Pros and Cons of React Native APP Development

Hello, folk! We all know good enough that if you want to develop an amazing app for such platforms as Android and iOS simultaneously you have just several options. The first one, and the most obvious one is to hire two different teams of native developers that can make your application for both Android and iOS at once.

The second option is the hybrid development and here I mean the development with the usage of such technologies as Flutter and React Native. Cross-platforms development gives you the opportunity to create a product for both platforms at once using JavaScript. So, many people argue what is better, Flutter, Ionic, React Native, or other cross-platform frameworks? I personally worked with React Native and Flutter, that is why I want to tell you, guys, about the advantages and disadvantages of React Native here.  

Advantages of React Native

Speed

The first advantage of React Native technology is the speed of development. React Native reduces around 33% of developing time. Moreover, you need 50% less testing. You can write the code using JavaScript and it will be reusable for another platform. As it covers two platforms at the same time, it also saves your time and money.

Updates

A very good thing that there are a lot of updates that make the usage and work with React Native better, faster, and enjoyable. Among them are fast refresh, accessibility improvement, the new start screen, and auto-linking to OS. 

Team size

One of the best things that I need to mention is that for developing an application you don’t need to hire a big team. React Native is rather comfortable and fast so the small or average team will be more than enough.

It is quite clear that for native application development you have to hire two teams for iOS and Android. This is too expensive, moreover, these teams will have almost no contact and their visions and opinions may differ so much that eventually, you will obtain two different applications.

Performance

Since React Native covers two platforms at once, it saves your time and money greatly. The performance in that case is just super and, as for me, that’s totally great for you and for your business when you don’t need to spend a lot of time and money. 

Live update features

This is one of the most valuable and effective features and advantages of React Native. With this feature, it becomes possible for a developer to implement the changes in the app without opening and provisioning various changes in the app store update process. It is rather important to mention such a feature as “fresh refresh” here. To be honest this is the combination of “hot reloading” and “live reloading”. This amazing feature allows you to implement the changes of even add or delete some part of code into the running application without causing any damage to it. So, there is no need to reload the whole application, it will be reloaded automatically after every change implemented.

Simplified UI

One of the biggest advantages of React Native is its simple User Interface. React Native has declarative programming with obsolete order of actions that you just need to learn and implement and use for your development. It would be definitely useful to mention such a feature as a “new start screen” here. This outstanding function was created in order to involve a developer in the React Native environment. Also, this function shows everything in an engaging way and that helps a lot in understanding how this framework works.

Now let’s discuss the disadvantages of React Native.

Disadvantages of React Native

Quite old technology

That is not a secret that React Native is rather an old framework but due to the numerous updates and constant work under it, strong support and communities, this technology is still one of the best and still has a rather bright future. Of course, React Native has rather strong rivals like Flutter and Ionic but for this moment React Native remains the best option for cross-platform development.   

Lack of React Native developers

One of the biggest disadvantages is that there are still not enough React Native developers on the market. For sure, people with a deep knowledge of such platforms as iOS and Android will be always wanted and required because 98.5% of all apps are on these platforms. As far as React Native applications can have some troubles with functionality the help of native developers might be required and that is also a kind of issue.

Size

The size of React Native apps appears to be a problem sometimes, to be honest. Since the size of native iOS and Android is smaller and performance here is bigger and smoother.  

Lack of custom modules

Those who have already used React Native know quite clearly that this framework has the problem with components because lots of them are simply underdeveloped. That is why you have to use other developer’s solutions, libraries or build something on your own. Furthermore, there is a need to build three codebases for all iOS, Android, and React of sure. And here the problem appears because they may look and behave in a different way.

Conclusion

So, guys, I have considered all the advantages and disadvantages that you might have met during working on React Native. If you are a newbie in that technology, then everything is ahead.

So, I will provide a shortlist of the pros and cons of react native framework.

Advantages:

• Speed;
• Updates;
• Performance;
• Simplified UI;
• Size of a team;
• Live update features.

Disadvantages:

• Quite old technology;
• Lack of developers;
• Application size;
• Lack of custom modules.

I hope that you have received some important information for you.

Thanks for the reading and have a nice day!