Comparison between Flutter, React Native, and PWA

Bhumin Vadalia
6 min readJun 25, 2021

In this competitive world, we are witnessing exponential growth in mobile application development. Today most companies can no longer do without the digitalization of at least part of their services. To stay in tune with the market’s growing demands, it becomes essential to optimize frameworks and platforms. Hence the importance of giving you elements of comparison between Flutter, React Native, and PWA, three development frameworks.

Comparison between Flutter, React Native, and PWA

Mobile applications are developed with the audience in mind. Therefore, while each mobile app framework has its advantages and disadvantages, it becomes essential for any mobile app development company to evaluate them before developing an app. The goal of developers worldwide is to study the market and assess the needs of consumers, which helps them choose a platform for the development of an application. There are many frameworks available for developers to do their job. However, in this article, we’ll be comparing Flutter, React Native, and PWA.

Introduction

Flutter

Flutter is an open-source mobile development framework introduced by Google in May 2017. Flutter’s architecture enables responsive, responsive programming that enables Flutter application development companies to build clean-designed, feature-rich apps from a single code base. Furthermore, due to the responsive nature of Flutter, changes can be updated automatically if coded appropriately.

Flutter uses the Dart programming language, which can run on any platform. It does not use a bridge to connect an underlying platform with any code, but it is compiled, unlike other cross-platform solutions, which use a bridge to connect your code to the underlying platform. In addition, Flutter also serves as a development platform for Google’s Fuchsia operating system.

React native

React Native is an open-source hybrid application development framework created by Facebook in March 2015 for various mobile applications. React Native is a programming language that has been exclusively recognized as the most preferred solution for develop cross-platform applications. Any iOS or Android application is made using ​​JavaScript, Java, Objective-C ++, Python, and Objective-C.

PWA (Progressive Web App)

PWA is an open-source framework that develops applications in the same way as native applications. It was introduced by Microsoft in June 2015 and supported the development of Android and iOS applications. PWA includes web stacks in HTML, JS, and CSS, consisting of rich attributes and a unified user experience.

Anytime someone is looking for another app development platform, PWA is a great fit. PWA is an excellent data-saving application because one can work offline without an internet connection after installing it on your system. PWA is an effortless web application as it offers the W3C specification using the JSON-based manifesto. The applications developed in this framework are economical and can be updated automatically.

Performances

The hot reload function (which allows you to reload your application code without having to press the refresh button) of Flutter allows dynamic and faster development of applications. It is this function that will enable developers to experience a new interface easily or discover the application. In addition, developers can change any part of the code in real-time without restarting the mobile app. This feature has made life easier for developers by allowing developers to achieve 60fps performance on 120Hz update devices, which increases the application’s performance.

Flutter uses renderers as if they were native, which helps it run efficiently.

With the help of native components and resources, this framework is the perfect option to achieve better performance. React Native dramatically reduces the cost of development by reusing code. React Native building blocks compile directly on native components, which gives a consistent look and feel to a native app. React Native also offers the hot reload feature, which speeds up development by reloading the app when the code changes. React Native also offers rich graphics and apps for mobile games.

The codes generated by React Native for native APIs are connected to components of both operating systems.

Modules are interchangeable blocks that allow functions to be isolated into multiple interchangeable blocks that easily upgrade applications and enable the same code for web APIs.

PWA combines all of the new options to deliver expertise that matches native apps on mobile. Developing native and cross-platform mobile apps is more accessible in this framework, given the completeness of its hardware and budget. One of the main advantages of developing apps through PWA is that all apps developed in this framework are compliant with all devices and browsers. The best benefit from progressive web apps is that users can experience the benefits of a website through an app. In addition, the developed applications have URLs that are indexed in Google, which helps in search engine optimization.

Progressive web apps allow apps to run in offline mode to don’t depend on the internet to function. In addition, progressive web apps use container technology once it is fully supported. As a result, they can produce very efficient and very profitable containers.

Installation

To download Flutter, it becomes mandatory to download the binary for a specific Github platform. For example, you may need to download the flutter.zip file and add it as a PATH variable to install it for macOS. In general, any Flutter app is only capable of running on smartphones. It does not support web browsers. So there may be a lag when launching an application for large companies.

Node Package Manager is usually required to install React Native. It is a JavaScript programming language and a default package manager for Node.js. For someone who has some knowledge of Javascript, it should be easier to install React Native. Otherwise, you will have to learn the Node Package Manager to install it. NPM also allows packages to be connected globally or locally. However, since it’s done in Javascript, it leaves a security hole and takes a long time to initialize, even when rendering high-tech gadgets.

Unlike ordinary mobile apps, PWAs don’t go through lengthy procedures. You can download an application that can be accessed directly without going to the App Store or Google Play. Once it’s done, you can use it directly via the desktop icon. This advantage of PWAs helps boost the reliability and quality of devices and also promotes application sharing.

Ecosystem

With the number of core packages that Flutter offers, it becomes easy to catch up with the competition. Flutter offers you several basic offers that are at your disposal and catches up with its competition. In addition, Flutter’s community support helps him improve his performance. Using Flutter to develop any app is easier because there is no need to hire iOS and Android developers separately. It also makes it easier to troubleshoot bug issues effectively.

React Native App Development uses third-party libraries because it doesn’t have its UI components. To build an app with a responsive UI design, with a responsive UI style, it’s essential to induce the right sequence and React Native is the only choice to get it. As mentioned before, React Native supports hot reload features and provides various packages for native expertise. However, the recurring updates leave developers in awe.

PWAs have a relatively larger community when it comes to the web ecosystem. It makes it easy to deploy and maintain any native app for the respective app stores. Being web-based, it takes less time and effort when developing mobile applications. It is implemented to deploy and maintain the application easily. PWA includes several HTML, JS, and CSS web stacks that provide the following rich attributes and exceptional user experience using native platforms.

Development

Flutter includes a hot reload feature that has default widgets to build the entire app efficiently and smoothly. In addition, flutter developers preview the code in the machine or hardware for iOS and Android without recompiling the app when there are changes in the code.

Maintaining a single codebase for ios and Android, Flutter allows simple adjustments to be made across different platforms to make your user interface customizable.

One of the main advantages of Flutter is that it offers custom widgets out of the box, from the initial block to the lowest level. It creates a wonderful program using custom building blocks.

React Native creates a hierarchy of UI elements to create JavaScript code to define iOS and Android features and build a deep native mobile app.

PWA is here to meet all of your needs. However, it doesn’t require separate versions for different devices, but a single progressive app can achieve all of your goals at a significantly lower cost than a native web app.

Conclusion:

There cannot be a single winner among the three mobile app development frameworks, as they all offer robust functionality with native experiences that have successfully supported huge industry giants. Therefore, it depends on the users based on their requirements on what they expect from a particular framework.

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Bhumin Vadalia

Bhumin is a tech enthusiast. As an occasional blogger, He loves to share knowledge regarding technological advancements in the domains of web & mobile app.