What Should You Learn Next? Flutter, React Native, Or Ionic
Here I am going to discuss the differences in Flutter with its alternatives. Without any doubt, Flutter is the best one I have seen, and I have the most familiarity. But I found the following knowledge to give a clear idea about the best solution for mobile cross-platform development. Flutter, React Native and Ionic are prior solutions in mobile cross-platform development. Flutter is not the only approach that allows you to build ios and android apps with one programming language and one project codebase. There are other solutions too. React-native and ionic are probably the biggest competitors to flutter, and I want to discuss some examples of where Flutter differs from them.
Why would you use Flutter and not react native or ionic? Now let’s discuss how each of these alternatives works.
Built on what?
- Flutter is built on a Flutter framework and dart.
- React-native uses javascript and the react libraries.
- Ionic uses javascript, allowing the user to choose any user interface framework, such as Angular, React, or Vue.js.
Compilation Theory…
- In Flutter, you get compiled native apps compiled for the target platforms separately.
- In react native, the same acenario, but partially compiled with the parts in your javascript code which is not compiled. In react native, the same procedure, but partially compiled with the parts in your javascript code which is not compiled. Instead of as compiled code, Basically enclosed in the native app and runs as javascript in the native app.
- For ionic, nothing is compiled. There you have a web app wrapped inside a native app. You still get a native app to publish to the app store and play store. But it’s only a wrapper around your web app. the advantage of this ionic approach is that you can use standard web technologies. If you’re a web developer, it’s straightforward to create such apps, and you can use all your standard web development skills to build cross-platform apps there. The disadvantage of this wrapped approach could be decreased performances.
How Render the App Components?
- For Flutter, it’s also important to know that we don’t compile to IoS or android UI components separately because of Flutter gives you an app that controls the entire screen and every pixel on it.
- For react-native, that’s different; you compile ios and android UI components. For example, suppose you render a button. In that case, it is compiled to the native ios button for ios and the native android button for android, which means you have fewer customization possibilities. For example, if you can’t add a drop shadow to the native ios button, you can’t add it to the react-native button. But, native button restrictions don’t matter in Flutter, and it controls every pixel on its own you can implement it in whichever the way you want.
- For Ionic, there is no compilation to native equivalence. Instead, you have a web app, so you can style a button as you could style it in any web app. it’s not compiled to a native button.
How far Extended?
- With Flutter, you can build cross-platform apps, mobile apps, and even web and desktop apps. However, those are in the early stages, mostly Flutter web apps. But with the current performances, Flutter web apps also become stable soon.
- For react native, it’s pretty much only about mobile apps.
- For Ionic, by default, since you build a web app that’s wrapped by a native app., you also have full cross-platform support. You can get a mobile app with this wrapped approach. Also, you have a web app.
Who created?
- Flutter is developed by Google
- Facebook develops React-native
- Ionic is developed by a company called Ionic
therefore they all have big companies backing them especially react native and flutter of course but also the ionic company is earning its money with the ionic framework and therefore regarding the future all three should be very stable and under active development for a long time so that shouldn’t influence your choice.
What Should You Choose?
What should influence your choice?. Flutter has excellent advantages in that you have real native apps. So you get great performance. Like in Ionic, No web-view was wrapped, and the app has no worse performance because of that wrapping. Instead, you have machine code running, which gives you great performance. You also have high flexibility and a lot of control over your app because Flutter controls every pixel on the screen. I think the higher customization possibilities are an excellent advantage, but in the end, that’s up to your personal preference. Flutter is a perfect choice because you have real compiled apps, and with every pixel controlled by Flutter, you have a lot of flexibility and high performance. React-native and Ionic are certainly lovely alternatives.
Happy Coding !!!!
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