Flutter vs. React

We all witnessed over the years how mobile apps became an important part of our everyday lives. Today people can enjoy apps built for almost anything, and if you can’t find what you’re looking for, it might be a work in progress and soon to be released.

More and more people embrace modern technology and its constant evolution that pushes developers to be on top of their game whenever they develop a new mobile app. The need for new frameworks, platforms & technologies that support implementing new ideas into fresh cross-platform mobile apps keeps increasing just like the continuous demand for high-quality apps that work so smoothly and look like they are flowing.

You might find it difficult to choose the right framework for developing a new mobile app when having a large variety of platforms and developer tools that seem attractive. You might as well not be so familiar with specific key elements and features from each tool. Going native when developing a new mobile product is the first proposal of choice for our business owners & enterprises that become our clients. However, having limited time & budget sometimes makes them choose a reliable cross-platform development framework. 

You could be a business founder right in this position of choosing what’s best for your company, and you might find it challenging to do a research on each framework possibility. So we’ll spare you the trouble by shorting down the list and presenting you the two leading frameworks: Flutter and React. 

Flutter vs React: the introduction

Flutter and React are renowned as the best cross-platform mobile app development frameworks, and their competition against each other is a tough one. Probably one of the main topics that app developers debate on is for sure ‘React vs. Flutter’.

The tech industry is nowadays built on fundamental pillars and the main one is creating new mobile apps in highly efficient ways, so now you know why cross-platform frameworks are important and popular as we speak. Developers enjoy working with these tools because the frameworks allow them to create iOS & Android mobile apps by using a single platform to build them. 

Flutter and React are the most powerful rivals in this field, and of course, each framework comes with its own strengths & weaknesses. Our comparison is bias-free and objective, aiming to help you see which one of the two frameworks would bring the most benefits to you and your business. So we selected 5 things that we believe are essential when developing a new mobile app, so let’s see together how these two competitors succeed for each one.

Flutter vs. React – 5 Essential Things to Consider

As you might already know, both platforms are highly powerful, rich in features, and open-source frameworks. When it comes to React, you need to know that both Reactjs and React Native are important for app & web development, offer flexible functionalities and a constantly evolving ecosystem of libraries. Reactjs is a JavaScript library while React Native is the entire framework. Reactjs is ideal for creating apps with complex calculations and high functionalities, while React Native is optimal to give that native feeling to your mobile apps.

But before diving deeper into technical stuff, let’s remember some popular apps created with React app development. Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Netflix, New York Times, SoundCloud Pulse or Bloomberg, just to name a few. 

Some popular apps created with Flutter apps include Google Ads, Tinka, Alibaba, Lunching, Pairing, Coach Yourself, Hamilton Musical app, Postmuse, Reflectly and more.

Now let’s go to the 5 main comparison points between Flutter and React.

1. Company backing

React

React was launched publicly during Facebook’s 2013 summer hackathon. The React Native framework became open-sourced by Facebook (now Meta) back in 2015. There is a dedicated team that works on constantly improving the platform’s performance by adding important enhancements. The product gained the trust of developers and a huge popularity due to Facebook’s direct involvement.

Flutter

The Flutter framework was launched to the public in 2018 and is supported by Google. Even though Flutter is newer than React Native & Reactjs, it provides an advanced software development kit to developers and benefits from standing behind the same concept: creating new mobile apps using a single codebase. Google keeps on investing big amounts of money and resources in making Flutter one of the best solutions to build cross-platform apps.

Conclusion

Both React & Flutter have corporate giants behind them, and it looks like they’ll have this kind of support for life.

2. Programming language

React

React Native & Reactjs use and are entirely written in JavaScript, the very popular programming language among the veteran as well as the aspiring developers. Perhaps the biggest advantage of JavaScript is its high ranking as one of the most used programming languages worldwide. So finding a JavaScript developer to build your mobile app with React Native shouldn't be so hard.

Flutter

Flutter is written in a different programming language called Dart. It lacks the popularity & stability of JavaScript, but it’s relatively easy to learn and the apps build with Flutter work and look amazing. If you’re a developer who wants to use Flutter, you’ll need to learn Dart from scratch. Another good thing is that the learning curve is quite reasonable, devs with a background in Java & C++ are at an advantage.

Conclusion

React benefits from JavaScript being widely used. But learning a new programming language doesn’t have to be a disadvantage, as it opens new doors and possibilities. It can only become an issue if your schedule is tight.

3. Architecture

React 

When building React Native mobile apps, Flux and Redux are the two main frameworks used. Redux is the most popular option in the community, while Flux is the one created by Facebook. Both these frameworks use unidirectional data flow to store your app’s state in a central place, Store. Context API, a relatively new React feature, can also be used.

Flutter

There used to be a small amount of uncertainty about which architecture might be best to implement while working with it, when Flutter still was a relatively new cross-platform framework, but now its popularity and stability have reached a higher level. The Business Logic Component (BLoC) is recommended by Google, having a pattern that relies on streams and Reactive Dart (RxDart), being a very popular approach in the community of developers. Using Redux for Flutter complicates things sometimes by involving more code than BLoC, so keep that in mind when choosing how to do it.

Conclusion

Just like before, React Native benefits from a small advantage because it’s a mature product, and the Flux/Redux architecture is also used more than BLoC, which can take some time getting used to. 

4. Productivity

React 

To speed up the development process immensely, React Native supports Hot Reload, allowing developers to quickly make UI changes that show in the app instantly. React is popular among developers for providing methods to quickly divide executed codes & styles into various classes.

Flutter

Even though it uses the Dart programming language, Flutter also supports Hot Reload. Developers can easily customize the app’s UI, and this allows them to create structures, widgets, and platforms that can be reused. The advantage of Flutter is that it’s very easy to install, then you can enjoy running internal checks for issues effortlessly.

Conclusion

Both React Native & Flutter support hot reloading, and are easy to code, but the productivity can take more time as they follow different configuration processes. 

5. Performance

Flutter clearly is the winner when it comes down to the performance issue. The platform is way faster than React Native, being compiled to ARM or x86 native libraries. Additionally, Flutter is compiled to a native code (the Dart programming language), compared to React Native, which uses JavaScript. Writing native code is always a quicker & smoother experience that also improves performance, and Flutter is compiled to native code through Dart.

Conclusion 

Flutter leads in terms of performance by having its own native coding language that compiles in x86 native libraries. If performance is not your only concern when developing your new mobile app, we prepared a list of differences between these two for those of you who are still unsure:

Flutter or React Native in the future?

Even though Flutter hasn’t got a library just as wide as React Native’s, the platform refines its processes and features continuously. Flutter’s community expands quickly, so it might as well catch up to React Native soon. Right now, React Native still enjoys the benefit of being older, so its maturity often relates to stability. If you, as a developer, like challenges, you should definitely give Flutter a try.

React or Flutter – the best one for your business? 

When choosing the team to work your new app with, the framework for building the digital product will be decided together after clearly understanding & seeing each framework’s strengths and weaknesses, and clearly by meeting your time & budget constraints.

At HyperSense Software we have excellent Flutter developers who know Dart, as well as remarkable React developers who walk & talk JavaScript. It all depends on the complexity of the app, on the features you want us to build and on the UI & UX that you want to offer to your customers.

Contact us to find out more about what we do and how we can help you!