7 Reasons Why Facebook's React Native Wins Over Google's Flutter

Google's Flutter is the answer to Facebook's React Native framework and developers constantly go back and forth on which one drives the best results. For developers, it is an exciting time, as two software giants are trying to compete.

It's becoming increasingly important for startups to create mobile apps that can easily reach users on a wide range of devices, and using a central framework that can translate code across these apps and devices is important for any development team.

But when you're assessing which framework is the best for your developers to use for building cross-platform apps, there's none other than Facebook's React Native. Here's why.

1. React Native Offers an Enhanced Framework

React Native beats Google Flutter thanks to its framework maturity. It's been tried and tested and has been around for over three years. That means it's been around long enough for developers to work out most of the errors that come along with a new framework.

On the other hand, Google's Flutter is barely a year old and has yet to achieve the mass adoption of Facebook's React Native. This means that some bugs might not have been found yet on Flutter, and the longer Flutter's adoption period takes, the longer it will take for the discovery and fixing of coding errors and bugs to happen.

2. It's JavaScript-Friendly

Another great benefit of using React Native is that it's built using JavaScript. JavaScript is one of the most popular programming languages for several good reasons. It's useful for web development thanks to its ability to be interactive. It's also an easier programming language to learn than Dart, which Flutter uses.

You can also easily debug JavaScript since it's built on the browser, where all you have to do is run the code and immediately get results. With a quick feedback loop, you can identify errors, learn from these mistakes and fix them fast.

While Flutter is also easy to learn, Google is known for "failing fast" and removing apps, products, and even programming languages that don't work or aren't productive. Dart is still new and doesn't have the vast adoption that JavaScript does.

3. There's a Wide Selection of Tools and IDEs

The other great advantage of using React Native brings versus using Flutter for developing cross-platform apps is that it has a wide range of available and popular integrated development environments (IDEs) and tools developers can use to support the framework, such as Atom and Sublime Text.

This is due to the fact that React Native has been in use for several years and app development companies have had a great deal of time to incorporate it. For IDEs to be useful and stand the test of time, they should be widely adopted. Flutter, on the other hand, is only supported on VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA, and Android Studio, as of now.

4. React Native Utilizes Direct Code Structure

It's important to keep the structure of your code simple and React Native simplifies code structure better than Flutter. Since Google's styles, templates, and dates aren't separate in a Dart file, the styling of its structure is cluttered.

This makes it more challenging for developers to reread their code or view the code of other developers. On the other hand, React Native offers a more streamlined approach thanks to its JavaScript-based direct code structure.

5. It Offers a Better UI/UX

While Flutter offers proprietary widgets that are helpful for customizing user interface (UI) designs, its many drawbacks, including a lack of iOS-style components, can make developing mobile apps complex.

However, React Native offers a better user experience (UX) in creating the UI you need. There are also countless external UI kits available for it, including NativeBase and React Native Material Kit.

6. Reduces Development Time

Being able to deliver apps on time requires having a framework that can facilitate shorter timeframes, and React Native outdoes Google Flutter in this category.

The primary reason it will be quicker to develop projects on React Native is that it's been out for some time and easy to find sources if needed to assist with development. React Native also has ready-to-use components that can assist in quickly creating applications.

7. It's Widely Used

With Facebook having a large audience alone on its platform, coders can ensure that they can reach a wider audience. Instagram also uses React Native with other large companies, such as Skype, Tesla, Airbnb and Wal-Mart.

Since Flutter is so new, it doesn't have anything to really exhibit to business owners or a solid reason for companies to make the switch. Furthermore, some developers fear that Dart is susceptible to being eliminated the same way Google eliminated AngularJS with various upgrades and a name change to, simply, Angular.

This discourages wide adoption as many developers can easily waste their time developing apps that can easily become defunct or require a complete overhaul should Google stop supporting Dart or eliminate Flutter.

Final Thoughts

Although Google Flutter shows promise for developers who want to customize cross-platform apps, its limitations and ability to reach a large audience will make it hard for developers to switch over. The fact that many IDEs are not compatible with Flutter also makes it even harder for programmers to embrace it as they will have to adjust to a new platform.

Thus, it's not difficult for Facebook's React Native to outshine Flutter. By taking advantage of this powerful and widely adopted framework, you can ensure your development team is using a tool that will provide long-term results for the development and deployment of your cross-platform apps.