Is Flutter Gonna change the way we do cross-platform development

For so many years React Native has been the go to crossplatform development platform for javascript developers and for many start-ups. React Native plays a very significant role in getting a MVP setup for a businesses with budget constraints for hiring a native Android and Swift IOS developer at the same time. Not only it saves a lot of time but it also saves the need for having a lot of developers on a project.But with the recent developrs in Flutter, things are changing in the world of Cross platform Development

React Native

React Native is a JavaScript framework for writing real, natively rendering mobile applications for iOS and Android. It is based on React, Facebook’s JavaScript library for building user interfaces, but instead of targeting the browser, it targets mobile platforms. In other words: web developers can now write mobile applications that look and feel truly “native,” all from the comfort of a JavaScript library that we already know and love. Plus, because most of the code you write can be shared between platforms, React Native makes it easy to simultaneously develop for both Android and iOS. Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit created by Google. It is used to develop applications for Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Linux, Google Fuchsia and the web.

Similar to React for the Web, React Native applications are written using a mixture of JavaScript and XML-like markup, known as JSX. Then, under the hood, the React Native “bridge” invokes the native rendering APIs in Objective-C (for iOS) or Java (for Android). Thus, your application will render using real mobile UI components, not webviews, and will look and feel like any other mobile application. React Native also exposes JavaScript interfaces for platform APIs, so your React Native apps can access platform features like the phone camera, or the user’s location.

Flutter

On the Other hand, Flutter apps are written in the Dart language and make use of many of the language's more advanced features. Flutter's engine, written primarily in C++, provides low-level rendering support using Google's Skia graphics library. Additionally, it interfaces with platform-specific SDKs such as those provided by Android and iOS. The Flutter Engine is a portable runtime for hosting Flutter applications. It implements Flutter's core libraries, including animation and graphics, file and network I/O, accessibility support, plugin architecture, and a Dart runtime and compile toolchain.

Most developers will interact with Flutter via the Flutter Framework, which provides a modern, reactive framework, and a rich set of platform, layout and foundation widgets. This set of Attributes makes stand heaps and above what React-Native has ever achieved.

Flutter is destined to be one of the choices available in the field of cross platform development that gives native performance revolutionizing the way we approach cross platform development. Flutter Provides a smooth and native programming experience with better performance.

React Native V/S Flutter

• Faster development: Flutter offers more dynamic – and faster – app development. It is one of the greatest things about Flutter, appreciated by every top mobile app development company. Hot Reload speeds up the development process by allowing a developer to inject new code directly into a running app.Developers can make changes to the codebase on-the-fly, and see them immediately reflected in the application. This is the so-called Hot reload feature, and it typically takes (milli-)seconds for changes to show.

So, a developer can see changes instantly, without rebuilding the app. Both React Native and Flutter offers this feature but its more simple and efficient on flutter

• One Code base: With Flutter and React Native developers can write just one codebase for two applications – covering both iOS and Android platforms. While flutter renders widgets directly on the screen React native code gets converted into their Native versions. So both have completely different mechanisms and the choice can differ.
• Performance and Design: In this section Flutter out performs React native. Flutter uses the Skia Graphics Library. Thanks to this, the UI is redrawn each time when a view changes. Most of the work is done on GPU (graphics processing unit); that’s why Flutter UI is smooth and delivers 60fps (frames per second). While React native is based on component based approach similar to React. The components are rendered in their native equivalent and lead to some performance penalties. React native may not be completely native, however it is easier to achieve a “native feeling” with React Native than with Flutter. If you want your Flutter app to have native components, it will require additional work.

Flutter doesn’t rely on native system components. Rather, Flutter has its own set of custom widgets, rendered and managed by the framework’s graphics engine (source). Users will see different UI components from typical native apps, but that isn’t necessarily a disadvantage. This can spell troble for developers if there is any changes in Native android and IOS platforms.

• Maturity In terms of Maturity React Native has been present for many years and has been the first choice for developers while Flutter is relatively very new. Due to this in current time many businesses are still opting for React native than flutter due to the support and experience it provides. But with the rise of developers getting into flutter is smaking this difference small and small every month.
• Community: React native community is huge when compared to flutter. React native has been the go to option for many private developers for many years and abd the chances of finding solution to any problem is really high.React Native has a massive developer community. Not just that, but there are countless tutorials, libraries, and UI frameworks that make it easy to learn the technology – as well as quick and easy to develop with it.

However in case of flutter the community is still on the growing stage. The number of libraries and usage may be small but are more accurate and clean than React Native.

Conclusion

So to conclude, more and more companies are attracted by Flutter. After all, we’re witnessing monthly improvements in the Flutter SDK as Google continues to refine its tool. Plus, the community is ever growing and always helpful and enthusiastic. What’s more, we can expect that soon Flutter will enable us to create not only mobile applications but also apps for web and desktop. As for React Native thier world has held strong over so many years and dosen't seem would be much effected over a couple of decades. Using a Technology is ultimately upto the developer. Whatever someone feels comfortable should be his/her first choice.