In the world of mobile apps, the latest technologies have helped the growth of mobile app development and made the process easy.
For developing a native app for Android, codes are written in Java, while for iOS, codes are written in Swift and Objective-C.
The native app development approach leaves no room for errors, making it the best choice for developing a flawless and high-performing application. Though, this perfection is achieved after abundant codes, various expenses, and much time.
With cross-platform app development, mobile app developers can save much time by writing the codes only once for every platform. Further, to achieve native-like perfection, mobile development communities are working hard to create new tools and frameworks, such as Flutter, Ionic, React Native and Xamarin.
With various development tools in the market, it is hard to decide which one to choose. Let’s take a look at and evaluate which one is best for you.
Flutter vs Ionic vs React Native vs Xamarin
When developing a cross-platform app, you need to choose the perfect tool but how would you identify this perfect tool?
Each tool has its unique characteristics. Let’s find out the best tool for you by comparing them on various parameters like:
Performance
React Native: This tool focuses on providing a native-like performance by using code elements similar to React native APIs.
React native allows the developer to use native modules written in native languages to write code for complicated operations. Though it can only be used for one platform, it ensures high performance.
Ready-made React Native’s solutions and libraries, allow developers to solve tricky issues while allowing more time to perfect the app.
Ionic: With Ionic, improving the quality of code is of utmost priority, though, when it comes to performance, it is not as good as other tools. Ionic uses web technologies to develop a cross-platform app that results in low speed.
Using web components instead of native components fails to give a native-like experience like other tools.
Xamarin: Using languages like C# and .Net helps create a native-like experience for mobile apps. Xamarin has two different app-building approaches, Xamarin.Android/Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Forms.
Xamarin.Android/Xamarin.iOS focuses on sharing business rationale rather than code sharing while Xamarin.Forms focus on code sharing.
Flutter: Flutter tops the performance category by creating the best native-like experience. It offers great speed and has advantages over others because of Dart.
Dart helps in faster interaction with the underlying system that makes the application high-performing.
Programming language
React Native: This tool uses one of the highest-performing languages, Javascript. It becomes easy for developers to create a new app using Javascript, because of being a popular and known language for developing apps.
React Native allows the developer to write the pieces of code in Swift, Obj-C, or Java, according to the requirements.
Ionic: Ionic uses HTML5, CSS, and JS to develop a cross-platform application. To give a native-like experience, it requires a Cordova wrapper to access native platform controllers.
As Ionic is more about improving code quality, it allows usage of TypeScript.
Xamarin: If a developer is thinking of developing an app that wholly focuses on giving a native-like experience to its users, Xmarin is the best choice.
Using C# and .Net programming language, developers fulfill the above motive. Furthermore, C# allows doability similar to native languages.
Flutter: Flutter focuses on developing the best quality app using Dart for app development. Dart, based on C/C++ and Java, offers numerous benefits and despite being the newest tool, Flutter has become a popular choice amongst developers looking to develop various apps.
Compatible Platforms:
React Native: Supports Android 4.1+ and iOS 8+
Ionic: Supports Android 4.4+, iOS 8+, and Windows 10
Xamarin: Supports Android 4.0.3+, iOS 8+, and Windows 10
Flutter: Supports iOS 8+ and Android Jelly Bean+
User Interface:
React Native: By associating with Native UI controls, React Native gives a native-like experience, hence ensuring high user satisfaction.
Ionic: Ionic uses Cordova instead of using native elements that give the app a native-like look but it’s nothing like other tools.
Xamarin: Xamarin uses two different approaches and both approaches result in a different type of user experience. Xamarin.Android/iOS offers a native-like experience in exchange for a lot of developing time and Xamarin.Forms take less time thus, it does not guarantee the native-like experience.
Flutter: Being the newest and most advanced tool, it provides a much better native-like app experience to its users.
Pricing:
React Native and Flutter: These both are completely open-source frameworks, thus allowing app developers to use them for free.
Ionic: It is also a free open-source framework but an Ionic pro version is also available which is paid.
Xamarin: Xamarin is not an open-source framework. To use it, developers need to install IDE, which is provided on a subscription basis. Though the free version is also available, it doesn’t offer much.
Conclusion:
Every tool and framework have its advantages and disadvantages. With Flutter and React Native offering the best native-like experience, Xamarin offering two different app development approaches, and Ionic offering code quality, the final choice should be made according to your project requirements.
If you want an mobile app developing partner, then Jellyfish Technologies is the best choice for you. Jellyfish Technologies has developed numerous mobile apps for global clients across diverse domains, such as social media, micro-finance, sports & leisure, e-commerce, productivity, and fitness, among others.
