In this article, we’re going to talk about React-native vs. Flutter will Flutter kill React-native? Let’s find out. I’m going to compare React-native with Flutter, and then towards the end, I’m going to give you my unbiased opinion about which one you should learn from the mobile developers.
React-native and Flutter are the two top frameworks for building mobile apps for iOS and Android.
React-native is created by Facebook and has been around since 2015 here are five apps that are built with React-native.
- Skype
- Uber Eats and many more
Google created Flutter it’s a neuro framework that came out in 2018, here are three apps built with Flutter
- Google Ads
- Alibaba
- Realtor.com and of course many more
As you can see on Google Trends, Flutter has gained a lot of popularity recently and has overtaken React-native because many people are curious about Flutter. At present, there are not as many job opportunities for Flutter developers because React-native has been around for much longer than Flutter.
Even though Google has invested a lot in developing and improving Flutter, React-native is more mature and stable, so it has a higher adoption rate.
Now where you live, these numbers might be different, and there may be more job opportunities for Flutter developers. So don’t just relate to what I tell you. Do your own research and see which framework has a better job market. In terms of programming languages, React-native uses Javascript, so if you’re a web developer and no Javascript, React-native is the most straightforward path for you to get into mobile development.
Flutter, on the other hand, uses DART, a new object-oriented programming language is created by Google. It’s very similar to Java and Javascript in terms of syntax, so if you know Java or Javascript or C sharp, you can quickly get up suite with DART.
I think DART is a beautiful language that has taken the best ideas from different programming languages. However, it’s still new in the developer community. In contrast, Javascript has been around for a long time and has a vast community.
There are lots of books, courses, articles, developers, and millions of lines of Javascript code we can use in our apps. DART still new and growing its community. One of the selling points of Flutter is that it comes with a comprehensive library of beautiful UI widgets. So for any kind of app you want to build, there are many beautiful widgets available right out of the box.
That’s not the case with React-native you have to reach out to third-party libraries. So, building and shipping apps with Flutter can be faster, but of course, that really depends on the developer skills. Overall I think both React-native and Flutter are great.
Now should you invest your time and energy in React-native or Flutter?
Here are my guidelines;
First of all, ask yourself why you want to learn React-native or Flutter.
Think about your goal, do you want to learn mobile development to get a job, or have an idea for an app and turn that idea into reality. Your goal will determine the framework you need to learn.
- If your goal is to get an excellent job with a good salary, the job market determines whether you should learn React-native or Flutter. So, look at the number of jobs advertised where you live. Don’t listen to people telling you should learn this or that. Do your own research and decide based on data.
- On the other hand, if your goal is to build an app, then the job markets will no longer matter. What matters is time to market being able to develop and ship your app quickly.
If you know Javascript well and you also happen to know React, then React-native is the fastest way for you to get into mobile development. React-native is based on React, so everything you know about React also applies in React-native; you have to learn some additional stuff.
On the other hand, if you don’t know Javascript, you might want to consider a Flutter because all you have to learn to get started is the DART language, and Flutter itself is faster than learning Javascript React-native and React.
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