React Native or Native: What Should I Choose for My Next App?

Whenever a business look forward to developing an app, the first question that hinders the path to enter the mobile market is: Which technology and platform to prefer? Whether to target a single platform (Android or iOS) or both? And in case you decide to entertain both the platforms with the motive to cater to the needs of a wider audience and gain competitive advantage, should you consider Native app development or go with React Native app development?

This article will cover everything that will help you to get answers to these questions and decide what should you choose for your next app. But, let’s begin with the simple definitions first.

Native App Development: Its Advantages and Disadvantages

Native app development refers to the technology that enables you to develop an app for a particular native platform, i.e. Android and iOS. The technology has full access to the native device features and offers exemplary experience to the end users.

The advantages and disadvantages associated with choosing Native app development are:-

Advantages of Native Application Development

1. Stable and Popular Languages: Whether you talk about Objective-C or Swift (iOS app development) or Java or Kotlin (Android app development), all the programming languages are stable and quite popular in the app industry. You can easily get support from their communities and build better mobile apps.
2. Wider Support of Third-party libraries: Again, the support from bigger communities make it easier for the Native app developers to employ a wider range of third-party libraries.
3. Accessibility to Native APIs: You can easily access all the native device features into your mobile application development, which implies an enhanced user experience.

Disadvantages of Native Application Development

1. More Development Time: In the case of Native app development, you build platform-specific apps. This implies you cannot run the Android app on the iOS platform. Because of this, you need to develop individual apps for both the platforms, which results in increased mobile application development time.
2. Higher App Development Cost: As you might be familiar with the fact the development hours is equal to money in the mobile market, the cost to make an app will also increase when going with Native app development.

React Native App Development: Its Benefits and Limitations

React Native is basically a UI framework introduced by Facebook to enable a smooth mobile app experience to the end users. The application enables you to design beautiful apps that work for both iOS and Android applications and leverage the benefits of native device features.

The benefits and limitations of preferring React Native for mobile application development are:-

Benefits of React Native Application Development

1. Single Codebase: The most remarkable feature of React Native is that empowers you to build an app for both the Android and iOS platforms. You can write the code for one app, and reuse the code when developing the app for the other platform, such that you need to work only on the platform-specific code. The React Native app developers need not write the code representing the app functionality from scratch once again.
2. Low Development Time: With the facility of code reusability, the React Native platform saves a lot of development hours, which can be better utilized for enhancing the user experience of the mobile app.

As per a reputed mobile app development company, the React Native application development cut down the development time for developing both the apps by 30%.

3. Open-Source: Unlike many other app development technologies, the React Native is open-source. This alludes that the tools and software related to the Facebook’s framework are freely available to all, which can eventually be helpful to cut down the mobile app development cost. Besides, being open-source, the React Native library will be far more compatible with other platforms like Windows and TvOS, which will open the door to targeting these platforms as well.
4. Hot Reloading: Another major benefit of preferring React Native for your app development needs is Hot Reloading. With this feature, the framework enables the React Native app developers to see the impact of changing codes on the screen in real-time. They need not go through the hassle of compiling and executing the complete code everytime they make even a single change.
5. Opportunities for Web Developers: Based on JavaScript framework, the React Native also makes it easier for the Web developers to try their luck in the mobile market and do business.

Limitations of React Native App Development

1. Lower Access to Native features: The biggest drawback of going with React Native is that it does not avail you the opportunity to employ all the native device features into your app processing. For example, you can access push notifications and offer location-based services, but cannot access the camera or voice recorder. This, in some cases, brings an impact on the user experience.
2. Lesser Availability of Third Party Libraries: React Native framework also lags behind Native app technology, when it comes to availability of third-party libraries. This lack of third-party libraries compel the React Native app developers to incorporate native modules to employ the native libraries, which result in a rise in the development efforts.

Now, as you know what are the pros and cons of choosing both the mobile app development approaches, get ready for the big league:

How to decide which one to Choose for Your Next app?

When to Select Native App Development

Native app development is a great choice when:-

1. Your business needs to work with cutting-edge technologies like Blockchain and IoT.
2. Your mobile app demands the utilization of a lot of third-party APIs and multiple libraries.

When to Choose React Native Platform

React Native app development is favorable to your mobile app development needs, when:-

1. You want to build an app for both the platforms, but have a limited budget.
2. Your app is complex and renders you an opportunity to lessen the efforts by reusing the components.
3. You have a limited mobile application development team.
4. You want to launch your app at the earliest.

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