React Vs React Native-which Is The Best For Your Business

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Hello Leaders, Aspire SoftServ Pvt. Ltd. presents a refreshing blog post on ‘React VS React Native-Which is the BEST for your Business’.

React – Introduction

It provides the view layer of the application. It also allows developers to develop complex UI using components that are known as small and separate code.   

Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook developed it. Initially, it was developed and maintained by Facebook and was later used in its products like WhatsApp & Instagram. Facebook developed React in 2011 for the newsfeed division, and they released it publicly in May 2013.

Advantage of React

1. Easy to Learn and Use: ReactJS is much easier to learn and use. If a developer has a basic understanding of JS and ES6 concepts can easily create web applications using React.
2. Faster Dynamic Web Application Development: To create a dynamic web application specifically with HTML was time-consuming which requires complex coding, but React solved that issue and makes it easier. It offers features like less coding and more functionality.
3. Reusable React Components: A React web application is created with multiple components, and each component has its own logic and controls. These components can be reused wherever you need to use them in entire applications. The reusable code helps to make your apps easier and faster to develop and maintain.
4. Blazing Performance Improvements: React improves top-level performance because of virtual DOM. The React Virtual DOM exists entirely in memory. It is a representation of the web browser’s DOM. Due to this, when we write a React component, we are not writing directly to the DOM. Instead, we are writing virtual components that will transform into the DOM, leading to faster and smoother performance.
5. Powerful ReactDev Tools: React offers a set of developer tools that make the task of the developers easier and understandable. It also allows you to select specific components, examine and edit their current Props and State.

Disadvantage of React

1. The high pace of development: As we know, the frameworks continually change so fast. The developers are not comfortable to re-learn new ways of doing things regularly. It may be tough for them to adopt all certain changes with all the consecutive updates.
2. Incomplete Documentation: React technology is updating and accelerating so fast that it causes incomplete, improper documentation. To overcome this, developers write instructions on their own with the development of the latest releases and tools in their recent projects.
3. View Part: React covers only the UI Layers (Presentation Layer) of the app. So you still need to select any other technologies to get the entire tooling set for development in the project.
4. Known to be SEO Friendly: Traditional JavaScript frameworks have issues in dealing with SEO. React solves this problem, which helps developers to easily use various search engines. It is because React applications can run on the server, and the virtual DOM will be rendering and returning to the browser as a normal web page.
5. The Benefit of Having a JavaScript Library: React is gaining popularity among web developers. It is offering a real rich JavaScript library that offers more flexibility to the web developers to decide the way they want.
6. Scope for Testing the Codes: React applications are less configure and easy to test. It offers a scope where the developer can test and debug codes with the help of native tools.

React Native

React Native is known as an open-source JavaScript framework used for developing a mobile application for iOS, Android, and Windows. 

It uses only JavaScript to build the cross-platform mobile app. React Native is the same as React, but it uses native components instead of using web components as building blocks. It targets mobile platforms rather than the browser.

Facebook developed React Native in 2013 for its internal project ‘Hackathon’. In March 2015, Facebook announced that React Native is open and available on GitHub for the public.

React Native was initially developed for the mobile-specific iOS application. However, recently, it also supports the Android operating system.

Advantages of React Native

There are several advantages of React Native for building mobile applications. Some of them are given below:

1. Requires JavaScript: If the developer has JavaScript knowledge, then it is good and enough to start building native mobile apps.
2. Cross-Platform Usage: It offers the mantra of “Learn once write everywhere.” It works for both platform Android and iOS devices.
3. Class Performance: The code written in React Native is compiled into native code, which enables it for both operating systems as well as it functions in the same way on both platforms.
4. Large Developer Community: React and React Native have a worldwide large developer community who continuously help us to find answers developers ask.
5. Hot Reloading: Making a few changes in your app’s code will be quickly reflected during development. If the business logic is modified, its reflection is live reloaded on screen.
6. Existence is Uncertain: As Facebook develops this framework, its presence is uncertain since it keeps all the rights to kill off the project anytime. As the popularity of React Native rises, it is unlikely to happen.
7. Native Components: We will need to write some platform-specific code if we want to create native functionality, which is not created yet.
8. Improving with Time: Some features of iOS and Android are still unsupported, and the community is constantly developing the best practices.

The disadvantage of React Native

1. Learning is Difficult: React Native is not easy to learn, especially for beginners in the app development field.
2. It Lacks the Security Reliability: React Native is a JavaScript library and open-source framework, which creates a gap in security reliability. When you are creating banking and financial apps where data is highly private, specialists recommend you not to prefer React Native.
3. Long Time to Initialize: React Native takes a lot of time for initializing the runtime even for the advanced gadgets and devices.

React Vs React Native – The Key Differences 

Sr. No	REACT	REACT NATIVE
1	The React initial release was in 2013.	The React Native initial release was in 2015.
2	It is used for developing web applications.	It is used for developing mobile applications.
3	It can be executed on all platforms.	It is not platform-independent. It takes more effort to be executed on all platforms.
4	It uses a JavaScript library and CSS for animations.	It comes with built-in animation libraries.
5	It uses React-router for navigating web pages.	It has a built-in Navigator library for navigating mobile applications.
6	It uses HTML tags.	It does not use HTML tags.
7	It can use code components, which saves a lot of valuable time.	It can reuse React Native UI components & modules which allow hybrid apps to render natively.
8	It provides high security.	It provides low security in comparison to ReactJS.
9	In this, the Virtual DOM renders the browser code.	In this, Native uses its API to render code for mobile applications.

Who uses React?

Examples of real-life React use are various Facebook products. Both web versions of WhatsApp and Instagram were developed using React. Other big names cover as below:

1. Asana
2. BBC
3. Netflix
4. Twitter
5. Uber

Who uses React Native?

Besides Facebook, these are some of the most popular apps built using React Native:

1. Coinbase
2. Discord
3. Pinterest
4. Shopify
5. UberEats

What if you need both mobile and web?

You can apply React Native for Web which uses React DOM to run React Native components and APIs on the web.

But the tool specifically suited for this task is ReactXP, a library created by Microsoft for cross-platform development. It works with React and React Native to further streamline the process by allowing most of the code to be shared between the iOS, Android, Windows, and the web version of an app.

Common and Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Why use React Native instead of React?

React Native is great for mobile apps. It provides a slick, smooth, and responsive user interface, while significantly reducing load time. It’s also much faster and cheaper to build apps in React Native as opposed to building native ones, without the need to compromise on quality and functionality.

2. Who is better: React or React Native?

To put it in simpler terms, React is ideal for building dynamic, high-performing, responsive UI for your web interfaces, while React Native is meant to give your mobile apps a truly native feel.

3. Is React and React Native the same?

React Native is an open-source JavaScript framework used for developing a mobile application for iOS, Android, and Windows. React Native is the same as React, but it uses native components instead of using web components as building blocks. It targets mobile platforms rather than the browser.

4. Is React Native Dead 2021?

As per statistics from Stack Overflow Developer Survey 2021, it is clear that React Native is not only alive but booming. Also, React Native takes the 1st spot in the ranking by professional to React Native.

Conclusion

We can say React is perfect if you’re looking to create dynamic, incredibly performance UI with a primary laser focus on web applications.

Though, if you want to get the same results as a native mobile application, but at a faster development across both iOS and Android, React Native is a popular and powerful JavaScript library that uplifts the hybrid space of cross-platform creation to its goals.

Still, some may have doubts in mind – Can we reuse Reactjs code in React Native?

The answer here is, yes, it is reasonable as React Native uses the same codes used for the web under a horizon.

In conclusion, it is best practice for the business to do thorough research and align project requirements with the pros and cons of the framework they are willing to use in the future. Once they figure out what they expect from the framework, they can set their priorities accordingly.

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