Flutter vs. React Native: Developer productivity compared

A blog post by Groenewold IT Solutions

Flutter vs. React Native: Developer productivity compared

Choosing the right framework is crucial for the success of mobile application projects. In the world of cross-platform development, two heavyweights have emerged: Flutter from Google and React Native from Meta. Both enable the development of apps for iOS and Android with a single code base, saving time and costs. But what approach leads to higher developer productivity? This post highlights the comparison Flutter vs React Native and helps you make the right decision for your next project.

♪ What is React Native?

React Native is an open source framework built on the popular JavaScript library React. Developers can create the user interface and logic of their application with JavaScript or TypeScript and a variety of prefabricated components. The decisive advantage of React Native is the use of native UI components. This means that the app on each platform (iOS and Android) offers the usual look-and-feel as it relies on the native operating elements of the respective operating system. This ensures an authentic user experience.

Strengths of React Native

• Great community and ecosystem: Because React Native is based on JavaScript, there is a huge community of developers and a wealth of tools and libraries that accelerate development.
• Native Look-and-Feel: By using native UI elements, the apps feel familiar to users.
• Slower learning curve for web developers: Developers with experience in React and JavaScript can quickly enter into development with React Native.
• Code reuse: A large part of the code can be shared between the platforms, which reduces the development time and maintenance effort.

♪ What's floodter?

Flutter is Google’s UI toolkit for creating natively compiled applications for mobile devices, the web and desktop from a single code base. Unlike React Native, Flutter does not use the native UI components of the device. Instead, it draws the entire user interface with its own rendering engine, Impeller. This gives developers full control over each pixel on the screen and allows highly customized and visually appealing designs that look identical on all platforms.

Strengths of Flutter

• Outstanding performance: Since flooder code is compiled directly in native machine code and uses its own rendering engine, the apps offer extremely liquid performance and high image rates.
• **High UI consistency:**The design is exactly the same on all platforms and devices, which simplifies testing and ensures consistent brand experience.
• Fast development: Features like "Hot R