Flutter vs React Native- Which one is better? |Flutter and React Native Differences | Edureka Rewind

Key Takeaways

hi everyone this is Kevin from arueca and welcome back to yet another video this one is going to be on flutter versus react native so let's take a look at the agenda first we're going to understand what is a framework after that in the first section we will understand what is react native and then in the next section we will talk about what is flutter after that we'll compare them both in the third section and then finally in the last one we will talk about which one you should choose okay so let's start off the video what is a framework let's see an example let's say if you want to build a table what are you going to need of course you're going to need raw materials like wood you're going to need tools and of course you're going to need instructions on how to build a table and then finally you have to put in the work but these are not just the only things that you're going to need you might need transportation for all of these things and you might need a workplace where you can build a table so extending that idea to building an app if you want to build an app you're probably going to require a lot of different things like user interface face widgets buttons and other components so all of these different things are provided by a framework so what are some of the things that a framework provides it provides a user interface an engine components and features like UI widgets libraries and packages and much more so Frameworks provide the building blocks to make applications so you don't actually have to build those blocks yourself because that will be a very labor intensive and very complex process so Frameworks make app making quite easy so I hope that you got an idea of what a framework is and why they are so important especially in today's world where apps have to be made so quickly so next up let's take a look at what react native is in March 2015 Facebook released react native framework which is an open source UI framework used to develop cross-platform applications for Android Android TV iOS Mac OS TV OS web windows and more so react native uses react JavaScript library along with Native platform capabilities so like I just mentioned react native uses react JavaScript library so the language of choice is Javascript of course let's see what apps are made with react native Facebook Instagram Pinterest Flipkart Tesla ubereats Skype Walmart Shopify and Bloomberg are just some of the examples of apps that are made with react native so I hope that was clear let's now talk about flutter so in May 2017 at Google I O event Google released open source UI software development kit which is known as flutter flutter just like react native is used to develop cross-platform applications for Android iOS Linux Mac Windows Google fascia and the web from a single code base so in terms of timeline flutter came two years after react native so which language does the flutter framework use so flutter uses I don't know if you've actually heard about this programming language or not but it uses Dart which is a fairly new programming language especially when you compare to something that has been around for a long time like JavaScript now why don't we check out what are the different apps that are made with flutter so here they are eBay Google stadia Groupon dreams 11 Philip Hugh and Google ads are just some of the examples of the apps that are made with flutter so I hope that you got a picture of what react native is and what flutter is now let's talk about the differences between the two Frameworks but before we get started I want you to head down to the comment section and leave your opinion as to which one do you think is better and which one do you think you would pick out of the two I hope you commented because we're about to start so first up learning curve so when it comes to react native we know that JavaScript has been around for a while so if you know JavaScript and if you can learn react JavaScript library then learning react native will be really easy in case of flutter we know that Dart is a much newer programming language so there's a greater learning curve here however if you don't know JavaScript then it's easier to go for Dart because there's an additional step involved in learning react native which is learning react JavaScript library but in case of flutter all you have to learn is Dart and it's dead simple to use flutter framework and it's known in the developer community and experts bear this opinion that that building apps with flutter can be easier than building apps with react native especially if you don't know JavaScript second criteria for comparison is performance so react native is not as good as flutter at CPU intensive tasks but it is better at memory intensive tasks and uses less memory than apps built with flutter flutter on the other hand obviously uses more memory but it is better with CPU intensive tasks like calculations sorting searching and so on third documentation if you're building an application in react native then you have to rely heavily on third-party libraries packages features and components so when it comes to documentation in react native it is a hit or a Miss because third parties sometimes don't have consistent documentation and sometimes it is just missing flutter takes this point because it has lots of libraries packages features and components that are already built in so there is less Reliance on third party and the documentation for all of these inbuilt features is quite rich and it's very consistent because it is written by flutter team let's take a look at the fourth one which is features you've probably got a hint about this in the last point but react native comes with just UI rendering and device access apis and in order to access most of the Native modules react native has to rely on third-party libraries on the other hand flutter framework is bundled with UI rendering components device access apis navigation testing stateful management and lots of libraries so it removes the need to use third-party libraries the next criteria that we're going to compare them both on is architecture react native is based on react library or node.js and the react framework needs a JavaScript bridge to communicate with the native modules flutter on the other hand requires no such Bridge because flutter engine has most of the Native modules inbuilt so it doesn't have to rely on platform native modules as much therefore the size of flutter framework itself is much bigger than react native moving on the sixth criteria is design and Graphics so in terms of design react native feels much more like a native app on any of the platforms than flutter does and the reason for that is it actually uses the native components under the hood when it comes to Graphics react native does have better graphic support and support for 3D as well which flutter doesn't when it comes to flutters the apps built with it look and feel the same across the platforms but it does have separate widgets with material design and Cupertino design languages but it does have separate widgets with material design and Cupertino design language so the widgets can look like Android and iOS widgets when it comes to Graphics since it doesn't have 3D support and react native does react actually takes the point for this one next industry adaptation and popularity since react native had come out two years before flutter many successful prominent players on the market use react native to build apps react native repository on GitHub received 98.1 000 Stars flutter was laid to the party but it has been seeing increasing adaptation across the world flutter repository on GitHub has reached a whopping 130 000 Stars surpassing react native it was behind react native if recently but has gained quite a bit of momentum because of its shorter time to Market and less developing cost next criteria is backwards compatibility so when it comes to react native it actually relies on the native modules of that specific platform so if the native modules are updated there's a possibility that the app may break but overall it has good backward compatibility on the other hand apps made with flutter have beautiful backward and forward compatibility since they have their own native modules built in next point of comparison is testing when it comes to testing they're equally good but one area where they differ is that react native as you probably can guess uses third-party features for testing since there's no official features for UI level and integration testing on the other hand flutter comes with features for unit widget and integration testing of apps moving on what about automation support for react native it must rely on third-party libraries for build and release automation for example Fastlane which flutter can rely on as well but it does have a strong command line interface and the command line tools are easy to use and following the instructions in documentation to build and release apps is much easier in comparison to react native next point of comparison is community support and if you're thinking that react native has a better Community Support than flutter then you're absolutely right it has a vast and mature Community since it has wider industry adaptation and popularity and this framework has plenty of support tutorials and libraries out there on the other hand flutters Community is not as big as react natives but it's rapidly growing and the popularity is growing as we saw earlier also there's a strong support from the flutter team and they have been rolling out so many updates to the flutter framework we saved the best for the last which is job market and average salary for react native developer there are about 2 120 jobs in India and about 3250 jobs in the United States and average salary for a react native developer in India is 8 lakhs and in the United States it is 94 000 US Dollars this is actually where flutter takes a hit right now the flutter developer job openings are more than 1 380 in India and about 960 in United States and an average salary for a flutter developer in India is about 6.75 lakhs and about 74 000 US dollars in USA so when you look at these numbers you're probably wondering that yes if you do react native development then you're probably going to get a fatter check and you'd probably be right but you have to take into consideration that this could vary depending on the geographical region that you live in it could vary with time flutter as you know is gaining a lot of popularity so in the future this most likely will change and these are just average salaries so they don't give you a picture of what the entry level salary is and what the highest level salary is and personally I think both of them are great and it comes down to how good you are so I hope that you found the last section fascinating let's move on to the next section in which we're going to talk about which one should you choose so let's just summarize some of the points that we just saw react native uses JavaScript and react Library so in case you already know JavaScript it is much easier to learn react native and so obviously you should pick react native you should also pick react native if you want that look and feel of that platform specific native look if you want amazing third-party libraries and features then this is the one to pick and there's obviously Better Community Support as we saw because it came out earlier next react native has 3D graphic support which flutter unfortunately does not have but I'm sure they're going to be working on that soon and last you should pick react native because of the current job market the prospects for react native developers are much better than flutter as we just saw in the last section so enough about react native let's hear it for flutter apps that are made with flutter have better performance and flutter gives better feature set to build the apps next unlike react native flutter comes with Native modules already built in so there is no tinkering around to optimize your application to work with the native modules because they're already built in and so this means that the development time is shorter and so time to Market is shorter as well and that brings us to our next point which is that it costs less and it's easier to build and then finally it has better forward as well as back backward compatibility and since I cannot pick a winner because they both have advantages and disadvantages there are no clear winners each have their own merits and demerits which one to pick is clearly dependent on what you are trying to achieve so let me know by commenting down below if you need help picking one over the other for your particular situation or for your particular project and our experts will be more than happy to guide you through that and so we have come to the end of the video I hope that you had fun along the journey and until next time happy learning