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The world of cross-platform development is tearing between the two most popular frameworks - React Native and Flutter. According to recent research, in 2021, React Native and Flutter have the support of the majority of developers. Besides, Flutter’s popularity has been increasing since 2019 while React Native has been losing it.
However, the statistics don’t mean that the time of React Native passed and the framework lost its relevance. Instead, it continues to evolve its capabilities and remains an indispensable tool for cross-platform development.
But you are here to find out which is the best: mature and stable React Native or rapidly growing and performant Flutter. Thus, without further ado, let’s do it. In this article:
- General information on RN and Flutter;
- The comparison of the frameworks by the several performance metrics;
- Pros and Cons of Flutter and React Native;
- RN and Flutter use cases with applications examples.
React Native and Flutter: the essence
React Native
React Native is a free and open-source framework for developing mobile, web, desktop & other cross-platform applications. But in contrast to Flutter, the performance is much better with the web apps.
The Facebook team released it in 2015, and it has much hype from the start. Its impressive tools set and performance brought the framework popularity and the devoted community of contributors. At present, Rect Native offers even more development capabilities and evolves into complete platform agnosticism, bridge simplification, and streaming model upgrade.
React Native uses React web development framework as a basis. RN uses JavaScript, TypeScript, and JSX programming languages basis which makes the platform easy to use for the majority of developers. React Native controls native rendering through Objective C/ Swift on iOS and Java/Kotlin on Android. React Native works with components to render the app natively on various platforms. The components are the substitutes of widgets. They are easy-to-use but look not as natively and aesthetic as the widgets.
Flutter
Flutter is a Software Development Kit (SDK) for cross-platform development. Similar to React Native it is free, open-source, and allows developers to create all kinds of applications (mobile, desktop, various types of web apps, and more).
Google presented Flutter in 2018 as a beta version. Then, in 2019, after stabilizing the APIs and improving the system in line with the users’ feedback, the team announced Flutter 1.7. Since that time, the Flutter community has been growing rapidly.
Flutter uses the Dart client-optimized programming language. Like Flutter, it was created by Google especially for fast and complex applications. Dart is written with JavaScript and resembles it in a lot of ways. The language will be easy to learn for developers who have experience with JavaScript and C#. Apart from the language, Flutter's widgets enhance the rendering performance and cross-platform capabilities of the platform.
React Native vs. Flutter: the ultimate battle
In this section, we will compare performance metrics and features of the two frameworks.
Architecture
In terms of architecture, React Native and Flutter have much in common. Flutter has similar structural elements except for the Bridge and the programming language. It makes the performance of Flutter applications better than React Native ones.
As we said, React Native has a slightly more complex structure than Flutter. Also, it includes some unique structural elements like JS input. With RN, you can use multiple UI/code frameworks, libraries (Ignite CLI, Native Base, UI Kitten), and native modules to streamline the development process.
Winner: Flutter
Community
The community is a vital factor for a cross-platform development framework. One way or another, you will encounter issues you won’t be able to resolve by yourself. What’s more, the popularity makes it easier to find an experienced and creative developer to create your app. In such cases, you can reach out to the community and get the support you need.
Despite the Flutter’s young age and fledgling status, it has a mature community. Additionally, there are quite a lot of open libraries where you can find various functionalities. It would be fair to say that these libraries don’t contain all the functionalities you might need for your application. Thus, you’ll have to create them by yourself. But, the extension of the libraries is just a matter of time for the Flutter team and contributors.
The Flutter community grows rapidly but doesn’t catch up with React Native’s level of support. RN is three years older than Flutter and had its time to gather up a significant group of contributors and fans. Moreover, it has been dominating the cross-platform development area until 2021. So, there’s no surprise that React Native has a stable community and comprehensive knowledge base. Besides, RN offers an unprecedented number of ready-made functionalities and component libraries.
Winner: React Native
Code reusability
With Flutter, you can build iOS and Android apps using a single codebase throughout iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux. Also, you can create web apps for Firebase, Chrome, Safari, and Edge. Apart from that Flutter apps can be embedded with TV sets, cars, and smart home devices. However, sharing code in web environments can be quite challenging, considering the overall weak performance of Flutter there.
Out-of-box you can reuse RN code across iOS and Android devices. However, with the help of special libraries, you can apply the single code to the same platforms as Flutter.
Another way you can share the RN code is to inject it as a dependency. To do that, you need to extract the code you share and to a separate repository and treat it as a separate project.
The method allows developers to focus on the development of a platform-specific application without any concerns about compatibility with other platforms.
Winner: Draw
Performance
As both RN and Flutter work in several different environments, we will compare their performance in each of them.
Mobile
Flutter performs various kinds of tasks much faster than React Native. This difference boils down to the architecture of the platforms. React Native has the Bridge element that takes its time and resources to translate the JS code into native platform-specific languages.
At the same time, Flutter doesn’t need any additional interlayers. It takes load from a device and streamlines the application performance. Also, Flutter has a powerful C++ visual engine that makes the rendering of mobile apps seamless and detailed.
Winner: Flutter
Web
So as React Native is based on React web development platform, it dominates the web application development field. In addition, RN uses JavaScript which straightens the front-end side of its web applications. React Native suits for the development of all kinds of web applications:
- PWAs (Progressive Web Applications) that have the capabilities of a desktop app.
- SPAs (single page apps) that load once and transmit the info from the internet services to the app and vice versa.
On the other hand, Flutter’s Dart programming language is rarely used for web applications development. So, Flutter web application development capability is more of a nice-to-have feature. Still, Flutter web applications can be quite performant and fast.
Winner: React Native
Desktop
React Native desktop applications perform slightly better than Flutter. For example, an RN app can generate random DNA sequences only in two seconds and consume 71 kb of operational memory. In contrast, it would take 6 seconds and 159 kb to execute the same operation.
Winner: React Native
Application UI & Styles
Widgets and Dart UI capabilities win the game for Flutter in the rendering competition. They are based on material design and give developers more freedom of expression in UI development. Further, the Flutter applications will look the same on the newest and older devices. Flutter mobile apps look more like hybrid applications made in Ionic or Xmarin than native.
React Native uses platform-specific graphic blocks to build UIs. It uses JavaScript and React instead of native languages (Java, Swift, Kotlin, etc.) Besides, React Native employs Virtual Dom instead of using Web Views to render the interfaces. It enhances the rendering performance, optimizes a device’s memory usage, and makes an application lighter. Virtual DOM is especially useful for web applications rendering. And, finally, React Native uses native UI components so they update together with the iOS/Android app without any delay.
Eventually, both platforms are capable of pixel-perfect and seamless UI rendering. Flutters’ lack of native look is compensated with the vast styling features. At the same time, React Native’s native look and performance are slightly overshadowed by the lack of style variety.
Winner: Draw
Testing
With React Native and Flutter, developers can reduce testing time by half. It is possible because QA specialists can run the same test on two mobile platforms. Although, the applications for both platforms should be identical. In other words, the more similarities between the applications, the less testing they require.
React Native supports the IDE software suite, which opens wide testing automation capabilities. So, developers can choose from Espresso, Jasmine, KIF, Appium, Calabash, UI Automation, Robotium, Frank, TestNG, and more. The weakness of React Native application testing is that you won’t have any support or documentation for the testing routines.
Flutter testing has three categories: integration testing, unit testing, and widget testing. As opposed to RN, all three categories of testing have the support and detailed documentation. Dart programming language is great for non-UI testing because it runs on your development hardware. Also, Dart has vast testing automation features and tools like IDE (debugging), DartDevTools, and Continuous Integration (CI).
Winner: Draw
React Native Pros and Cons
Pros
- Open-source and free-to-use;
- You can access platform-specific APIs asynchronously;
- High development speed due to the code-sharing, components reusability, and hot reload feature;
- Flexible code;
- You can build apps for multiple platforms;
- Strong developer community with thousands of contributors that expand the framework’s feature set and provide support;
- 3d party libraries support pre-made code patterns;
- Exceptional UI rendering capabilities with the help of Virtual DOM without using WebViews;
- Native controls that facilitate the development process.
Cons
- RN developers may need native platform knowledge to solve more specific tasks;
- May require additional infrastructure to maintain complex applications;
- Debugging can be challenging.
Flutter Pros and Cons
Pros
- Fast coding process with hot reload feature;
- Vast code-sharing capabilities;
- Flutter apps are very fast and performant;
- Ambitious and rapidly growing community;
- Aesthetic designs on all kinds of devices;
- Very low time-to-market;
- Rich UIs due to the programming language;
- Works with all platforms and devices.
Cons
- Relatively small community;
- Functional libraries and support aren’t complete because of the young age of the platform;
- Weak performance in web environments.
When to Use Flutter and React Native
Flutter
Opt for Flutter in the following cases:
- You’d like to create a platform-specific design for your application;
- You need an extremely fast and performant application;
- You are ready to create some functionalities for your app by yourself;
- You want to create the instant and small-sized app;
Google Ads app
Google ads mobile app helps managers track their advertisement campaigns on the go. The functions of the application are:
- Real-time performance summaries and notifications;
- Ad campaigns management;
- Monitor advertisement performance any time anywhere.
eBay Motors
This application helps car owners and vendors to sell their vehicles right from their smartphones. It allows users to:
- To pay for the cars from the application due to the payment systems integration;
- Arrange shipping of the vehicle;
- Have message/voice negotiations;
- Uploading the photos of the vehicle and the related documentation.
Philips Hue
The app allows users to control the light in their room. To perform its functions the application includes:
- Bluetooth to connect with the Philips illumination devices;
- Integration with a device’s microphone for voice lightning control;
- Light change timer for special moments and times of the day.
React Native
React Native perfectly suits you in the following cases:
- You want to build your MVP at short notice. With React Native, it will take only several weeks;
- You are counting on the community support during your app development;
- You need easy access to platforms’ hardware functionality without 3d party plugins;
- You’d like to use the app in the web environment too;
- Your app requires complex controls and operations.
Applications examples:
Unsurprisingly, the company demonstrated the capabilities of its framework, creating Facebook social media mobile app for Android and iOS. Among the application’s features are:
- Text/voice messaging, video chats, and phone calls;
- Location tracking through GPS;
- Photo, video, music cloud storage.
Walmart
The largest retailer in the US, Walmart, entrusted its mobile app to the React Native developers. They’ve created a functional app capable of:
- Integrated chat-bot for customer support;
- GEO-positioning of goods and customers for delivering them;
- Price scanner and medical prescriptions management.
The world’s best photo/video-sharing platform is also made with React Native. The app has:
- The ability to connect with smartphone’s camera, record stories, make photos, period and record videos;
- Capacious and high-performant cloud storage;
- Text chat, collaboration tools, real-time photo/video content editing.
Conclusion
Now, it’s time to summarize all the facts about the frameworks and decide which application is better. It's up to you and the choice depends on your application requirements. Both React Native and Flutter can give birth to performant and rather fast cross-platform applications for different devices. Both of them offer cool features like hot/live reload that enhance the development process and have exceptional UI rendering capabilities.
However, the frameworks differ in structure, cross-platform development approaches, programming languages, and the capacity for design and styling.
Hope this comparison helped you to choose the appropriate cross-platform framework for your new application. Good luck!
P.S. If you still have questions or want to delegate your cross-platform development to a solid and experienced team of developers, contact us. Akveo provides the full cycle of services including app development, UI/UX & web design, branding, quality assurance, and technology consulting.
Retool Dashboards with HubSpot Integration
Our client needed a centralized tool to aggregate account and contact activity, improving visibility and decision-making for the sales team.
The solution
We built a Retool application integrated with HubSpot, QuickMail, and Clay.com. The app features dashboards for sorting, filtering, and detailed views of companies, contacts, and deals, along with real-time notifications and bidirectional data syncing.
The result
- MVP in 50 hours: Delivered a functional application in just 50 hours.
- Smarter decisions: Enabled data-driven insights for strategic planning.
- Streamlined operations: Reduced manual tasks with automation and real-time updates.
Lead Generation Tool to Reduce Manual Work
Our client, Afore Capital, a venture capital firm focused on pre-seed investments, aimed to automate their lead generation processes but struggled with existing out-of-the-box solutions. To tackle this challenge, they sought assistance from our team of Akveo Retool experts.
The scope of work
The client needed a tailored solution to log and track inbound deals effectively. They required an application that could facilitate the addition, viewing, and editing of company and founder information, ensuring data integrity and preventing duplicates. Additionally, Afore Capital aimed to integrate external tools like PhantomBuster and LinkedIn to streamline data collection.
The result
By developing a custom Retool application, we streamlined the lead generation process, significantly reducing manual data entry. The application enabled employees to manage inbound deals efficiently while automated workflows for email parsing, notifications, and dynamic reporting enhanced operational efficiency. This allowed Afore Capital's team to focus more on building relationships with potential founders rather than on administrative tasks.
Learn more about the case
Retool CMS Application for EdTech Startup
Our client, CutTime, a leading fine arts education management platform, needed a scalable CMS application to improve vendor product management and user experience.
The scope of work
We developed a Retool application that allows vendors to easily upload and manage product listings, handle inventory, and set shipping options. The challenge was to integrate the app with the client’s system, enabling smooth authentication and product management for program directors.
The result
Our solution streamlined product management, reducing manual work for vendors, and significantly improving operational efficiency.
Building Reconciliation Tool for e-commerce company
Our client was in need of streamlining and simplifying its monthly accounting reconciliation process – preferably automatically. But with a lack of time and low budget for a custom build, development of a comprehensive software wasn’t in the picture. After going through the case and customer’s needs, we decided to implement Retool. And that was the right choice.
The scope of work
Our team developed a custom reconciliation tool designed specifically for the needs of high-volume transaction environments. It automated the processes and provided a comprehensive dashboard for monitoring discrepancies and anomalies in real-time.
The implementation of Retool significantly reduced manual effort, as well as fostered a more efficient and time-saving reconciliation process.
Creating Retool Mobile App for a Wine Seller
A leading spirits and wine seller in Europe required the development of an internal mobile app for private client managers and administrators. The project was supposed to be done in 1,5 months. Considering urgency and the scope of work, our developers decided to use Retool for swift and effective development.
The scope of work
Our developers built a mobile application tailored to the needs of the company's sales force: with a comprehensive overview of client interactions, facilitated order processing, and enabled access to sales history and performance metrics. It was user-friendly, with real-time updates, seamlessly integrated with existing customer databases.
The result? Increase in productivity of the sales team and improved decision-making process. But most importantly, positive feedback from the customers themselves.
Developing PoC with Low Code for a Tour Operator
To efficiently gather, centralize, and manage data is a challenge for any tour operator. Our client was not an exception. The company was seeking to get an internal software that will source information from third-party APIs and automate the travel itinerary creation process. Preferably, cost- and user-friendly tool.
The scope of work
Our experts ensured the client that all the requirements could be covered by Retool. And just in 40 hours a new software was launched. The tool had a flexible and easy-to-use interface with user authentication and an access management system panel – all the company needed. At the end, Retool was considered the main tool to replace the existing system.
Testing New Generation of Lead Management Tool with Retool
Our client, a venture fund, had challenges with managing lead generation and client acquisition. As the company grew, it aimed to attract more clients and scale faster, as well as automate the processes to save time, improve efficiency and minimize human error. The idea was to craft an internal lead generation tool that will cover all the needs. We’ve agreed that Retool will be a perfect tool for this.
The scope of work
The project initially began as a proof of concept, but soon enough, with each new feature delivered, the company experienced increased engagement and value.
We developed a web tool that integrates seamlessly with Phantombuster for data extraction and LinkedIn for social outreach. Now, the company has a platform that elevates the efficiency of their lead generation activities and provides deep insights into potential client bases.
Building an Advanced Admin Portal for Streamlined Operations
Confronted with the need for more sophisticated internal tools, an owner of IP Licensing marketplace turned to Retool to utilize its administrative functions. The primary goal was to construct an advanced admin portal that could support complex, multi-layered processes efficiently.
The scope of work
Our client needed help with updating filters and tables for its internal platform. In just 30 hours we've been able to update and create about 6 pages. Following features were introduced: add complex filtering and search, delete records, styling application with custom CSS.
Together, we have increased performance on most heavy pages and fixed circular dependency issues.
Creating MVP Dashboard for Google Cloud Users
Facing the challenge of unoptimized cloud resource management, a technology firm working with Google Cloud users was looking for a solution to make its operations more efficient. The main idea of the project was to create an MVP for e-commerce shops to test some client hypotheses. Traditional cloud management tools fell short.
The scope of work
Determined to break through limitations, our team of developers turned Retool. We decided to craft an MVP Dashboard specifically for Google Cloud users. This wasn't just about bringing data into view; but about reshaping how teams interact with their cloud environment.
We designed a dashboard that turned complex cloud data into a clear, strategic asset thanks to comprehensive analytics, tailored metrics, and an intuitive interface, that Retool provides. As the results, an increase in operational efficiency, significant improvement in cost management and resource optimization.
Elevating CRM with Custom HubSpot Sales Dashboard
Our other client, a SaaS startup, that offers collaborative tools for design and engineering teams, was on a quest to supercharge their sales efforts. Traditional CRM systems were limited and not customizable enough. The company sought a solution that could tailor HubSpot to their workflow and analytics needs.
The scope of work
Charged with the task of going beyond standard CRM functions, our team turned to Retool. We wanted to redefine how sales teams interact with their CRM.
By integrating advanced analytics, custom metrics, and a user-friendly interface, our developers provided a solution that transformed data into a strategic asset.
In 40 hours, three informative dashboards were developed, containing the most sensitive data related to sales activities. These dashboards enable our customer to analyze sales and lead generation performance from a different perspective and establish the appropriate KPIs.
Building a PDF Editor with Low-Code
Our client, a leading digital credential IT startup, needed a lot of internal processes to be optimized. But the experience with low-code tools wasn’t sufficient. That’s why the company decided to hire professionals. And our team of developers joined the project.
The scope of work
The client has a program that designs and prints custom badges for customers. The badges need to be “mail-merged” with a person’s info and turned into a PDF to print. But what is the best way to do it?
Our developers decided to use Retool as a core tool. Using custom components and JavaScript, we developed a program that reduced employees' time for designing, putting the data, verifying, and printing PDF badges in one application.
As a result, the new approach significantly reduces the time required by the internal team to organize all the necessary staff for the conference, including badge creation.
