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With the rising popularity of React Native mobile applications, developers could be wondering What they should choose? Is it React Native or traditional Native? This article explains how React Native and Native apps perform in different areas of concern and helps you choose the best technology for mobile application development.

What is React Native?

React Native is a technology based on Metas’ React, a Javascript library for building responsive user interfaces. React Native combines native development with React for building cross-platform mobile applications using a single codebase. It renders to the UI using the platforms’ rendering APIs and allows for creating truly native mobile apps. React Native has gained vast popularity today because of its many advantages over Native apps. Top tech companies like Meta, Instagram, UberEATS, Pinterest, and Shopify are reaping the benefits of using React Native for their applications.

What is Native?

A native application is built to run in a specific mobile device and its operating system (OS) using native technologies. For example, Java and Kotlin for Android, Objective-C, and Swift for iOS. It means native apps can use hardware and software specific to that device. Since such apps work with the platforms’ OS, they can provide a good user experience and overall high performance.

React Native Vs. Native Apps: What is the best choice?

Consider how React Native and Native apps perform in the following key aspects of mobile application development.

Time-To-Market

How long a mobile app would take to deploy to the market depends on how fast it can develop. If a company needs to develop a native app for iOS and Android, they must write, deploy, and maintain separate platform-specific codebases, which will require two development teams’ effort. If there is any update to the application, it requires changes in two codebases and the building and running of the complete project to reflect changes.

 

But in React Native, developers only must write a single codebase for Android and iOS platforms. Thus, it is easy to introduce changes to the application. Also, React native provides hot reloading & live reloading features which enable developers to see the effects of the code changes in real-time without building the whole app. Therefore, React Native allows faster and easier development and faster time to market than native apps.

Development and Maintenance Cost

Another reason to choose React Native over Native is the lower application costs. Developing and maintaining two separate codebases for each platform needs more developers with significant expertise in their costs. Therefore, costs for hiring and training, paying developers, and maintaining two code bases will be higher if you opt for native app development. Especially for startup companies, these costs can become unbearable.

 

In contrast, React Native apps require only a smaller number of developers. Since there is only one codebase to maintain, maintenance costs are lower.

Performance and interaction with other Native apps

When it comes to performance, most Native apps outperform React Native apps. This is because Native apps can access the devices’ hardware and software. Thus, they are well-suited for resource-intensive mobile apps. Also, Native apps can interact and exchange data with other native apps relatively faster.

 

React native apps, on the other hand, are not suitable for performance-heavy applications because there can be performance issues with their native and Javascript threads. Also, for communicating with Native apps, React Native apps require third-party libraries. Thus, regarding the app performance and native support, most Native applications still are ahead of React Native applications.

User Experience

Considering the user experiences, both types have equal capabilities to provide an intuitive user experience. Although react native apps use Javascript to render the UI, it provides a native user experience to the user. Also, React Native can combine with native languages, which allows you to build features specific to each device.

 

Native apps also provide a great user experience comparable to React Native because they are designed specifically for each platform and can harness device-specific features.

Security

Compared with Native apps, React Native apps rely heavily on third-party libraries and APIs to provide cross-platform support and additional features. Therefore, if any issue is related to such libraries, troubleshooting, and fixing them will take significant time and effort. Resultantly, there can be security loopholes in the entire system which could go unnoticed for a long time and later can cause severe security issues. Thus, if you solely consider the time to identify and fix security issues, Native apps still win over React Native apps.

API and Modules Support

One of the strong points of Native languages is their ability to directly use all types of Native APIs. However, React Native apps have limited capabilities to use complex APIs, requiring building a connection layer with Native technologies. Thus, if your application needs a lot of APIs, Native development will be a better choice. In addition, although React Native supports a wide range of modules, they do not address every feature requirement. Thus, custom modules will be required to accommodate more specific features.

Community Support

In contrast to Native languages, React Native has more powerful and wider community support than Native apps. Since React and JavaScript are very popular among developers worldwide, there is constant community support. Thus, if you face any issue with your code, it is highly likely that the same issue has been encountered by someone and provided the solution for fixing it. Also, novice developers find it easy to learn to code with a plethora of tutorials, articles, documentation, and books available on the internet.

Advantages and Disadvantages of  React Native and Native

In summary, React Native and Native have the following advantages and disadvantages.

React Native

Advantages

• Hot reloading and live reloading make development easier
• Single codebase for multiple platforms
• Lower development and maintenance costs
• Native-like user experience
• Strong community support

Disadvantages

• No direct access to device-specific hardware and software
• Less secure

Native

Advantages

• Great for resource-intensive applications
• Secure than React Native apps
• Great user experience

Disadvantages

• Must maintain two codebases for two platforms
• High developer and maintenance costs
• Longer time-to-market

When should You choose React Native for your app development?

Choose React Native if :

• If you want to build apps faster with limited resources
• If you have a limited budget and want to reduce development and maintenance costs
• If you want to develop apps for multiple platforms
• If you consider building an MVP that needs to deploy quickly to the market for user testing
• If you want to provide a native-like user experience to the customer
• If you do not want to provide device-specific features to the applications

When should You choose Native for your app development?

Choose Native if:

• If you want to build resource-intensive applications
• If you are targeting only a specific platform
• If you want to provide the app with device-specific features
• If  you are concerned more about app security issues that can arise from third-party libraries

Conclusion

You can choose Native type development or React Native when you want to build a mobile application. The main factors you need to consider when deciding which to choose to include the development and maintenance costs, time-to-market, performance, user experience, security, community support, and module support. When considering these factors, React choosing Native over Native has many advantages, mainly because of the ability to develop cross-platform apps, faster time to market, and less development and maintenance costs. Native apps, on the other hand, are suitable for resource-intensive apps and when the time and costs required to build the app are not a significant concern.

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