React Native is the most famous cross-platform mobile development framework first created as an indoor hackathon project at Facebook in 2013, but introduced officially in 2015 by Facebook. it's components to create the projects which are an alternative to widgets in Flutter. Although, initially it's been utilized in Facebook’s mobile applications, like Facebook Ads manager, Instagram; today, it's employed by most notable companies, like Microsoft, Bloomberg, Tesla, Uber, and so on. React Native is predicated on JavaScript which affects it to be popular and preferably by most developers.

Design and Performance

Flutter uses Google’s Dart framework, which uses the Skia graphics library and C/C++ engine. The framework contains most of the required modules, like Material Design and Cupertino widgets in itself making it much bigger in size but faster in performance, since it doesn't require any communication and conversion path between the native platform and framework itself. Hence, this advantage keeps Flutter’s performance smooth and faster. Having a C/C++ engine also lets the framework have high-performance rendering and faster code reusability characteristics, since the libraries are considered to be in the low-level programming category and closer to machine language during the compilation procedures.

React Native’s architecture is predicated on a JavaScript runtime environment – referred to as JS Bridge and uses the Flux architecture of Facebook. JS Bridge creates communication between JavaScript modules and native platforms and compiles the code into the native code during the runtime. This process requires the utilization of more CPU resources and leads to poor performance in comparison to Flutter and native frameworks. Although, currently there are many optimizations works by the React Native community, like improving performances of module loading, cache processes, the core architecture itself puts the framework during a weaker side in terms of performance. Therefore, Flutter is an absolute winner in performance thanks to its architecture.

API & UI

Flutter features a great range of widgets – its own UI components to create almost same-looking apps for both Android and IOS platforms without using any third-party libraries. The core two UI widgets, Material Design and Cupertino widgets let developers have their apps to be customized differently for Android and IOS platforms by imitating them to seem almost like the native design of the platforms. However, it also means Flutter’s widgets aren't platform-adaptive, which makes the developers create platform-specific views and behaviors manually if they need their project to possess a native environment of IOS and Android. However, having their own components makes flutter to be stable and reliable over the version update of OS since the components don't depend upon the native ones and don't require any rendering process to avoid UI issues to occur on this procedure.

React Native uses components that are an alternative of Flutter’s widget, that use native characteristics of the platform and render differently for various platforms. In other word, the components just appear as if native components of IOS and Android accordingly. This feature also lets the app’s UI be upgraded instantly when the UI of the device’s OS is updated automatically. During this process, the app’s UI is often broken too thanks to automatic updates of the planning of UI components by OS, although there's a less probability of this case to happen. On the other hand, React Native’s components can't appear as an equivalent in both platforms since they're platform-specific during the render process to the native ones. Therefore, developers should use third-party libraries to realize this feature. Furthermore, React Native doesn't have as many components as Flutter which again makes developers have the assistance of third-party libraries to complement their app’s UI

Productivity

Both frameworks support Hot Reload features completely. Hot reload allows a developer to form instant changes within the project and see them immediately in their device where they're running the project at that point . It reduces time spent on solving the tiny bugs or issues, like design, UI, or logical errors, faced during the test of the UI of the project or specific functionality. Since Dart is an uncommon and new programming language within the software development industry, learning a Dart may challenge developers and engineers to adapt to the utilization of Dart, so Flutter’s too. Moreover, since not all IDEs and Editors support Dart language, developers may feel discomfort to find out and work on the new specific IDEs instead of the IDE they're good in its usage and adapted. Therefore, this will cost the corporate or individual developer to rearrange longer for adaptation processes, which can cause less productivity. In contrast, React Native is predicated on JavaScript - one among the foremost preferred programming languages among the developers. Today, JavaScript still has a high importance index in software development and is recognized as a default language for every browser. Therefore, thanks to the recognition of its core fundamental tool, React Native doesn't require any overtime for an adaption and is also supported by all IDEs and text editors thanks to JS.

Conclusion

Delivering projects on time is one among the foremost critical aspects of mobile and web app development. The cross-platform nature of both React Native and Flutter reduce time-to-market. Plus, their third-party libraries and ready-to-use components make it more efficient to use them to create your app. Better still, Flutter and React Native offer quite just speedy development, they will reduce project costs also .