shared ecosystem.
- Other options: React Native can integrate with cloud services like Firebase, AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, or any other backend solution. It’s just as flexible as Flutter when it comes to backend integration, given its ability to interact with RESTful APIs, GraphQL, and similar technologies.
The backend choice doesn’t limit you to either Flutter or React Native. Both frameworks allow easy integration with a variety of backend technologies, making the decision more about developer preference, the technology stack already in use, or the specific app requirements.
Competitive advantage
Flutter
- Great look and feel, thanks to rich widgets
- Rapidly growing community and popularity
- Excellent documentation with solid support from the Flutter team (which makes it easy to start developing with Flutter)
- Flutter for Web, offering one codebase across mobile and web platforms
- Difficult to beat time-to-market speed
React Native
- Many successful, prominent market players using React Native
- Mature, vast community
- Easy-to-learn technology
- Plenty of tutorials and libraries, which enable quick and easy development
- Code can be easily reused for both web app and desktop app development
When is it not the best fit?
Flutter might not be the best if your app:
- Has a platform-specific design
- Requires extensive OS interactions or uses niche native libraries
- Prioritizes a minimalist UI but makes heavy use of phone hardware (like a music player or camera-only app)
- Is intended to be an instant app (small in size)
Then, in these cases, native app development may be a better fit for you.
React Native might not be the best if your app:
- Requires specialized background tasks, such as specific calculations
- Needs custom Bluetooth communication (challenging with React Native)
- Is for Android only
In truth, if you want to build an iOS app and you know JavaScript, consider React Native – but if you want an Android-only app, it’s likely better to build natively with another team. Why? Right now, iOS has better support than Android. Given these considerations, native app development may be a better fit for you.
Web development with Flutter and React Native
Can you develop web apps with Flutter?
As we’ve already mentioned, according to Flutter’s official website, web development with Flutter is the most effective for:
- Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)
- Single Page Applications (SPAs)
- Existing Flutter mobile applications
Flutter Web works excellently for web apps and offers a swift way to design attractive apps. Its standout advantage is the ease of adapting the completed web app to other platforms like Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, and Linux. All you need to do is adjust for screen sizes, tweak some settings, and run a build command.
However, remember that Flutter Web is not intended for creating traditional websites. Also, like React, it is not SEO-friendly. Thus, if that’s your priority, you might need to look for alternative ways to achieve the best results.
Pros of Flutter Web:
- Unified Codebase: Single codebase for both web and mobile
- UI Consistency: Achieves an exact UI look across platforms
- Rich Animations: Provides complex animations and transitions
- Rapid Development: Offers a hot restart feature and a wide set of widgets
- Great performance: Supports WebAssembly
Cons of Flutter Web:
- Size: Initial app sizes can be large
- Integration: Can be tricky with existing JavaScript libraries or browser features
- SEO: Challenges due to content rendering via the Canvas API
- Maturity: Still evolving, so you might have to pay extra attention to potential bugs
- Unfamiliarity: Flutter Web’s way of building web apps is very different to any other web framework on the market
Can you develop web apps with React Native?
React Native does not support web development by default, but its structure makes it easy to add a new platform, such as macOS, Windows, or, indeed – the web. Here is how it works.
React Native for Web originated in 2015 by Nicolas Gallagher for Twitter’s Progressive Web App and has transitioned from a React Native-inspired framework to a bridge between React DOM and React Native. It’s been adopted by major companies like Meta, Twitter, and Flipkart, with ongoing contributions from Meta, Expo, and more.
The challenge lies in balancing high-quality Web app needs with React Native API compatibility. Today, React Native’s expansion includes support for Android, iOS, Web, Windows, and macOS, aiming to offer unified React APIs for faster, multi-platform product launches.
And while we’re on the subject of React Native for the web, we should also remind you about Expo – a framework and platform for universal React applications that makes it easier to design, build, and deploy React Native projects, including web applications.
Pros of React Native for Web:
- Unified Codebase: Consistent code sharing between platforms
- Familiarity: Seamless experience if accustomed to React/React Native
- Component-Based: Allows for modular and reusable architecture
- Community: Large, offering many resources and support
Cons of React Native for Web:
- Web-Nativity: Can sometimes feel like a workaround
- Performance: Might not match native web framework levels
- Integration: Merging with web-focused libraries may need extra effort
- Learning Curve: Requires an understanding of mobile-centric components
- Applicability: Plain React might be better for web-only projects
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Flutter vs React Native: App Owners share their stories
Flutter and React Native are both top-tier frameworks for cross-platform mobile app development. React Native boasts maturity and a vast community, while Flutter shines with its user-centric design and powerful UI capabilities. However, in the end, the optimal choice pivots on your project’s unique demands and the expertise at hand. Let’s dive into insights from industry leaders on the React Native vs. Flutter debate.
- For me, Flutter was harder to learn than React Native. Mainly because React Native uses JavaScript (which is a familiar language for me) whereas I was new to Dart – the language used by Flutter. So, if you are new to Dart and trying to learn Flutter, it will take more time than learning React Native. But the opposite is also true – if you have experience in Dart, then learning Flutter will be a walk in a park.
- The components in React Native are pretty basic, so if you need anything extra, considerable effort is required when styling. Only a handful of components are adaptive to the platform, while most of the time you have to use a different component for both iOS and Android; or, style it differently.
On the other hand, with Flutter, everything is a widget. And the widgets are based on Material Design, making them easily customizable. Most of the widgets are adaptive, and you can use the same widget across both Android and iOS.- When it comes to performance, Flutter has the upper hand as it’s compiled to ARM or x86 native libraries, which makes it really fast. React Native isn’t compiled to native code, and it still has the JavaScript layer, making it less performant than Flutter.
React Native is the closest competitor to Flutter. I like it as it sets the standard for cross-platform native development.
That said, our experience with it has surfaced a few issues.
- React Native is just a wrapper over native methods, so it requires a bridge to translate those calls into a native API; this becomes a bottleneck when you have a lot of native calls happening. There are ways around this, but with Flutter, you don’t ever have to worry about the issue as the view layer is rendered like a game would be – and as all components are designed by Flutter engineers, there are fewer native calls to the bridge.
- React Native components aren’t always customisable enough as they are just wrappers over native views. So, say someone decided not to wrap a certain method, then you won’t have access to it (for instance, dashed borders around a view don’t work) – while new components released by Google and Apple can take a long time to become available on React Native.
- Bugs on React Native have also started to take a lot longer to get fixed. The dashed border issue, for one; as well as a separate issue supporting various build flavours etc. Most companies running React Native in production, run a custom fork to fix bugs that aren’t fixed upstream. The Flutter devs are more proactive, and you can expect fixes fast. We ended up spending most of our time looking for issues in React Native documentation, then figuring out why things weren’t working the way they should.
The issues we found sent us searching for something better – fortunately, Flutter was just around the corner.
The main benefit of Flutter over React Native (and native, in general) is the lack of platform constraints. Flutter isn’t muzzled by the platform UI because it doesn’t use it; it renders everything by itself. This frees you to build the best UX without compromise – and it’s the primary difference between Flutter and React Native. Read more here >>
Is Flutter going to replace React Native?
The debate on supremacy between Flutter vs React Native continues to be a hot topic.
Both frameworks offer robust solutions, yet Flutter’s rapid innovation and unique widget-based design are seen by some experts as potential advantages. However, React Native, with its expansive community and support from Meta, maintains strong momentum.
For business owners considering a new app investment, it’s essential to remember that both frameworks continue to evolve, with significant updates expected in 2025. Ultimately, your choice may hinge on factors like budget, timeline, and specific project requirements. Staying informed on industry developments will empower you to make the best decision for your business. Here’s a look at it all from a developer’s perspective:
Flutter has grown rapidly over the last few years, but we can’t say that it’s now so much better than React Native that it will replace it. Both frameworks have their target audience and will share the market for at least the next couple of years. The future of both frameworks depends mainly on the teams working to improve them, but also on community contributions, market changes, and people’s preferences and needs.
When to choose React Native and when to choose Flutter? Making the right choice
In short, it’s all about project needs and developer skills! But let’s dive deeper.
Delivering projects on time is one of the most critical aspects of mobile and web app development. The cross-platform nature of both React Native and Flutter speeds time to market and comes with its advantages. So, how do you choose the right framework for your project?
Flutter offers a fresh approach with its highly customizable widgets and the Dart language. That will be the best choice if:
- Your developers know Dart
- Your project prioritizes unique designs or animations
- You want to ensure a uniform UI across all platforms
- You want to reduce maintenance costs – you can create a new multiplatform app or rewrite an existing native application in Flutter
- You want to create a mobile and a web app – with Flutter, you can get that with a single codebase
React Native has been around a bit longer. Its language, JavaScript, is something many developers already know. That’s your first choice when:
- Your developers are fluent in JavaScript
- The design of your app differs between platforms
- You want to build your app’s GUI using native UI components
- You already have a web app built in React – React Native can allow you to reuse a significant amount of logic for the mobile app
Remember that every application has its own unique challenges, so your choice should reflect the specific needs of your project – whether that’s integration requirements, available resources, or other project-specific details. It’s always worth discussing your project with an experienced team of developers: people who are able to consider the different approaches and have a diverse enough skill set when it comes to cross-platform development.
Read also:
If nothing else, take confidence from this: both Flutter and React Native are very good technologies. They benefit from huge popularity and enduring trust and can help your application spread its wings and fly. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for you – best of luck with your next steps, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask us.
And if you’d like to explore even further, check out our article on the 4 Most Popular Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks for 2024.
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After working on Flutter for more then a month now i fell in love with it it’s easy to learn OOP and has same performance as native and not to mention you have control over every inch of the screen you can do amazing things designs nobody ever has done ? i use to use Ionic which is good too but Flutter is way better in my opinion the Performance look and everything feels better and development is very fast Flutter will become more and more know and community will grow very quick i am sure flutter will end up Like Angular !!! good luck coding
Is that a good thing?
It’s Amazing thing Angular is one of most popular JavaScript Framework it is good Framework to learn you can make amazing web applications and many other good things with it , And Flutter is Amazing For Fast development in Mobile Applications for IOS or Android and in near future everyone will want to learn it because there is demand and it is great tool to have in your toolbox
I don’t know about Flutter, but React Native is a fucking nightmare once it breaks. Expect to find a hundred people with your problem but none of their solutions might work for you. If you are forced to update a RN app as part of your work prepare for never ending headaches as the application might work perfectly under Android yet refuse to even run on IOS because of bundling or library issues.
Nice article! I’m was searching such detailed and insightful article before starting cross platform development for mobile. Though have good 10 years experience in native iOS, this is the time for me to explore cross platform development with…Flutter!
Excellent summary, thank you.
I was going to build an app in React Native but really struggled with the navigation and had constant tooling issues.
Not to mention the dependency of it on so many 3rd party, poorly maintained repositories.
Flutter is a better solution for my needs.
I have gone through your article, it was very interesting & informative.React Native is a popular cross-platform framework used for mobile app development, and it has several advantages that make it a great choice for building mobile applications. I have some points to include in your article.
1.Cross-platform development
2.Faster development time
3.Large developer community
4.Native-like performance
5.Customizable components
React Native is an excellent choice for mobile app development, as it provides a faster, cost-effective, and reliable way to build high-performance mobile apps for both iOS and Android platforms.
The article claims Facebook is using ReactNative…. (written in 2022) – but the social media giant, recently announced its decision to pull out of React Native… even in 2015, 2016…. only 10%-20% of the app was written in React Native and 80% was still native android/ios.