React Native vs Native Apps: Which One To Choose?

Mobile App development is a must-have in business to gain customer loyalty, reduce friction, and deliver innovative digital services. React Native and Native Apps are the two most common and controversial methodologies for building apps.  Both carry their own goods and bads; however, the right one can be decided only after a thorough discussion over various aspects. This includes keeping in mind the business needs, target audience, budget, as well as time-to-market. 

 In this blog, we’ll have a look at the differences between React Native and Native development to understand which could be a better choice. 

Understanding Native Apps and React Native

Mobile applications have for a long time been written in native languages. However, after the emergence of React Native, it has been observed that more and more mobile applications largely used around us (such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Uber, Discord, SoundCloud, Skype…etc) are increasingly rewritten partially or completely in React Native. The key question is: Should a mobile developer consider using React Native for mobile development instead of fully committing to native development with Java or Swift?

Well, there isn’t a definitive answer to that; it really depends on the specific requirements.

Native Apps:

Native apps are platform-specific and can design mobile applications for a single platform (such as iOS or Android). They are native to that platform’s language. For iOS apps, Swift or Objective-C is used, while for Android, Java or Kotlin is used. Native apps are platform-specific, so they provide the best performance, appearance, and feel that fits the exact platform specifications.

Advantages of Native Apps:

1. Better Performance: Native apps are developed using the platform’s native code, making them the fastest option available. That means no need for extra layers or abstractions, and they’re faster and more responsive.
2. Platform Features: Native apps directly expose all the device’s hardware and software components (camera, GPS, Bluetooth). This deep integration makes it simple to add advanced capabilities like AR, VR, or real-time data processing.
3. Enhanced UX: Native apps use the same design and interface standards for every platform, which makes them easier to learn and use.
4. Offline: These apps are usually capable of good offline features since they can store large amounts of data locally on the phone.
5. Security: Native apps are typically safer platforms with native platform security and strong data encryption support.

Disadvantages of Native Apps:

1. Proximity and Higher Development Costs: Because Native apps are created on a separate team (for iOS and Android), companies often have to employ two developers, which costs more.
2. Higher Developing Time: Separate apps for each platform typically take longer because there is no way to share code across platforms.
3. Problems with Maintenance: Re-releasing a Native app involves separate iOS and Android updates that increase development costs.

React Native:

React Native is Facebook’s open-source framework for creating multi-device mobile applications through JavaScript. With React Native, a developer generates a single codebase that is accessible to multiple platforms. Using React Native, businesses can create iOS apps and Android apps on the same go.

Advantages of React Native:

1. Cross-Platform Development: One of React Native’s major strengths is that it makes it easier to build apps that support iOS and Android with the same code base, thus, lowering both, time and budget.
2. More time to market: React Native speeds up development due to the reusability of code. Corporations can quickly deploy their apps to several platforms rather than building one app for each.
3. Cost-effective: With only one JavaScript-certified developer, your total development budget is less, and this can also be used as a small or start-up developer solution.
4. Hot Reloading: With React Native’s hot reloading feature, you can see the updates in real-time, without recompiling the entire app. This l helps accelerate your development time.
5. Support: Since React Native is open-source, it also has an active community of developers supporting it to be successful and providing you with a good amount of resources, libraries, and tools for rapid development.

Disadvantages of React Native:

1. Performance Lag: Although React Native apps work great for most scenarios, they may not run as fast as Native apps if you are doing something that uses a lot of CPU, like gaming, animations, or more intricate calculations.
2. Lack of Native Features: React Native offers some of the same native features but does not have as much functionality and integration as Native applications, especially for hardware-heavy applications.
3. Third-Party Libraries: Certain capabilities in React Native are based on third-party libraries, which might not be as well maintained and current as native platform libraries.
4. No Customization: Exceptional Customization or User Experiences are sometimes not possible for React Native over Native apps due to not having some platform-dependent features.

A Comprehensive Comparison of React Native and Native Applications

1. Performance

• Native Apps: Native apps being built on the platform’s specialized languages will provide the best performance. They are directly translated into machine code, which is a great fit for programs that need to perform high-graphics computations or super-fast processes (eg, games).
• React Native: React Native provides near-native performance, with small lags on heavier load scenarios. High-level apps like real-time controls or 3D rendering may suffer a bit from the extra JavaScript wrapper that’s needed to hook into native modules.

2. Development Cost and Time

• Native Apps: A Native app will have an iOS/Android codebase and you would need two different teams of developers to develop. This can be costly and time-consuming.
• React Native: React Native’s cross-platform platform allows developers to repurpose 90% of the code between iOS and Android, thereby saving both, time and money. React Native might appeal to companies that need an MVP quickly or smaller companies that lack capital.

3. User Experience

• Native Apps: Native apps are great for ensuring the best user experience because they follow platform-specific UI/UX standards so the app looks and acts like a genuine iOS or Android application. Native gestures, animations, and interfaces feel more fluid and seamless.
• React Native: You get a great user experience with React Native apps too but there might not be some advanced platform functionalities available, and UI elements might not behave as native apps sometimes. On both systems, getting pixel-perfect design can sometimes be tricky.

4. Scalability and Maintenance

• Native Apps: If businesses expand and apps become large, it might be a pain to maintain a code base for iOS and Android. Any new feature or bug fix should be added for both builds separately, and the overhead should be added.
• React Native: React Native apps share the same codebase and, hence are more accessible to scale and manage. Updates or upgrades can be applied to all of them, and the app will become easier to manage when things change to smoothen up.

5. Security

• Native Apps: Native app development platforms like iOS and Android come with strong built-in security features. Developers have direct access to platform-wide security, which includes data encryption, secure APIs, and multi-factor authentication.
• React Native: React Native apps generally are secure, but they’re built on JavaScript so extra precautions, like encryption and secure APIs, may be needed to ensure data safety. But the security won’t be as robust as Native apps.

When to Choose Native Development

1. Low-Complexity Applications: If your app uses high graphics, real-time processing, or low-level device interactions (games, VR, AR), Native development is the way to go.
2. Platform-Agnostic Features: If your app needs to integrate some high-level platform-agnostic features not provided well by cross-platform frameworks, Native development allows for deeper integration and more stability.
3. Direct user experience: For the apps in which user experience is important (e.g., expensive apps or apps with design features) you are better off going Native because of the animations and interaction.
4. Long-Term: Native is best suited for long-term initiatives where the app will evolve over time and take advantage of platform-specific innovation.

When to Choose React Native

1. Budget Limitation: In case your project is low on funds, React Native is an excellent solution because you can create just one app for iOS and Android.
2. Time-to-Market Is Important: When development velocity is the issue, React Native will cut development time dramatically, which is cross-platform and has hot reloading capabilities.
3. MVP Development: If you’re a startup that wants to develop an MVP for testing the market or raising funding, then React Native can be a great option because it’s cheaper and faster to deploy.
4. Cross-Platform Targeting: If you want to appeal to users on both Android and iOS at the same time, React Native’s single code base makes it faster and easier.

Conclusion

Whether you prefer React Native or Native app development is based on the requirements of your project. Native apps are unparalleled in performance, security, and experience but also expensive and take more time to build. In contrast, React Native offers a more convenient, affordable option to developers seeking cross-platform apps in record time.

Finally, React Native might be the way to go for simple budget apps while Native development is for those applications that need premium performance, advanced functionality, or platform integration. You can hire React Native Developers who are mastered to meet the diverse needs of your custom app development.