React Native Vs Flutter Vs PWA: The Right Choice for Hybrid App Development in 2020

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Samarpan Infotech

9 min readDec 11, 2019

Cross-platform hybrid apps development has become a budget-friendly and quick way to develop a mobile app for any business type of industry.

Today there are a number of ways to develop a hybrid mobile app; be React Native, Flutter, Ionic or PhoneGap. In addition, there are other ways to develop an app-like feature called progressive web apps development.

Even though each method and framework as its own advantages and disadvantages we will discuss the most popular and trending ones in this blog.

Hybrid App Development Framework Search Trends(Source: trends.google.com)

Did You Know: Popular applications like UBER, Gmail, and EverNote are efficient examples of the capability of cross platform apps.

Before that here are few Frequently Asked Questions that must be in your mind as well.

FAQs on Hybrid App Developments

What is the difference between native and hybrid apps?
Native apps are developed for technology-specific platforms like iOS, Android or Windows. While; hybrid apps are built to work on any OS with technologies like JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

Which is the best Native or Hybrid or app development?
It totally depends on your usage and type of features you want.

What are the advantages of Hybrid app development?
If you are looking for reasons to go for hybrid app development then here is the list of benefits of building hybrid apps:
(1) Quick development time.
(2) Less development cost as compared to native apps.
(3) Offline support.
(4) Easy integration with third-party apps.
(5) Multiple-platform support.
(6) Easy to maintain.
(7) Best for online market place.

Which are the best hybrid app development framework?
Although this blog is all about these 3 development methods; the best frameworks to build hybrid apps react native and Flutter.

Is Facebook a native or hybrid app?
Facebook is developed in React Native; hence it is a hybrid mobile app. In addition; React Native language is developed and maintained by Facebook only.

Here is a features comparison between Native Apps and Hybrid Apps image to help you make your decision:

**Features Comparison: Native Apps Vs Hybrid Apps**

Now let’s have a look at our options to build a hybrid app.

React Native

Popular Cross Platform Framework for iOS and Android App Development

Did You Know: React native has more than 66k GitHub Stars?

React Native is an open-source hybrid apps development framework powered by Facebook. With a motto of “Learn once and Write everywhere,” it is saving them time and money in the development of mobile apps. Along with that; react native is also proven to be expeditious to increase the efficiency of the developers.

Benefits of React Native Apps Development

Even though the list of advantages to hire React Native developers is high; we will be mentioning the most important ones here.

No need for webview components
React native has reusable building blocks which are native components. These blocks compile directly to the native hence; the user gets a consistent look and feel. With the component-based structure, react-native serves functionality, look and feel of a native app.
Augment an existing mobile app with React Native UI Components React Native developers can apply UI components to an application with no need of rebuilding the code. By using a plugin the developer can reuse any framework-based code for any existing hybrid app.
Major focus on the mobile UI
With asynchronous JavaScript interactions along with the native environment, react-native provides highly responsive UI. This results in a faster and smoother app as compared to any other hybrid app.
Popular for Performance
React native generates a code to the native APIs upfront and thus, it connects with the components of both the operating systems.

Cons of React Native App Development

Lack of Security
React native has been made from JavaScript which is an open-source framework. This leads to a security gap. Hence; for applications like banking and the financial sector, it is advised not to trust much on it.
Need a lot of initializing Time
React native takes a lot of time to initialize. Even if the rendering is on hi-tech gadgets the run time to initialize is a lot more.
Memory Management
To compute-intensive apps; React native has a drawback. Due to float computations; it is difficult to manage the usage of the application and the memory utilized by it.

Popular Apps built with React Native

Facebook
Walmart
Bloomberg
Instagram
Soundcloud

Next comes; Flutter apps.

As per report of Statista: Worldwide mobile app revenues in 2023 projected to generate more than 935 billion U.S. dollars via paid downloads and in-app advertising.

Worldwide mobile app revenues in 2014 to 2023 (in billion U.S. dollars)

Flutter

For Beautiful and Seamless Hybrid App Development

Flutter is another popular SDK to develop a mobile app. It is powered by Google and is totally free of cost. The architecture of Flutter is based on the reactive programming. Flutter is mainly used to develop 2-D mobile apps. It includes features like cameras, network, Geolocation, and storage.

Although Flutter is a new in-app development still there are more than 2,000 mobile apps built using flutter.

Related Article: Flutter For Startups: Worth The Hype Or Not?

Let us have a look at the benefits of Flutter app development:

Pros of Flutter App development

Hot Reload:
Hot reload has made life easy for the developers. Resulting in much dynamic and faster app development. In addition; developers and designers can cooperate easily to experiment new interface or experience of the app.
Quick Prototype
With the hot reload feature the developers can change any part of the code in real-time. There won’t be any need to restart the mobile app again. In addition; the developers can check the bugs in real-time and fix them instantly.
Shorter Codes
The programming style in flutter is reactive and declarative. Plus; it uses the dart programming language which is object-oriented and very strongly-typed. Any flutter app has better performance and start-up time because of the elimination of the need for JavaScript.
Choice of widgets
Flutter has its widgets as a unified model. The vast set of widgets comes with extensive capabilities that can create more intricate widgets.
Ideal choice to build MVP
The minimum viable product of an app is mainly used to test the features of the application in the eyes of real-users. Flutter works best on both the platform; be it Android or iOS. As a result; it is always selected as the perfect to showcase and the MVP version of an app.

Now let’s check out the drawbacks of Flutter:

Cons of Flutter app development

Limited to Mobile-only
A flutter app is only capable to work on smartphones only. It does not support web browsers. Hence it can be a lag when launching an app for big business.
Large-sized App
Because of the presence of inbuilt widgets flutter mobile apps are larger in size. Every app is over 4MB. The Google team is working on the issue but till then the size of the apps is going to affect the users.
Unstabilization
As the SDK is quite new; there are few issues which are concerning the developers. Like the developers are not able to cope with user interface changes in both iOS and Android. In addition; the developers have doubts about the ability of flutter for eCommerce app development.

Apps Developed using Flutter

Google ads
Reflectly
Alibaba
Hamilton Music
Birch Finance

Now let us have a look at the progressive web app

Progressive Web Apps-PWAs

Many of the businesses are struggling with the issues of the app store and play store. Progressive web apps have leveraged this to introduce a whole new concept of apps.

What exactly is a Progressive Web App/PWA?

It is a website that functions like a mobile app. There will be a home screen logo on the mobile device; the app will have access to the hardware of the device and you can send push notifications as well. A PWA will work smoothly without any network connection as well.

Let us have a look at the benefits of PWAs:

Pros of Progressive Web Apps

No installation
The users don’t have to wait for the download time. There won’t be any long process of installing the app from their respective stores. On the other hand; the app owner does not have to go through the tedious process of applying to the app store and play store and then get accepted or rejected.
Works without internet connection as well
Progressive web apps are not dependent on the internet to work. With the offline mode the PWAs store any information which was accessed the last online access.
Benefits of the website in an app
The best advantage of progressive web apps is a user can take the benefits of a website from the app as well. The app has URLs that can be indexed in Google thus it helps in factors like Search Engine Optimization.
Hardware features Access
Features like push notification make progressive web apps the best. For businesses related to eCommerce or Publishing these kinds of features can be beneficial to a great extent.
Low data Requirements
When compared to native apps; Progressive web apps require very fewer data. In countries where mobile data is very expensive, this is a huge benefit.

In 2016; a Nigeria based website Konga has created records of using 92 percent of fewer data. Hence; an app that uses 10mb of data will be using 500kb of data only.

Now let us check out the drawbacks of progressive web apps

Cons of Progressive Web Apps

Issues with old devices
The older devices which have outdated browsers are not able to support Progressive web apps too well. As per a few consumer complaints the apps keep crashing in their devices. Even though this problem will be resolved in the future but it is important to keep in mind.
iOS device compatibility
Apple has limited the access of progressive web apps on its devices. The app can not use ARKit, Touch ID, Face ID, Beacons, altimeter sensor and the batter information. This leads to limited access for consumers. In addition, the devices with OS older than 11.3 are not compatible with PWAs.
High battery Usage
As progressive web apps are written in web code the mobile devices are forced to work harder to interpret the code. Battery drainage can be a major reason for dropping the app by the users.

Over To You!

Now that you have enough knowledge about the cross-platform app development frameworks its time to make your decision. Before finalizing any framework or method for your mobile app development; make sure to analyze everything.

You will have to make a list of features you want to add to your app. Figure out if you want to launch a minimum viable product first or a final app directly.

Understand the interface requirement by your target audience. After analyzing all these kinds of things then make your decision.

Need Expert Developers Assistance?

If you are looking to hire react native developers, flutter developers or developers to build your progressive web apps then we have the perfect team for you at Samarpan Infotech.

All you have to do is tell us your requirements and we will help you to understand which Hybrid app development- the framework is suitable for you. Get in touch with our team of developers to kick off your projects.

Originally published at https://www.samarpaninfotech.com on December 11, 2019.