Daria Lymanska
CEO & Founder

Too many requests! You have made too many requests!! No more requests!!!
– How many times do you have to hear that before you get really angry?Amazon Chime API’s request throttling tested our patience like this. But all we ever wanted was to make a simple text chat app work! In this article, you’ll find out why Chime was so unkind to us, what we did to turn things around, and how you too can follow the path we forged.

If you are looking for a suitable platform to implement your mobile solution in the most cost-efficient way and, thus, make it cross-platform, it can be a rather challenging task given the variety of different frameworks, libraries, and SDKs.

For example, according to Statista, Flutter and React Native (RN) were the world's two most popular frameworks for cross-platform development by the end of 2023. However, they cannot be called universal, and each is better suited to solving specific problems. Below, we will cover the difference between them in more detail and also conduct a comparative analysis of these two solutions.

What Is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source framework from Google that first saw the light of day in 2018. It is designed for both front-end and full-stack development of cross-platform solutions with a single code base for iOS, Android, Web, Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Flutter uses the open-source Dart language, which is also a brainchild of Google. Now, it has 162k stars on GitHub.

One of the most significant benefits of Flutter is the ability to accelerate time-to-market: this is ensured by hot reload (which provides the ability to change the program code and check the results in real time), the built-in increased performance provided by direct compilation to native code, as well as the presence of a C++ engine for rendering elements and optimization. In general, according to the unspoken opinion of developers, about 95% of all development tasks can be covered by Flutter libraries and tools.

Benefits of Flutter

Flutter popularity is absolutely justified – it is loved by developers around the world for the following advantages:

  • Native-like performance. Due to the use of the Dart programming language, which is immediately compiled into machine code, applications created with this framework are unlikely to be inferior in performance to native analogs.
  • Uniformity of visual components. Flutter does not use platform-dependent visualization tools – instead, this framework refers to the Google Skia graphics library, which allows developers to provide a uniform look for UI components regardless of the platform.
  • Low entry threshold and a wide variety of available tools and libraries. Flutter is considered an easy-to-learn framework, and such built-in features as hot reloading, widget inspector, and a rich arsenal of tools for solving graphic problems (now, this framework already has graphics rendering at 120 fps) make the process of working on the frontend even more enjoyable and fast.

What Is React Native?

React Native is a cross-platform JavaScript-based framework created by the Facebook team in 2015 and introduced to the public as a solution for reusing the same code. Today, this platform can boast 116k stars on GitHub and the fact that it is at the heart of such world-famous services as Instagram, Facebook, and Skype. 

An interesting feature of this framework is its basis on the Flux architecture, which is based on unidirectional flows. This approach allows data to be passed from one parent component to its child components, making it easier for developers to manage data flows in the application. Also, like in Flutter, there is the Hot Reload feature that simplifies the testing and debugging processes, as well as a rich set of built-in components to boost the development speed of high-performance and visually attractive mobile solutions.

Benefits of React Native

The main benefits of React Native are:

  • Ability to reuse code by up to 90% and reduced time to market. The reusability of code written in this framework can be up to 90%. In addition, the created assembly, for example, for Android, will require only minimal configurations in order to function properly on iOS. All these features of this framework speed up the launch of projects.
  • Fast update in app stores. Thanks to the CodePush function, applications can be updated within the repeated deployment process without an intermediate step involving uploading updates to the app store. In particular, when the update is ready, its version that has already been presented on the store uploads it itself, without the need for re-communication with Google Play or the App Store.
  • A wide variety of libraries and access to native components. While it provides access to native platform components, there are also internal libraries with well-developed documentation and, in some cases, even entire application templates, including Native Base, React Native Elements, and React Native Starter Kit.

Key Differences Between Flutter and React Native

Now it's time to start a more detailed comparison of React vs Flutter.

Entry threshold

Even though both mobile app frameworks are considered to be quite easy to learn, Flutter, due to its abundance of internal development tools, practically eliminates the need for developers to use third-party tools and libraries (unlike RN). This means that its entry threshold can formally be considered lower.

Performance

As for React Native vs Flutter performance, the second one has a lot of widgets based on its own high-performance rendering engine, which makes it suitable for developing applications with complex graphics. At the same time, despite the claims of RN creators, this solution can impose certain problems with the speed of work of resource-intensive projects.

Time ​​to market

In our Flutter vs React Native comparison, RN gives Flutter a head start when it comes to developing applications with different designs for each of the platforms since the latter is aimed at building uniform interfaces.

Specifics for creating user interfaces

While Flutter offers developers a variety of ready-to-use widgets based on the Material (Android) and Cupertino (iOS) designs, React Native refers to the native components of the platforms.

Full list of supported platforms

Flutter supports development for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, Google Fuchsia, Web, Tizen for Samsung Smart TV, LG webOS, as well as for embedded devices. As for RN, this framework is compatible with Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, as well as Android and iOS TV platforms.

Conclusion

We hope that we have answered the essential question: “Flutter or React Native?” and it will be easier for you to choose the best of these two options. At the same time, we would like to note that the future of Flutter is uncertain, as Google has suspended its active development and significantly reduced its team. Therefore, we will keep our finger on the pulse and inform you about all upcoming changes.

Anyway, whichever framework you settled on, an equally important aspect will be the choice of an experienced team of developers. In particular, you can contact us for a consultation and also to find out the cost of development of your project.