When to avoid and when to choose React native for mobile app development?

Cross-platform application development has definitely become the preferred alternative to native mobile application development. Following which you also have all the necessary tools to follow the native mobile development approach which lets you create separate applications for Android and iOS. Cross-platform development scheme allows you to cut expenses and save time by using the same code that can be used across both platforms. Corresponding which react native framework is a rising mobile solution and can be extensively considered for the future of cross-platform mobile application development by other react native app developers from all across the globe.

In the following blog, we shall check out the benefits of using react native for cross-platform mobile development and at the same time let you know when it is not a good choice.

React Native is an open-source framework that helps you build a mobile application using only javascript. It was introduced by Jordan Walke, a software engineer from Facebook which formed the basis of new technology for simpler development and better user experience. The other main distinction of this framework is the fact that react native applications functions similar to native applications. They don’t differ much from applications built on java, objective-c or even swift and they also use the same UI building blocks like the ones of native iOS or Android apps. However, with react native, building a mobile application is plenty much faster and less expensive.

Let us take a look at some of the advantages and challenges when it comes to companies using react native when it comes to developing a mobile application.

Advantages of React Native:

Community Matters

React Native is an open-source platform and this means all the documentation related to this technology is open for everyone within the react-native community. There is a lot of advantages when it comes to using a community-driven technology as it quickly lets you face any issue related to react native development letting you have help from the community of experts on any matter. Many of the best react native mobile app development company USA, the experiences and create portfolios which in turn encourages them to write better and precise code.

Reusable code & pre-built components

This by far is amongst the most important advantages of react-native. Using the convenience of this framework developers do not need to build a separate mobile app for each and every platform as almost 90% of the react-native code can be reused between iOS and Android.

Walmart too decided to revise its mobile application using the assistance of the top mobile app development company in USA, as they were required to improve the performance of the application to the quickest possible.

Simplified UI

React Native is mostly about all Mobile UI and if we were to compare this framework to AngularJS or MeteorJS, we find all that looks more for a case like JavaScript library other than a framework. The services of top react native mobile app development company in USA and Other additional advantages include user interfaces designed to React Native which are more responsive and decrease load time and also provide a smoother feel.

Third-party plugin support

The React Native framework is still advancing, so it might lack some components in the core framework. To fill this gap, the list of react native mobile app development company in USA helps provides two types of third-party plugins: native modules and JavaScript modules. Amongst the most prominent third-party plugins that come alongside react-native is React Native select, React Native Vector Icons, React Native Router Flux, Gifted Spinner, React Native Modalbox and React Native Drawer.

Modular architecture

Modular Programming is a software design technique that helps separate the functionality of any program into several independent and interchangeable blocks called modules. A react native mobile app developers provide intuitive modular architecture helps any developer greatly by providing the ability to upgrade and update applications quickly. It also makes it possible to work around with modules that work both with web and mobile APIs.

Live and hot reloading

Live reloading and hot reloading are not the same features to react native mobile app development and its important to pay particulars to the difference between the two options.

Hot reloading is mostly based on Hot Module Replacement (HMR) and was introduced to post the first reloading option. It also features the same sequence of actions apart from when you press Ctrl+S to save changes, and the HMR intermediator helps assist in inserting the updated files to the required place while the application is running.

Declarative coding style

Declarative programming helps describe what the program must do instead of how to do it, which is quite the opposite of imperative programming. The influence on the declarative style simplifies coding paradigms and the coding process which helps to result in code that is easier to read from both the system and also the react-native mobile app developers. The developer also looks at the code and tries to understand it from the perspective of a brilliant UI.

Plenty of ready-made solutions and libraries

The react native framework also has an impressive list of ready-made solutions and libraries that prove great when it comes to facilitating react native mobile app development. Some of the best examples of testing libraries help software engineers write efficient bug-free and flawless code and some of the most used and famous ones that prove to be versatile testing tools are Jest, Enzyme, Chai, and Mocha.

When not to use React Native:

While react native is definitely a breakthrough in mobile application development, it has plenty of drawbacks as well. Established platforms like Airbnb and Udacity shared their experiences while using React Native and concluded the verdict that this platform isn’t 100% efficient when it comes to building an absolutely any of kind of mobile application.

Let us check a few setbacks:

Immaturity

React Native is newer, faster but at the same time very less mature than iOS or Android. Airbnb, for example, found it totally impossible to use react native version 0.43 compared to the React 16 alpha version they used in 2017. Also in many cases react native mobile app developers cannot limit themselves to writing code only within react native and they might need to use an additional native code for writing components that aren’t compatible with react native.

JavaScript tooling

Javascript is an extremely flexible and powerful programming language but it a weakly typed language. Plenty of react native mobile app developers might face a lack of the type of safety, which could make it difficult to scale. As a result of which engineers have to adopt other integration techniques like TypeScript and Flow to the existing infrastructure.

Complex user interfaces

React Native isn’t a good choice for developing an app that requires many interactions, animations, screen transitions, or complex gestures, developers might face plenty of difficulties as the Android and iOS touch subsystems are too difficult when it comes using a unified API.

Initialization time

Even on other high-end devices, react might still take several seconds to initialize the runtime before React Native can render for the first time. This is one crucial reason why Javascript thread also requires time to initialize and it is a huge problem that many of the react native app mobile app developers are facing.

Open-source libraries

When it comes to knowing other several platforms well, it can be rather daunting enough a task for any react native mobile app developers and requires plenty of time and effort. React native libraries that have native bridges within themselves for videos and maps require a good understanding of all the three platforms to run successfully.

If mobile engineers know only one or two platforms, it may lead to a lack of knowledge required to solve some inconsistencies on Android and iOS.

Conclusion

So to sum up the pros and cons of using React Native app development framework for mobile application development, one could say that it benefits more than 80% of the businesses by saving them a great deal of time and money. React native is the perfect solution for most of the use cases unless you have any platform-specific issues.