Are you looking to build a cross-platform mobile app and trying to decide between Flutter and React Native? You need to know which one will provide the best app performance, which one will help you develop the app faster, and which one will be easier to find a developer for.
What Is Flutter?
Flutter is an open-source user interface (UI) software development kit released by Google in 2018. Flutter lets you build cross-platform applications for a number of platforms and operating systems.
What Is React Native?
React Native is a mobile development framework created by Facebook and released in 2015. You can use React Native to develop mobile, web, and desktop apps.
Flutter or React Native: Usage, Popularity and Examples
Overall, Flutter is the more suitable option for most cases, but for AR elements, native app development may be a better choice. By the way, you can still create VR apps on Flutter, using our VR Player plugin.
Both frameworks can be used to develop apps for:
- Mobile banking
- Social media
- Messengers
- Loyalty programs
- E-commerce
- Streaming services
- Lifestyle (e.g. fitness, productivity, and mindfulness)
- Education
- News
The Biggest Difference Between React Native And Flutter
Flutter renders all components on its canvas.
React Native transforms JavaScript components into native ones.
Because of that, component updates (to, for example, iOS 16) don’t have any impact on Flutter apps but do on React Native apps.
Depending on where you’re standing, this can be a good or bad thing. For example, if you want your components to stay exactly the way you want them to, Flutter’s approach will satisfy you. But if you want your app to “catch up” with the latest native component designs, then React Native is the way to go — in React Native this update happens automatically and is free. Also, if you don’t want your components in a React Native app to follow the new iOS design (because you want to retain the style, for example), you can turn the automatic component update off.
But to include the latest native components in Flutter, you have to update the app manually.
Will Flutter Overtake React Native? [UPDATED 2025]
In the 2023 edition of the Stack Overflow Survey, Flutter still tops React Native, according to developers (all responders).
Flutter Vs. React Native: Comparison
Learning Curve
It would seem that React Native’s upper hand over Flutter is that it uses JavaScript — the most popular programming language in the world.
However, JavaScript isn’t necessarily the easiest and most exciting programming language. And just like a carpenter likes her tools to be high-quality, developers enjoy working with programming languages that are fun and convenient to work with — it makes the work that much more pleasant and effective.
So which one is easier to learn: Flutter or React Native?
From a developer’s perspective, Flutter is easier to learn than React Native.
As we already mentioned, JavaScript is far from being the friendliest programming language out there. You’ve got classes within classes and all sorts of other quirks that sometimes make it difficult for developers to understand the workings of JavaScript, which unnecessarily complicates coding.
Then there’s React Native as a framework itself. It’s not to say React Native is a bad framework — in fact, lots of great apps have it in their stacks. But without being familiar with some nuances, you can waste long hours trying to solve problems when configuring the developer environment.
Flutter is much more developer-friendly than React Native. Dart, as a programming language, is easier to work with and understand than JavaScript. Dart is also closer (in paradigms and usage) to programming languages used in native mobile application development.
Because of that the Flutter framework is almost at the top in the “Most Loved Technology — Other Frameworks and Libraries” category in the Stack Overflow Survey 2022.
Command Line Interface (CLI)
Flutter also has a command line interface (CLI) that ships with tools such as Flutter Doctor, which helps set up your chosen IDE and iOS or Android development. Flutter Doctor looks for tools installed on the local machine and checks their configurations. Flutter CLI paired with Flutter Doctor makes preparing the environment for a new Flutter mobile app a lot smoother.
Setting up React Native calls for a bit more experience. React Native’s getting started guide doesn’t provide as much detail and help to start a project. However, React Native has Expo. Expo is a set of tools that makes it much easier to build React Native apps.
With the Expo client, you can view your apps as you build them directly on your mobile phone (no need to go through Android Studio or XCode). Expo CLI facilitates the creation of new React Native apps by providing tools for development, logs, deployment, iteration, compiling, etc.
Flutter Vs. React Native Performance Comparison
React Native’s architecture requires a JavaScript bridge that enables interaction between JavaScript and native user interface components and device-specific elements (Bluetooth, sensors, camera, etc.). Because of that bridge-based communication, React Native is a bit slower than Flutter. Still, React Native and Flutter, when used in skilled hands, can produce high-performance applications.
UPDATE, January 2025:
JSI (React Native)
React Native now has a new bridge module JSI (JavaScript Interface) that makes React Native faster at component communication. JSI acts as a more efficient bridge between the JavaScript and native layers, allowing for quicker synchronization and smoother performance. This improvement in React Native’s architecture contributes to faster app development and more responsive user interfaces, strengthening its position in the cross-platform mobile app development market.
Impeller (Flutter)
Flutter doesn’t rely on a bridge. Up until the middle of 2023, Flutter’s core graphic machine, Skia, was responsible for compiling the UI to native code as the user interacted with the app. Since then, Flutter transitioned to Impeller. Impeller, unlike Skia, is designed to optimize GPU usage, enhancing UI performance and efficiency. This new rendering engine utilizes advanced GPU APIs like Metal and Vulkan, offering more efficient rendering, lower power consumption, and better frame rates. This move signals Flutter’s commitment to leveraging modern hardware for superior app experiences.
Debugging
In React Native, debugging can be problematic, especially when a specific exception or error originates somewhere in the native part of your application. For example, a bug can be on the JavaScript’s side: in React Native, or in the app’s code. On the native side, bugs can also come from React Native as well as third-party libraries.
Packages And Libraries
React Native’s ecosystem is huge, much bigger than Flutter’s. This is mainly thanks to the node package manager (npm), a repository of packages. There are over 1.8 million packages hosted on npm.
npm has been around for ages. And even though it’s mainly geared toward web development (it is the kingdom of JavaScript), a lot of libraries can be easily adapted to React Native apps.
But there’s a caveat with npm — many available JavaScript libraries are low quality and hardly usable in production, so you have to be careful when choosing libraries for your app.
Flutter/Dart’s pub-dev repository is a dynamically growing repository, but one that’s still young and without as many ready-made solutions.
However, when we look for repos on Github, a quick search reveals that the ecosystems of both technologies are similar in size.
As of February 2023, Flutter has 487,428 repository results and the React Native UI library stands at 355,832. For Flutter, this number has almost doubled as in 2022 there were “only” 241,632 against React Native’s 232,168. Still, both ecosystems are rich with packages for animations, state management, and networking.
Maturity
The maturity of a technology is often reflected in wide and positive adoption as well as long-term support. React Native has a lot of high-quality third-party libraries and has been incorporated into tech stacks of major brands.
Flutter is catching up fast, though, and we can say that both technologies have matured enough to be safely used in production.
Who Is Using Flutter?
Flutter is present in the tech stacks of companies such as:
- Alibaba
- BMW
- eBay
- Square
- Groupon
- CapitalOne
Who Is Using React Native?
React Native powers several globally renowned brands:
- Uber Eats
- Skype
- Tesla
- Coinbase
- Salesforce
Benefits Of Using Flutter And React Native Vs. Native Development
Extremely fast prototyping of apps that don’t require the newest native features. Native development in Swift (Apple iOS) or Kotlin (Android) is longer and more expensive (need for two teams, each per platform). React Native and Flutter can support startups in building prototypes and MPVs quickly.
Hot reloading, included in React Native and Flutter, gives developers quick feedback about the changes in the layout — whenever you change something, you can check how it’ll look like in the app without having to recompile the app. This greatly speeds up the development process.
Drawbacks Of Using React Native Or Flutter Vs. Native App Development
While both React Native and Flutter are great tools for building mobile apps quickly, there’s a slight overhead when adjusting cross-platform apps to OS updates (either iOS or Android). Native apps are updated automatically.
With native app development, achieving great app performance is easier. However, the difference in performance is becoming less noticeable in iOS and Android apps built in Flutter or React Native.
Also, implementing pixel-perfect designs in native apps is simpler. However, this requires you to implement both platforms separately, which adds time and cost to development.
On a side note, Flutter’s components (e.g., buttons or textField) are highly configurable, which lets you tweak the design and achieve pixel-perfectness too.
Some new features available on iOS and Android natively are much easier to implement in native apps.
Verdict: Is React Native Better Than Flutter?
For a long time, CTOs asked why React Native is better than Flutter, but the parameters of that question have shifted a while ago. In skilled hands, both React Native and Flutter can be used to build great apps with close-to-native performance and feel. However, Flutter has been increasingly used by businesses and professional developers, and this trend is continuing globally.
Still, when choosing either technology, you’ve got to look at it from a wider perspective than just popularity or technical benefits and drawbacks.
For example, after outsourcing development, will you be able to complete a team of Flutter devs to maintain and evolve your app?
Flutter’s gentle learning curve is an invaluable asset — when you need developers to jump into a project fast, Flutter’s documentation paired with relatively easy Dart will help.
But don’t forget that Dart is not a very popular programming language compared to the ultra-popular JavaScript in React Native. Therefore, skilled Flutter devs might be difficult to get hold of.
Also, there’s the matter of the ecosystem itself. With Flutter, you have many Google SDKs (e.g., Google Ads SDK for mobile) developed officially.
Conclusion
In conclusion, both Flutter and React Native have their unique strengths and advantages. While Flutter offers a faster development process, better performance, and a consistent user interface, React Native has larger community support and a more versatile codebase. Ultimately, the decision between the two will depend on your specific project requirements and preferences. However, with our expertise in both technologies at iTechnolabs, we can assure you of a high-quality, future-proof application regardless of your choice.