React Native vs Native― Choose Once and For All

Posted by Emily Tgray on September 9th, 2019

If you have been planning on investing in mobility solutions, you must have been asked about which framework you want― the old school but trusted Native or the new hyped React Native.

We certainly understand the struggle of making such an important decision, and the pressure it imposes. Especially, when you have no idea how to make the right decision, for you don’t have enough knowledge about the two in question.

It is a tricky business, but help is also around the corner. In this article, you will get to know the pros and cons of both Native and React Native frameworks, and what makes them so popular among developers.

Well, to be honest, demand for React Native app development is like a rollercoaster that is only going up. It is now considered as an ideal framework not just from the developer’s perspective, but also from a business point of view. So, without any further ado, let’s start.

Is React Native really that impressive?

Let’s find out.

PROS

1. Time and Money Efficient

If anything is priceless, its time. And React Native is the perfect choice to save it from going to waste by developing different applications for different platforms. With this framework, you do not have to do the same task of developing apps twice.

Moreover, it saves you a few bucks as compared to Native app development, for you do not need separate developers for iOS and Android. All you need is this single framework and create an app just once for two different platforms, i.e., Android and iOS.

2. Expeditious Development

Wondering how is it faster than Native? Well, when you can use a major part of coding of one platform, say iOS, for another like Android, it will evidently save you a lot of time and effort. For less complex apps, which don’t require more native features, the use of React Native will certainly shorten the development cycle.

3. Exemplary performance

React Native delivers amazing UI by utilizing native APIs. This allows the apps developed with React native framework to be competent and functional enough to compete with native apps. Also, that this framework uses the popular ReactJS UI library. It transfers virtual DOM, better app performance, and more easy programming processes from ReactJS.

4. Incredible Features

Expo a tool developed around React native to enable exemplary features such as push notifications, camera, location, etc. into apps developed with this framework. It is one of the prominent reasons why developers and even startups prefer React Native.

5.Reliable and Go-To choice

Because it is now the primary choice of many renowned companies such as Walmart, Facebook, etc., it is highly reliable and trusted. It is the result of its efficiency in respect of time, money and personnel.

CONS

1. Need for Native Code

Because of React native’s dependency on native code to render great features to the apps, you will need an experienced team of developers who have experience of working with native, which can be expensive, from a business perspective.

2. Issues with Design

With different guidelines used for making apps for Android and iOS, it can create confusion for developers as to whether it is compatible with React native concept or not.  To eliminate this problem, developers may have to write some parts of the code differently and adjust to the specific needs of each platform.

Is Native still reliable?

PROS

1. APIs are welcomed

Well, if you want your application to integrate with different APIs, then you should definitely try native development. The native framework does not require any extra integration efforts. With the assistance of native app development, you do not require inserting a piece of Jave or Swift code in the app, which you do to avoid the React Native limitations for APIs.

2. Excellent performance

Native app development is certainly the option you choose if you need your app to be perfect with respect to quality and performance. You can implement IoT and AR/VR technologies into the app developed by the native framework and it will deliver exemplary performance.

3. Good Community Support

You can always take the help of third-party libraries or even access the huge community support when you face any problem while developing the app. These are tons of resources available so you can get all the help you need.

CONS

1. Not So Time-Efficient

The fact that developers have to code separately for each platform i.e., iOS and Android, automatically makes the whole development process time-consuming. It is so for the entire coding is done twice separately with a few distinctions, and that takes double the time in comparison to React Native. 

2. Heavy on the Pocket

Because the coding has to be done twice, the process becomes expensive. You would need twice as many developers in Native than you would do with React Native.

Conclusion

Once you analyze and ponder on the above pros and cons, you will get a clear idea about both frameworks. This will enable you to choose the perfect option for your mobility solutions needs and assess which one is better.