Cross-platform app development is booming, and the demand for android apps development service is all-time high. With this approach, businesses and individuals get an application based on a single unified codebase that is capable of working across platforms and is cost-effective to build and maintain compared to native apps that have dedicated codebases, which require more effort and resources.
To create sleek and high-performing multiplatform apps, there happen to be multiple options at developers’ disposal, and figuring out one for your app project becomes similar to navigating a maze. Today, cross-platform frameworks like Flutter, React Native, and Xamarin are the top three choices, followed by Ionic and PhoneGap later in the list.
This blog will be comparing different aspects of mobile apps, such as user interface, performance, integration with native features, IDEs and tools, development language, etc., so you can make a well-thought-out selection of the framework for your project.
So, without further ado, let’s dive deep into comparing Flutter against the other two.
Flutter vs. Other Frameworks (React Native, Xamarin)
User Interface
Flutter
Flutter has a rich set of customizable widgets that equip developers to develop a consistent and expressive UI across platforms. These widgets are not only static but also possess behavior that makes them dynamic.
React Native
React Native fundamentally uses native components, and while they are used with the aim of having a native look, achieving pixel-perfect design may require more effort than just writing plain syntax.
Xamarin
Xamarin also leverages native UI components, which help developers achieve a native look and feel on each platform, i.e., Android, iOS, etc. It also provides a good user interface, but it is not as good as Flutter and React Native.
If we compare the three against each other and in general, Flutter emerges as the winner here because of its Material Design widgets. Then comes React Native and Xamarin in the last. React Native is good in the aspect of creating visually appealing and smooth UIs, but not as good as Flutter.
Performance
Performance is the biggest factor when it comes to choosing between the three, so let’s see which can bestow more power on our app.
Flutter
Flutter uses the Dart programming language, which is a compiled language, so it offers high performance. Dart’s Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation during development helps developers achieve higher performance than the other two in a faster development cycle.
React Native
Generally, React Native offers good performance, but some compute-intensive tasks might benefit from native modules. Also, because it utilizes JavaScript to bridge, performance is affected, but it is still quite high.
Xamarin
Performance is close to native as it uses native APIs and compiles to native code, but it takes the longest time to develop among the three.
React Native requires JavaScript-based communication to enable interaction with native components, unlike Flutter, which uses a powerful Skia rendering engine. But when compared to native apps, they all offer inferior performance and use more device resources.
Architecture
React Native uses JavaScript Bridge to enable communication with native components, which is the reason for slowness compared to native apps, but the recent updates have instilled improvement and made it more efficient. Flutter, just like React Native, also uses the bridge to communicate with native components, but it does not use JavaScript Bridge, which is unlike that, making it more responsive and fast.
Development Time
React Native expedites the development of the three, and that is because it uses JavaScript, which is highly adopted, used, and prevalent. Also, React Native has a modern architecture that fuels the speed of development. Xamrin, among the three, takes a long time to develop. However, Flutter is not far behind, and with its hot-reload feature, the development time can be further reduced.
Security Aspects
React Native also stands behind Flutter in the queue, built in ascending order of security comparison. Also, React Native is not suitable for projects that involve data, i.e., fintech or banking apps.
In contrast, Flutter is far ahead when it comes to the security aspect, and the reason is that the decompiling of Flutter apps is impossibly possible, as their code compiles into machine code that cannot be reversed once it is done, which gives Flutter an edge and makes it a secure choice for projects requiring a high level of security.
Apart form that, Flutter comes with built-in security features such as stringent encryption, secure storage, sandboxing, which gives an extra layer of security, etc. React Native, on the other hand, has fewer and inferior built-in security features and relies more on third-party libraries for security-related functionality. This can lead to inconsistencies and compatibility issues across different versions of React Native and the libraries used.
Programming Language
React Native uses JavaScript, which is the primary language for web development, but JavaScript is also the reason for the popularity and adoption of React Native to a great extent. On the other hand, Flutter uses Dart, which is Google’s in-house programming language.
And lastly, Xamarin uses C#, which is a Microsoft language. If we compare all three languages, JavaScript will lead the competition, followed by C# and Dart.
Popularity and Industry Adoption
Flutter
Flutter is gaining popularity the fastest, especially for its cross-platform capabilities.
React Native
React Native has the biggest market share and is widely used, and because it has a link with JavaScript, the conversion of JavaScript boosts the adoption of this platform and boosts the number of developers.
Xamarin
Xamarin is established and primarily used in various enterprise applications.
Flutter was released later than React Native, and in the interim, React Native had captured a sustainable chunk of the market, whereas Flutter is gaining it at a rapid pace.
Community Support
Flutter has the largest community support in the realm of cross-platform frameworks and is quite large compared to FLutter and Xamarin for a variety of reasons, i.e., React Native was released before Flutter, not before Xamarin though, but captured the market very fast.
Conclusion
So you must be thinking of hiring a flutter app development service because of the comparison we have done above in the article, and it is quite reasonable to have the tip tilted towards it, but all three have their own use cases and are widely used, especially React Native. Also, you can have your biases towards one or another, but React Native and Flutter have both their pros and cons. Just to give you an example, the development cost of Flutter is higher, but the development speed is higher, which can give you a competitive edge over React Native. Both give high performance, but React Native lags in apps that have complex designs and animations.
