Flutter, React Native, or Xamarin. What is the best framework to develop a mobile application?

Every day we all use mobile phones to make purchases, pay bills, access our bank account and manage our social networks. And all these operations are carried out while we are frequently on the go.

When we develop a mobile application, we want to improve the user experience while using our app and improve our ROI as a company.

With all this, we always have the question of what is the best platform to use to build a useful mobile application.

According to the technology used, mobile applications are classified into native applications, mobile web applications, or hybrid applications. Most of the applications are integrated into Hybrid, a multi platform solution that perfectly fits our business's requirements.

As cross-platform hybrid solutions, we have several tools available:

●      Xamarin

●      React Native

●      Flutter

●      Ionic

Next, we will try to clarify the pros and cons of each of them, comparing different characteristics to help us make the best decision according to our business's requirements.

A quick look at React Native

Introduced by Facebook in 2015, React Native emerged as a cross-platform application development technology, using JavaScript to create a native mobile application.

 

Pros of React Native

 

●      React Dashboard offers several ready-to-apply elements that can speed up development time.

●      Hot reload: we can supply our application quickly without recompiling.

●      Direct use of native code to optimize our application to a high level.

●      Shared code on both platforms: iOS and Android.

●      Faster application development with precast elements.

●      Access to native functionalities such as camera, accelerometer, etc.

●      High-quality mobile UI.

 

Cons of React Native

 

●      Mobile app navigation would not be equivalent to native navigation. The navigation designed in React Native is not so smooth.

●      Like Xamarin, React Dashboard even allows us to develop higher-quality applications. But apps built with React Native are slower than native Android apps built with Java and native iOS apps built with Objective-C and Swift.

 

 

A quick look at Flutter

 

Flutter is the last of these three main actors to join the game. It allows us to develop multi platform mobile applications easily and simply.

 

What is Flutter?

 

●      It is a free and open-source platform.

●      It is based on Dart, a fast, object-oriented programming language that is very easy to learn.

●      It provides us with its particular gadgets, drawn with its superior rendering engine. They are fast, beautiful, and adjustable.

●      Flutter's architecture is based on reactive programming, which is very popular today.

 

Flutter Pros

 

●      Faster code writing that typically takes seconds helps teams add features, fix bugs, and experiment faster.

●      We developers only need to write a codebase used for applications that cover the Android and iOS platforms.

●      Having a similar application for two platforms means that it takes less time for testing, and the QA process can be faster.

●      It is easy to both create and customize widgets, such as material design widgets or Cupertino widgets.

●      Ideal for MVP (model view controller), helping us to build the application in less time.

 

Cons of Flutter

 

●      Flutter is still in beta and has yet to release a stable version.

●      It also doesn't support continuous integration (CI) platforms like Travis or Jenkins. Therefore, to achieve automatic creation, application testing, and deployment, our development team needs to use and maintain custom content.

●      Flutter is fully compatible with Google, and there are several useful libraries with functionalities that are ready to implement. However, Flutter is still not that rich when it comes to native development.

 

 

A quick look at Xamarin

 

In May 2011, Xamarin was released and later acquired by Microsoft. Xamarin was intended to address the pervasive problem of disconnected technology to encourage native applications' development using its open-source platform.

 

Xamarin Pros

 

●      The framework uses the C # language that works perfectly on many platforms (Android, iOS, and Windows).

●      If we are building an app for multiple platforms (like Android, iOS, etc.), we can share or reuse most of your code in the app for the other platforms.

●      Native API access: we can get platform-specific functionalities in your application

●      Various controls and layouts provided in Xamarin help with a faster development process

 

 

Cons of Xamarin

 

●      Limited access to different libraries vital to building an application using this framework.

●      Xamarin suffers from low community activity which is not suitable for developing a framework.

 

Flutter, React Native or Xamarin What framework do I choose?

 

Next, we will compare the characteristics of each of these frameworks; this will help us to have a clearer idea in choosing the most suitable environment for our business.

 

Ease of learning

 

Flutter is easy to learn if you know Dart, Google's object-oriented programming language. We need to create mobile apps with the help of Dart on Flutter. We may think that learning a new language will take a long time, but all we need is to understand the basics of this language. And if we know other languages ​​like JavaScript, everything will be much easier.

 

Learning the concepts of React Native is easy if we are experienced JavaScript developers and have some React skills. This framework is easy to understand and doesn't require a lot of effort but it does require JavaScript knowledge.

 

If we know Android, it is easier to understand Xamarin because many things are identical, and C # is very similar to Java. Xamarin can enable us to save up to 70% of development work on a second mobile platform by reusing code.

 

Application speed

 

When creating a mobile app with Flutter, we don't have to worry about speed as the framework will give us the performance that will make us users happy. Like React Native, Flutter is an excellent decision to develop a faster application. Flutter allows us to use native code to achieve better performance. Widgets include platform differences such as scrolling, navigation, and fonts. Therefore, we will have an uninterrupted understanding of Android and iOS.

 

React Native offers almost native performances. So, if we are creating a mobile application with this framework, our application will be super fast. Also, we can always try to improve it because application performance is crucial for a successful business. It allows us to write code in native languages, such as Objective-C, Java, or Swift. We can even create a part of our application to React Native while the other part can be built-in Native code.

 

Additionally, applications that are built on Xamarin will give us better performance and continuously improve to match native development standards. With the help of Xamarin, iOS and Android apps can be fully native apps leveraging each platform. It is quite similar if we are creating native mobile applications with Xamarin. Forms and their shared user interface (UI) library. Xamarin Forms 2.0, released as part of Xamarin 4, includes some new features and updates to help us build fast applications.

 

Developer productivity

 

The hot reload feature, “Live Reload,” available in Flutter, can save developers time. There are many widgets and APIs in Flutter that allow us to complete the application development work quickly. So, with the help of this framework, developers can work productively and save a lot of time while creating a mobile application.

 

This platform is quite advantageous for companies.

 

How to React Native gives us the flexibility to work in any text editor / IDE we want. Therefore, we can choose a text editor that can save time and money. It offers us a pre-built feature called “Live Reload” that helps you complete your project faster.

 

In Xamarin, "Live Reload" allows developers to implement enhancements to XAML and see them reflected live, without any compilation or implementation. Because our application compiles while using “Live Reload,” it works with all third-party libraries and controls. Live Reload works on all Xamarin platforms. The forms are compatible with iOS, Android, UWP, and WPF, and they work on all legitimate deployment targets, including simulators, emulators, and physical devices.

 

Architecture

 

The Flutter architecture is very easy to understand, and even new developers, starting with existing application code, can easily follow the framework. Flutter's architecture makes teamwork easy. It supports Flutter's reactive UI approach and never affects Flutter's performance. RefluxJS and Facebook's Flux awaken a Dart application architecture library with the one-way data flow. Flutter-flux implements a one-way data flow pattern involving Actions, Stores, and StoreWatchers. It depends on w_flux but has been modified to use Flutter instead of React.

 

The Xamarin architecture comprises a visual design platform for building native applications such as test suites, native library support, and a nugget-style component store. The visual design of iOS has been granted through its IDE to help developers open X-Code. LINQ can be used with collections or create custom delegates and events that free developers from the constraints of Objective-C and Java.

 

What is the best framework?

 

These three frameworks are great for developing successful mobile apps. But as you can see, it is tough to decide which one is the best. We need to think about which framework will be the most suitable for the development of our mobile application and which one will best suit our business. Some prefer encoding in React Native while others prefer Flutter and some consider Xamarin the best option.