Ionic 2 vs React Native vs NativeScript

Posted by The NineHertz on June 19th, 2018

 

The mobile app development industry is very vast. There are billions of mobile applications at present in the app stores. Most of the share of mobile applications is captured with Android and followed by iOS. Android, which is owned by Google had 2.8 million mobile apps in the year 2017. Whereas iOS had 2.2 million apps in the same year.

This report was generated by famous technology research company Statista. The number of Android apps increased to 3.8 million in the year 2018. It is estimated that the number of mobile applications is going to see a great hike in upcoming years.

Now, do you wonder why so much mobile apps? Because there are billions of app users. 197 billion mobile app downloads happened in the year 2017. 61.2% Global mobile phone population accessed the internet and mobile applications in the current scenario. Till 2020, the number of smartphone users is estimated to reach 2.87 billion. This number was 2.1 billion in the year 2016. Source of this data is Statista.

According to Statista’s another report, by the year 2020, the mobile app market is forecasted to generate the revenue of 189 billion. The time spent on smartphones and mobile applications are 185 minutes daily among Millennials.

All these statistics show that app market is growing rapidly. It has always been a tough decision to select the operating system; Android or iOS. But whether to use hybrid apps or not too has been a tough decision.

Why companies select hybrid app development?

  • Reduced development cost

  • Improved UI / UX

  • Ease of integration

  • Offline support

  • Simplified maintenance

There are various tools used to develop hybrid apps that are used by the cross-platform app developer. Let us take a look at three of the most used and popular tools.

Ionic 2

It is a myth that Ionic 2 is simply an incremental update of the Ionic framework with minor changes. In fact, it has some major pack of changes and new features. The ionic framework is TruceScript-ready. This indicates existing Angular components can be readily used for the mobile application.

Ionic 2 framework is used widely to build native mobile applications. Ionic 2 too relies on webviews to form the interface that is possessed inside a native container. Ionic 2 uses Apache Cordova API to access the device hardware. The performance takes a dip when the devices are of slow processors.

There are certain benefits offered by Ionic 2 such as it requires single code base. It also has simplified and fast development cycle. Ionic 2 is easy to understand and apply. Native functionalities of the user’s device can be accessed with the plugin system. Just like benefits, there are also some drawbacks of Ionic 2.

As mentioned before, if the device has a slow processor, the performance decreases in Ionic 2. It has lack of native UI component for every platform. It is not recommended for graphics-intensive applications. Development of advanced graphics is difficult.

React Native

Did you know, React native is developed and maintained by Facebook, a popular social media site company. Ionic does not use native components of the respective platform to offer exact native interface. But React native does and also retains the ease of hybrid app development.

It uses Virtual DOM that enables cross-platform app developers to form a single codebase in JavaScript. This single code base automatically gets manipulated in the background. It is applicable to all platforms and delivers responsive design.

Few of its benefits are native interface, common codebase and better performance as compared to Ionic 2. Some of its drawbacks are a weak native experience. While using react native, Android components are not much reliable as compared to iOS. Developers need to create a native shell for each platform. It is easier to maintain. It is also more stable and feels like native apps.

NativeScript

The native script is developed by Telerik. It offers the best cross-platform native experience in mobile applications. It too has “write once, run anywhere,” phenomena. TypeScript and AngularJS are used to create mobile components.

These mobile components offer true native interface and experience. The fear of losing previously created web components is deleted. Native Script delivers a uniform experience across all platforms.

The native script makes the size of application larger as compared to native counterparts. There are some amazing benefits of the native script. It has 100% access to native API for amazing performance. It too has a single codebase for all platforms. The components are reusable. It has few drawbacks too. Developers need to create different UI for different platforms since it does not use HTML.

 

Conclusion:

As mentioned previously, it is always difficult to select a single tool. Each tool has certain pros and cons. Ionic 2 is popular with angular developers. React Native is used for its famous feature “defined once and used anywhere”.

Mobile app development companies have skilled expertise with great experience. These companies keep updated information of every single latest technology. These resources are expert in deciding which tool to use in which circumstances.

Companies who wish to develop their own mobile application for the sake of direct marketing or branding or simply offering information need not have the understanding of these tools and technologies. The client always gives requirements in simple words. It is the skill of developers to decide which tool to use while developing hybrid apps.

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The NineHertz

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The NineHertz
Joined: May 23rd, 2018
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