React Native vs Native: Which is Better for App Development?

Mobile applications have always been written in native languages. With the rise of React Native, a growing number of popular mobile apps (such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Uber, Discord, SoundCloud, Skype…) are being partially or totally redeveloped in React Native. This leads to the question: Should mobile developers use React Native for mobile development instead of going full native with Java or Swift? Looking for Hire React Native Developers for your business needs.

Well, there is no correct answer for it, it depends on the requirements. Here in this piece, I will compare them in depth.

Native application:

A native application is one that is built for usage on a particular platform or device. As it is created for the use on a particular device and its OS, it has the ability to utilise device-specific hardware and software. It can give improved performance and take advantage of the latest technologies, such as Biometrics or Augmented Reality, as compared to web apps or mobile cloud apps intended to be generic across numerous systems.

React Native Application:

React Native is a framework for building native iOS and Android applications using JavaScript. It employs native components to render a user interface (UI) (UI). It delivers the same native look and feel while still providing greater portability and a familiar technique. React Native is a framework designed by Facebook to provide a smooth and easy cross-platform mobile development. JavaScript is the primary programming language for React Native. The JSX extension is supplied by default to allow developing declarative UI components.

In Android programming, you write views in Kotlin or Java; in iOS development, you use Swift or Objective-C. With React Native (RN), you may trigger these views with JavaScript using React components. For example, a native TextInput will have a matching RN component which can be directly imported into the JS code and utilized like any other React component. Hence, the developer will be creating the code just like for any other React online project but the output would be a native application. Because React Native components are backed by the same views as Android and iOS, React Native apps look, feel, and operate like any other apps. We call these platform-backed components Native Components. Looking for Hire React Native Developer London, UK for your business needs.

One key distinction is that React Native runs the JavaScript code in a separate thread, so the user interface does not block and animations should be silky and smooth.

JavaScriptCore comes default with iOS. But in the case of Android, RN bundles the JavaScriptCore together with the application. This increases the app size. Hence the Hello World application of RN would need roughly 3 to 4 MB for Android. Facebook has open-sourced Hermes, a compact and light weight JavaScript engine optimised for execution in React Native Android app (since RN 0.60.2). (since RN 0.60.2). It delivers a fairly important progress in mobile development with React Native as it will give the Android Applications produced with RN a significant boost in performance, along with a reduced build size and less memory use.

In a React Native app,

the JavaScript logic runs in a dedicated thread, while the rest of the app runs in what we’ll term “the native realm.” JavaScript handles the business logic of the application, while the native realm renders the UI and oversees device interactions. These two realms rely on something called “the Bridge” to communicate.

The JavaScript thread and the native realm can’t have a direct interaction – they are unable to listen, reply to or cancel events and actions happening on the opposite side. Instead, they pass serialised messages back and forth via asynchronous message queues. This system “bridges” the divide. For example, React Native may send a message to the native realm saying “render this button.” Upon receipt (ie. the next time it checks the message queue), the native realm completes the render. 

Due to the detached and asynchronous nature of this bridge, various performance concerns can develop.For a similar reason, animations might also be a cause of worry. In actuality, most of the time these kinds of performance losses are minor to the user; yet, they are still things developers need to be aware of so they can be designed around.

Both iOS and Android have a similar architecture with subtle changes. If we consider the big picture, there are three aspects to the RN platform:

Native Code/Modules:

Most of the native code in case of iOS is written in Objective C or Swift, while in the case of Android it is written in Java / Kotlin. But for building our React Native app, we would hardly ever need to write native code for iOS or Android.

Javascript VM:

The JS Virtual Machine that runs all our JavaScript code. On iOS/Android simulators and devices React Native leverages JavaScriptCore.

React Native Bridge:

React Native bridge is a C++/Java bridge which is responsible for communication between the native and Javascript thread. A proprietary protocol is utilized for message passing. Below is the diagram that demonstrate how RN operates within.

Native vs React Native app

Why Native?

Pros and Cons of Native App: 

Native App is the recommended alternative for large scale, big brand mobile services like Facebook, Snapchat, Banking apps. Fully dedicated solutions, due to high quality and superior performance are still the weapon of choice for demanding customers looking do construct their apps for B2C or C2C reasons. If you’re wanting to design a Ferrari among apps, you are going to select Native. No compromise on quality, no compromise on performance and absolutely no compromise on the cost and development time. The following table provides a more extensive comparison of why native versus RN.

Why React Native?

Pros and Cons of React Native Development

The range of available, ready created React Native framework is now relatively limited.

All in all React Native is a maturing and viable alternative to native applications. Native still wins the race when the necessity is for top standards in quality and performance. The advantages of specialised software are not questionable at present.

Augmented Reality in Mobile Apps:

Augmented Reality (AR) apps are gradually growing popular across business. Mobile platforms like Apple and Google are continue to release new and enhanced AR toolkits for developers. Google offers ARCore for Android developers, while the iOS platform offers ARKit 1.5 filled with expanded AR-based functionality for building immersive AR applications. While both toolkits are seemingly complete and highly equipped for their respective platforms, they are platform-specific and don’t allow cross-platform rendering. Looking for Hire iOS Developers for your business needs.

ViroReact is a fully-fledged cross-platform library produced by ViroMedia. It helps developers to create a great cross-platform AR app experience by leveraging bespoke renderer that can encapsulate both ARCore and ARKit, respectively, for the Android and iOS platforms. It has good support from the team as well. But I don’t advocate to use it for sophisticated / performance-based applications because of the React-Native javascript thread which can lead to event congestion and lags. So, in case performance counts, I’d advocate full-native solutions instead.

Conclusion

React Native’s growing popularity should not be underestimated though. For certain purposes, such B2B services it seems a superior solution. Better price and quicker development time add to its attractiveness. The table below presents a checklist to assess if an RN deployment would be suitable to your use case.

Native iOS and Android are here to stay, and they will be with us in the foreseeable future. However, the future of React Native is a little dubious. It is true that React Native community is developing and expanding extremely quickly, but with the current React Native version still not being 1.0 (the most recent version at the time of writing this post is 0.62.2), we have yet to see the best from React Native.