For the last few years, any conversation around “Should we start using React Native?” usually includes some valid questions and doubts which raised due to lake of information. It won’t be a justice if I say as React Native is pretty great for all kind of organizations. Some big companies just love it while some others are planning to switch another technology.
To reduce your stress level by help you to decide what suits the best to your business, I come up here with some true facts about react naive which we can’t ignore.
Here’s a quick guide that might help you and your team make a decision about whether React Native is a good choice for you.
-What is React native?
Basically React Native is a framework which is developed by Facebook. With React Native, you aren’t building a “mobile web app” or even a “hybrid app.” This framework allows you to create real mobile applications identical to an application built using Swift or Java. The same fundamental UI building blocks used by iOS and Android are used by React Native. These building blocks are just put together using JavaScript and React.
-How React Native is different from React?
The primary difference between React and React Native as react is used for the web app development whereas react native is used for mobile app development.
Let’s try to understand both technologies in a better manner:
-Key points of using react:
- Virtual DOM is faster than a conventional full refresh model (refreshing pages partially);
- Mild learning curve, doesn’t require learning multiple specific concepts;
- Reusable code components;
- Good SEO when used together with a server-side renderer;
- Its provide a stable working code due to one-directional data;
- Its Easy in debugging;
- Easy HTML decomposition into independent and reusable pieces of code;
- Easy testing with JEST.
-Key points of using React Native:
- Mostly benefits are matching with the React.js too but with a better focus on UI;
- No need to build separate apps for iOS and Android – the common logic layer is often reusable, while other parts of an application must be written separately for iOS and Android;
- Its structure is component-based which enables smooth development, even without any web;
- JavaScript developers are able to learn and understand React Native quickly, therefore basically becoming mobile developers with little effort;
- Native components and modules really enhance performance, also native APIs to render certain code;
- Resulting apps are in fact “native” – not Web Views, but compiled to machine code of a specific platform;
- If you have a mobile app to upgrade, you can just add React Native UI components to its code.
-Pros of react native:
- Time Efficiency
React native provides the best features called Hot Reloading which quickly show the changes in Android and iOS when we made any changes in coding. This definitely reduces the time and its time helpful in further development process.
- Performance
React Native interacts with the targeted (native) components for iOS or Android and renders code to native APIs directly and independently. In doing so, it uses a separate thread from UI, which results in increases the performance. The key factor here is React using the native APIs. Other options like using a WebView to render code may have other advantages, but compromise the performance.
- Growing Community
As react native is open source, anyone can contribute in framework. It means you will get flexible access and great experience. you will also get very good response from community if you facing any difficulty.
- In built features Increase Development Speed
One of great features of React Native table is the ‘Ready-to-apply components’. Instead of writing code from scratch, you get to use ready-made components. They are great for achieving simple forms of functionalities. It not only makes the development process simple but also faster.
- Save Money
React native save time as well as money.
React Native enables JavaScript developers to create apps targeting multiple OS, with only a minimal amount of native code necessary.
Many approaches are cheaper and more budget-friendly because you don’t need to hire separate developers or teams for different development targets. One developer can codes for two platforms – That is less amount of resources and costs spent on building the same apps with smaller development cycles.
- Small Team Size & reliable apps
When one developer codes for both iOS and Android, it evidently reduces the team size as well great advantage is that you no need to learn two different languages and platforms.
By choosing React Native, you would, at the very max, need a great JavaScript developer who can write code for both (Android and iOS) platforms.
With react native,you don’t need to worry about stability and reliability of Apps. It simplifies data binding with such flow that the child elements cannot affect the parent data.
- Ability to Target Multiple OS with Less Native Code
The ability to create one app running for multiple OS is just great. No matter the simplicity because you might not get all the features or advanced functionality in apt packages for apps created with React Native, but nonetheless, you will have two applications with the time, effort and resources for creating one.
I would always add this to my list of Pros of React native.
-Cons of react native:
· Ready-made Components Small Collection
Ready-made components of React Native are very few. And it’s one of the most prominent pros. It’s a shame there are only a few. Although, it’s still a new development framework and that the number of ready-made components is expected to increase drastically, but at the moment the collection is quite less.
· Native Code Required
In above discussion you find that you need to do a minimal amount of native code when developing apps with react native. This feels like a contradiction, because for someone developing in React Native, avoiding having to code for Android or iOS was probably what they were doing in the first place. This is something you will also need to budget for, especially if your app requires access to device cameras and other onboard hardware.
· Component Quality
I mentioned the small collection of ready-made components. That is not a dead end, but there are third-party component libraries that you can choose from. But that would depend on luck, in terms of quality and reliability. As they are not created by the official developers, they might contain a lot of bugs and glitches. Wether wastien timing to solve the bugs, rather than you can wrote code from scratch.
- Steep Learning Curve
If you are new to the React framework and JavaScript, then learning React Native might be a little hard for the average person, especially in comparison to other Cross-platform development options. The JSX is a JavaScript syntax extension that allows mixing HTML with JavaScript. It doesn’t come that naturally to the average person and has a steep learning curve, which can be frustrating.
· Security is Low because JavaScript Based Library
As we know, React Native is a JavaScript -based library. If you are using React Native for apps which require type A security, like mobile banking apps or personal finance apps, you will need to pay extra attention to detail because JavaScript is famous for its fragility. You will need to keep a close watch on malicious code snippets that could, very easily harm your app’s core functionality.
· Memory Management
Again – expanding on the fact that React Native is JavaScript based, It’s not suited for computation intensive apps. The performance and speed is immensely degraded and float computations are handled in an even more inefficient way, in terms of memory usage and management.
-Final thoughts
As you can see, React is a great web and mobile development library for virtual reality experiences. A brief summary of our topic would be as follows:
- It gives a library for developing dynamic UIs for web applications with JavaScript;
- React Native is a kind of consequence of React, being a platform to develop native mobile apps with JavaScript;
- js uses HTML, while in React Native you have to know its own syntax;
- React VR is a library to create VR apps viewed in browsers or mobile phones;
- All three libraries are open source projects by Facebook.