Flutter vs React – Which is better?

Are you looking for an app development framework that builds apps quickly and in a cost-effective way?

But you are not sure about the technology. In this article, you will learn about the two industry-leading frameworks- Flutter and React (not the same as React Native).

Go through the features and advantages offered by both these frameworks to make an informed decision. By the time you complete reading this article, you will have enough knowledge to identify which framework best fits your project.

Key Takeaways

• Flutter is a cross-platform framework created by Google

• React is a JavaScript library maintained by Facebook

• Flutter and React are free to use and open-source

Want to know more? Keep reading.

What is Flutter?

Flutter is a Google-backed user interface toolkit that lets developers build user-friendly applications, from a particular codebase. It offers a range of flexible user interfaces and platform-specific features, making it a useful tool for programmers worldwide. 

As an open-source and free-to-use software development kit, Google launched Flutter allowing programmers to write a particular code for both Apple and Android applications once and run it everywhere. Flutter equips with Cupertino for Apple platforms and with Material Design widgets for Android platforms.

Flutter framework functions on platform-specific features and this makes it a preferred choice for developers. It gains the genuine feel and look of a device with smooth navigation, fonts, and scrolling. Programmers find it convenient to code and build a communicative UI with Flutter.

Flutter relatively takes less code to sync when compared to other languages and updates the view of the application within seconds. The user interface library and Flutter engine play a vital role in the fast performance and incorporation of resources.

Flutter Core Features

Flutter uses a single code base, and this minimizes the production cost considerably. Apart from this, there are other attractive features of Flutter as well. They are:

• Skia Graphics

Flutter employs Skia Graphics for enhanced application graphics and visuals. Developers who use Flutter also get easy access to this amazing element that helps them build an eye-grabbing user interface, thereby facilitating an improved user experience.

Skia graphics also comprise effective tools for designing unique interface layouts. Skia graphics support 2D graphics that boosts the app-building imagination with state-of-the-art animations offering unmatched flexibility with APIs. 

• User-interface Libraries

Flutter can design user-interface components from the UI libraries on its own. Therefore, this expedites rendering. The rendering process of an object has to be the same on different Android and iOS versions as it is on an Android testing device.

Flutter’s rich set of UI libraries makes this happen seamlessly. This feature also provides a specific level of interface security compared to other programming languages.

• Native Features

One of the best features of Flutter is that it has access to native features. Programmers benefit a lot from this amazing feature that aids them by improving the app-building experience through third-party integrations, native codes, and programming interfaces for the platform.

Also, Flutter makes it convenient for developers to access both the SDK and native platform. Programmers can also reuse programming code.

• Hot Reload

This is a feature available in both Flutter and React. However, it is more powerful, easier, and faster with Flutter. Hot Reload implies changing the code at any point of the coding process and seeing them as and when they happen.

Flutter’s Hot Reload allows developers to fix bugs, explore functions, and add features whenever they want to and reflect the changes made on the screen in milliseconds.

Advantages of Flutter

Here are the benefits of using Flutter.

• Collection of stunning widgets

A collection of fascinatingly crafted widgets makes Flutter a beauty. This is one of the most amazing features of Flutter that helps you to build a super-functional application hassle-free.

Also, it is vital to note that creating customizable apps with Flutter is possible and it will take you a few minutes. Dart, the programming language used to code Flutter compiles directly into native code which essentially removes Flutter’s need to access OEM widgets.

It decreases the start-up time required for an application and effectively minimizes application performance issues. 

• Open-source platform

Flutter framework is a project driven by a strong developer community. This particularly makes Flutter user-friendly and easily accessible.

The Google-backed solution Flutter is open to collaboration which can be employed to choose options and structure designs for creating app solutions.

Flutter is attributed with a lot more flexible options that aid developers in tweaking features according to their project requirements and altering some designs to suit the project.

• Cross-platform capability

This is probably the main reason developers prefer using Flutter. It is quite daunting a task to code in native languages like Java. What is even worse a task is building an app that offers the same look and feel on both Android and iOS platforms.

With Flutter, you can create an app with a single code base and make it operate seamlessly on various platforms. Therefore, Flutter offers a win-win environment for both business owners and developers as it serves to save both resources and time for them. 

• Simple to learn

Flutter is a beautiful toolkit that is coded using Dart, an object-oriented programming language similar to Java.

With this easy-to-use toolkit, you can tweak anything on the screen with ease and create beautifully styled aesthetics and animations without tampering with the application’s functionality. You can easily learn Flutter even if you are a complete newbie. It is beginner-friendly. 

What is React?

First things first! React is not the same as React Native! To know about the differences please read React vs React Native.

React is a Facebook-supported app development framework that is easy to learn and use, safe, and scalable. It offers an amazing developer and user experience. 

React framework is a tool to create UIs, both whole UIs and UI components. This enables developers to put together everything that concerns visual elements, linking information to those elements, and defining logic governing it.

With React you can create UIs for different platforms. It is a front-end framework, but also allows execution on the backend. React is a recently developed, yet mature technology that is supported and maintained by a powerful community of developers and Facebook.

React Core Features

• Components

React is all about UI components. This framework comprises various components, and each of them has its control and logic. Developers can conveniently reuse React’s components which helps them in maintaining the code when operating on large-scale projects.

• One-way data binding

Developers of React have designed it in such a way that it allows one-way data binding or unidirectional flow of data. Users benefit from this type of data binding in a way that they get better control over the app they are creating.

Data flow in a unidirectional pathway takes place through a specific pattern known as Flux. This makes the app relatively more flexible that results in improved efficiency.

• Virtual DOM

Another impressive React feature includes the virtual DOM object. Virtual DOM is a representation of the main DOM object that operates in a way similar to the one-way data binding.

Whenever a programmer changes code, the complete user interface is re-rendered in the virtual DOM object. The UI then checks the differences between the new and old DOM representations.

After the monitoring session is over, the original DOM will represent only the updated things. This makes the app work faster without wasting memory.

• Simplicity

With React, applications are easy to code and understand. Since React is a component-based framework, developers can reuse the code that was once written as many times as they want. This feature makes React easy to use and learn.

Advantages of React

• Speed

React speeds up the application development process by allowing programmers to employ individual app components on both server-side and client-side.

Simply put, different teams and people can write every single app component without requiring to re-write the entire app logic from scratch, which eventually saves the time and effort for developers.

• Flexibility

Application development projects are large monolithic assignments that are voluminous and extremely difficult to enhance or fix. React code is relatively easy to manage and update when compared with other front-end frameworks and libraries because of its modular structure.

Furthermore, React allows developers to design apps that are flexible and easily scalable. The resiliency saves a significant amount of developer’s money and time in the long run.

• Reusability

React helps is breaking down the complex UIs into reusable and smaller components that can be reused to create as many applications developer wants to with the same functionality.

Besides simplifying your development efforts, the reusability of UI components saves your client’s precious time by allowing you to build apps for various platforms at the same time.

• Testability

React makes debugging and testing a smooth and hassle-free process for developers because of its structure that is defined clearly. React offers an amazing feature known as the Scope that allows programmers to start debugging and testing through native tools.

Flutter vs React Comparison

Conclusion

When it comes to delivering app development projects, time plays a critical role. Both Flutter and React cost-effectively offers speedy app development.

Flutter is a cross-platform SDK from Google, open-source, and works well with mobile, web, and desktop apps. It was developed using the Dart programming language and has close to native performance.

Reactjs (not the same as React Native) is a Javascript library from Facebook, open-source, and works well for web development. It uses Javascript as the programming language, and it is very stable.

The ideal choice depends on your team’s skills and project requirements.

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