Flutter vs React Native: What’s Better for App Development in 2024?

React Native and Flutter are fairly popular technologies for cross-platform software development of mobile applications—now, they can boast 115k and 161k stars on GitHub. Their adoption rate is continuing to grow and overtake the competition. In this article, we’ll take a deeper dive into the Flutter vs React Native comparison and ask experts which is better for the mobile app development industry in 2024 and why.

In contrast to a native mobile development approach, the Flutter vs React Native couple allows the creation of a single code base that works for both iOS and Android devices. As there is less coding required, cross platform mobile applications can be released quicker and on a smaller budget. Thus, these two mobile development toolkits have become extremely popular.

Let’s contrast the advantages and disadvantages of Flutter vs React Native using eight criteria:

• Performance
• Design and graphics capabilities
• Time to market
• Reliability and further support
• Compatibility, app features, and CI/CD
• Popularity, market shares, and app examples
• Market trends and further technologies evolution
• Experts’ opinions on each framework

Before we help you to make an informed decision about which one is better—Flutter or React Native—let’s summarize some basic information about the technologies to be on the same page. React Native was designed as a mobile application framework and Flutter as a UI software development kit (SDK) for mobile apps. Since then, the technologies have evolved and expanded their device coverage. Now, both Flutter and React Native are tools that help build mobile apps (Android, iOS), web, desktop (Linux, Windows, MacOS), and embedded applications (Android TV, tvOS, OS for cars, and others). However, can Flutter replace React Native? Let’s find it out.

Introduction to Mobile App Development Frameworks

Before we compare Flutter and React Native, let’s dive deeper into the topic of mobile app development frameworks.

Frameworks for developing mobile applications are comprehensive software environments that provide developers with the necessary resources, libraries, tools, utilities, widgets, etc., which together simplify and speed up the development process, reducing the risk of errors in the program code. In the context of our article, we consider two popular cross-platform frameworks—that is, those that allow you to create mobile applications for several mobile operating systems at once, with the help of just one team of developers.

Cross-platform App Development

Now, it’s time to talk about what cross-platform development is. In a nutshell, this is an approach to creating mobile applications that involves writing a single code base that would work equally effectively on several operating systems—usually iOS and Android. In turn, cross-platform development frameworks provide software engineers with all the necessary tools and libraries for this, thereby eliminating the need to write code bases for each OS from scratch, thus reducing their time and your expenses as well.

At the same time, cross-platform software is characterized not only by a single code base (that is, program code written in a single language)—in addition to this, it has three more distinctive characteristics.

The first is that cross-platform frameworks abstract away operating system-specific differences. This allows software engineers to create platform-independent code, which the framework then automatically converts to native one—for example, at compile or runtime.

Another distinctive feature of cross-platform software is native-like performance. This happens thanks to tools built into cross-platform frameworks that optimize the code execution process and allow developers to use native functions and APIs.

And, finally, the third characteristic is user interface components. In cross-platform frameworks, these are usually customizable (so that software engineers can independently adapt them to visual styles and user interface recommendations that are individual for each OS).

Based on all of the above aspects, we decided to choose React Native and Flutter for our review—they both are cross-platform frameworks with huge communities of developers around the world, high-quality documentation, and hundreds of outstanding applications in which they have been used. And, of course, we shouldn’t forget the tech giants who created them: Facebook and Google, respectively. However, there are three more parameters in which it’s difficult for both of them to compete:

• App performance. Both frameworks have many built-in features that allow development teams to bring the performance of software created with their help closer to native. For example, in React Native, this is achieved by rendering components using native UI elements. As for Flutter, the framework uses its own rendering engine to create a consistent user experience regardless of OS. 
• Development speed. Both frameworks have features that allow developers to instantly see changes during the coding process, without having to run the project again. This has an extremely positive impact on work productivity.
• Access to built-in functions. Both frameworks provide software engineers with tools to easily access native functions and APIs. This way, they can incorporate device-specific features into the applications.

All these features have become fundamental to making React Native and Flutter the top choice for cross-platform development. However, which of these two options is best for your project? Let’s try to find out..

1. Performance: Which Is More Powerful and Efficient?

Our colleagues from Debian shared a comprehensive benchmark study of JS and Dart, and this is what came out of it:

At the same time, it’s worth noting that comparing React Native and Flutter solely based on the programming language used is not sufficiently informative. The fact is that fast JS within the React Native framework can be used irrationally, and under such conditions, all its advantages in the form of high performance will be neutralized. Similar theses can be applied to Flutter and the Dart programming languages. That’s why, in addition to the speed of the languages themselves, it’s also worth considering the typical features of the frameworks themselves, which ultimately are no less significant for the performance of projects created with their help.

So let’s get started. The rendering implemented in Flutter is based on the C++ programming language, which is compiled from Dart code. Due to this, Flutter-based projects are able to achieve faster graphics and animation updates compared to what happens in React Native (which, however, does not detract from the excellent rendering characteristics of this popular framework). Likewise, Flutter outperforms React Native in terms of CPU usage.

If we talk about what React Native has succeeded in (in comparison with Flutter), it’s worth mentioning, first of all, its approach to the use of memory resources. The innovative architecture of React Native, which includes the Turbo Native module and Fabric Native components (all of this is available for the latest versions of this framework), also has a positive effect on performance.

Ultimately, when comparing these two software solutions for cross-platform development in the context of productivity, it would be unfair to either to single out a clear winner. Therefore, let’s simply say that Flutter is better suited for creating projects with rich graphics (for example, games).

2. Design and Graphics Capabilities of React Native vs. Flutter Apps

Both frameworks from our Flutter vs React Native comparison have excellent graphical features, although they utilize completely different approaches to draw user interfaces. The pixel-perfect graphics and comprehensive animations could be achieved with each of these technologies.

React Native inherits native visual elements and appearances: buttons, navigation, menus, etc. These elements look native to the user and provide a seamless personalized experience. In the case of operating system updates, the app elements will be updated respectively and maintain the feel of nativeness and similarity to other native applications. Although, you should keep in mind that the app will always look slightly different on iOS and Android devices, as well as in different firmware versions.

With Flutter, the app will look the same despite the OS version or device model. Navigation and elements will remain unchanged unless intentionally upgraded by the software engineer. When developed in a rush or inattentively, Android users could catch strange-looking iOS-styled menus or Apple users could struggle with Android-style elements. The overall look and feel of the app is more reminiscent of hybrid frameworks (Xamarin, Ionik, Cordova) rather than native. With additional effort, you can achieve a personalized native feel and look for multiple platforms, which are available off-the-shelf with React Native. However, it’s much easier to implement a common neutral style for all devices and save on project scope.

3. Time to Market

Time to market is probably the most important factor in mobile app development. Thanks to cross-platform origin both frameworks from our Flutter vs React Native comparison enable code reuse instead of writing separate independent iOS and Android apps, which usually requires hiring more engineers with different skills and increasing the project’s scope. They allow engineers to reuse up to 80% of code for iOS and Android devices, as well as for web and desktop. Moreover, each framework covers all layers of application engineering: UX/UI, business logic, and app integrations. To find out which is the best of the best in terms of time to market, let’s compare the following:

• Engineer communities that support and help tackle non-trivial development issues
• Which is more liked and loved by developers and consequently leads to better development productivity
• Which one—React Native or Flutter—is easier to find developers
• Which developers cost less on average.

We believe addressing these four determinants is the key to improving time to market with not only app development but software engineering as a whole.

Engineering Communities

React Native is older and consequently, community support React Native abilities are wider—now, this framework has a huge amount of ready-to-use packages and libraries so far. On the other hand, some of those haven’t been supported or updated for, and thus couldn’t be used as-is. Moreover, it becomes challenging to pick one out of many similar solutions that will match a particular scenario best.

Flutter was released in 2017, two years later than React Native, but was comprehensively supported by Google engineers from the very beginning. Flutter has much better documentation and a limited amount of regularly updated pre-set widgets. Out-of-the-box Flutter has more features than just work, while React Native requires researching and connecting third-party libraries.

Most Loved and Wanted by Developers

The most productive people want their tools and workflows to be better and quicker in any industry. According to Stackoverflow’s survey of 90,000 developers, Flutter with 9.12% is in 9th place among the most loved non-web frameworks. React Native is in the 12th, with a slightly lower 8.43% of preferences. As the difference is insignificant, we assume developers like both.

Even though React Native is a little bit ahead, we predict more developers will upskill both tools in the coming years.

Engineering Сost and Demand

Demand creates a supply and vice versa. To assess this, let’s take a look at market statistics provided by major job websites.

It’s much easier to find and hire a React Native developer. This framework is based on JavaScript, which most software engineers are familiar with. Moreover, developers can easily upskill in web development, especially if they’ve worked with React previously.

It’s not easy to find Flutter developers in your location, even though on average they cost less than React Native developers. Flutter’s programming language is Dart, which is different from traditional web development technology despite its similarity to Java and C#. It’s also more popular among the junior generation of developers than savvy ones.

Scaling the Flutter engineering team is challenging, whereas React Native developers are easier to train or hire. This has a critical impact on time to market for a mobile application.

Learning Curve and Development Time

Now, a few words about the learning curve. In fact, it can vary depending on factors such as the previous experience of a particular developer, knowledge of the relevant languages (Dart or JavaScript), as well as the complexity of the software itself.

For example, JavaScript is considered quite simple. Also, note that React Native provides a bridge between JavaScript and native components, so, in addition to working with this framework, developers should learn how to interact with native code and APIs specific to a particular mobile OS.

As for Dart, this language is considered simple to learn for those who have previously practiced programming in Java or JavaScript. In turn, programming in Flutter is based on the use of widgets, so an additional requirement for the developer will be an understanding of the widget system and the principles of their use when creating user interfaces. 

Flutter has unique characteristics such as a single codebase and the presence of widgets that follow Google’s Material Design and Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines. React Native is a rich ecosystem of third-party libraries, tools and resources that offer ready-made solutions for standard tasks and functions, as well as access to native modules and APIs. Both frameworks can speed up time to market significantly. That’s why it ultimately comes down to the preferences and experience of specific software engineers.

4. Reliability and Further Support

Both frameworks from the React Native vs Flutter couple are open-source and distributed in accordance with permission-free licenses even though they were created by the world’s leading technology companies: React Native was developed by Facebook and Flutter by Google. These two IT giants created some of their own apps using these SDKs—for example, the Facebook app, Instagram, Google Ads, and Google Pay. So, they are clearly concerned with reliability, support, and further development of frameworks.

Flutter is more simple and resistant to the changes made by operating system updates. React Native is dependent on native elements of the device that require additional adaptation efforts separately for iOS and Android applications in case of system updates. This is not a drawback to React Native, simply a compromise that must be made in exchange for the native experience the app provides.With native mobile development, you should foresee exactly the same issues to prevent minor unwanted bugs in UIs. Luckily, significant OS updates are do not happen very often.

5. Compatibility, App Features, and CI/CD

Flutter supports a variety of resolutions on different devices with Android 4.1+ or iOS 8+. React Native supports Android 4.1+ and iOS 10+. In some cases, you might need additional native app development for both Flutter and React Native in sophisticated features. Writing native parts can address some challenges but decrease the maintenance benefits of using the cross-platform solution since it demands different resources to make minor changes to. Moreover, it takes more time and effort in comparison to native Android or iOS development. Widgets in Flutter and ready-made libraries in React Native often contain native code injections, too. This enriches cross platform apps with near-native performance for complex features and seamless communication with devices’ hardware.

Video Chats and Streaming

With Flutter, an external plugin can be used for custom video chats but requires research to pick the best-fitting one. Also, there are a few ready-made paid solutions. With React Native this could be implemented natively (however, this is only an option since there are many libraries that perform the same tasks no less efficiently).

Analytics

Both technologies in the React Native vs Flutter pair support popular third-party analytics solutions like Google Analytics, Firebase, AppsFlyer, and Adjust. Flutter didn’t have issues with performance using analytics tools. In rare cases React Native app’s performance can be affected if there are a lot of analytic events to report.

Continuous Integration and Delivery

With Flutter you can deploy your application by using the command-line interface, however, Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) for iOS’s App Store is complicated and requires additional effort. React Native doesn’t have an integrated tool or official documentation on this, but, like Flutter, it also supports many popular third-party CI/CD services like Fastlane, GitLab CI/CD, GitHub Actions, and Appcircle.

Advanced Security Features

Both technologies from the React Native vs Flutter comparison are able to provide a high level of security for mobile apps to comply with regulatory requirements like HIPAA. Minimum suggested measures we recommend are the following:

• The less data stored on the client, side the better
• The fewer 3rd party libraries used, the better
• Authentication tokens should be expired—once the user leaves the app or locks the screen, additional login verification should be requested
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA)—confirming a user’s claimed identity by using two or more steps out of something they know, something they have, or something they are
• Data stored on the users device should be encrypted

6. Popularity, Market Shares, and App Examples

According to Stackoverflow insights, React Native is in 13th place with 8.43% of preferences among the most commonly used non-web frameworks, libraries, and tools. Flutter in turn has 9.12% votes and obtains 9th position. Together they make the two most popular cross-platform technologies.

According to the TIOBE index, JavaScript (React Native) maintained 6th place among the most popular programming languages last year. This isn’t surprising considering the number of frameworks and solutions where it is used. Dart’s popularity is only in 32nd place. The peak of its popularity matches with the date of Flutter’s first release.

At the same time, according to the independent resource AppBrainer, statistics on the use of Flutter and React Native libraries for the development of Android software demonstrate the latter’s leadership.

From an adoption point of view, React Native is currently the leader. Flutter has shown astounding growth in the short time that it has been on the scene, but, while Flutter is growing in popularity, it does still face an uphill battle to overtake React Native.

The top 5 categories ofapps built with Flutter include shopping, dating, finance, house and Home, and social. Here are examples of the most popular Flutter apps in the Google Play Market:

• eBay
• Philips
• Alibaba
• BMW
• Google Ads

In 2019, Google Pay completed a migration of the platform and all services to Flutter.

The top 5 categories of apps made with React Native include food and drink, house and Home, shopping, events, and parenting. Here are examples of the most popular React Native apps in the Google Play market:

• Instagram
• Skype
• Shopify
• Tesla
• Salesforce

You can find the full list of applications in the official React Native showcase

7. Market Trends and Further Evolution

Since March 2020, the volume of users searching for Flutter in Google exceeded those of React Native. This trend is an early sign of the potential for future growth and market distribution.

This is the same trend we’ve noticed on Stackoverflow: Flutter overtook React Native at the end of 2019. Thus, the software developer community had more questions about it, shared solutions, and shared knowledge and backgrounds with their colleagues.

In today’s modern tech world, everything is changing rapidly. The earlier you appear on the market, the bigger piece of the pie you can obtain. React Native launched two years earlier than Flutter and that’s the main reason React Native dominates in cross-platform development. However, Flutter is on the right track, as its adoption rate is growing quicker.

In May 2023, the Google team released Flutter 3. The newest version could be used to ship native apps additionally to have:

• Better support of desktop OSes like Windows, macOS, and Linux
• Dart 2.17 support
• Better performance
• Improved null safety
• Updated Gradle and Android Gradle
• Google Mobile Ads package
• Updated lint packages
• Material Design 3 support
• User messaging platform (UMP) SDK support
• Impeller introduction
• Firebase integration
• No more support of iOS/iOS 9/iOS 10 devices
• Support of ImageDecoder API for web browsers
• Support of folding devices

8. Experts’ Opinions on React Native and Flutter

There are many tools and features that are equally good in React Native and Flutter: Code Reusability and Hot Reload with its ability to make changes on the fly. Also, there are features that are equally bad, like stage management for instance. When it comes to performance, Flutter works without the use of additional APIs unlike React Native, and in fact, the framework does all of the work to connect the divide between the device and the codebase. When it comes to native appearance, React Native is more dynamic with a powerful and flexible API.

Nick, Tech Lead of Mobile Development department at NIX (former Senior React Native Developer)

Development between the two frameworks is an area where they vary widely. Flutter offers a built-in navigator that helps to simplify the process for newer developers. By contrast, React Native is created for skilled developers and requires a certain level of expertise. Generally speaking, experienced developers praise the efficiency of development with React Native based on a lot of ready-to-use components available. React Native offers JS code that is compiled into the native code, invoking objective-C and the Java API. This helps display native UI components in iOS and Android. Flutter’s C++ rendering engine provides direct access to the interfaces that leads to smooth and quick apps.

Anna, Solutions Architect of Mobile development at NIX

9. React Native vs Flutter: Which Is Better?

So, which one should you choose—Flutter or React Native? Let’s try to answer this question honestly, from the point of view of the value of each of these frameworks for business (or rather, for the owners of a particular project).

In the React Native vs Flutter comparison, the latter is better in terms of performance, compatibility and app features, engineering cost, and further market trends. However, React Native is distinctively better when it comes to finding software developers. The availability of skilled engineers directly influences the time to market. For many companies, this is essential when choosing the most suitable technology for an app.

Buyers Guide

So, is Flutter better than React Native? There’s no definite answer since, in practice, much depends not only on the correct choice of technological stack but also on the skill of a particular team of developers.

Generally speaking, React Native is a good choice for projects with simple functionality and many similar entities, such as events, social media, e-commerce, and customer loyalty apps. If you’re an established business with a decent amount of customers and the mobile app is not a primary product, choose React Native, as it helps market native-looking apps significantly quicker.

At the same time, Flutter is great in unusual new projects that involve decent calculations and complex animations, and when the functional side is more important than perfect design. It’s a good choice for early-stage tech startups to build an attractive proof-of-concept with minimum vital functions on a small budget, find a product-market fit, and then scale.

We predict a bright future for both technologies from the React vs Flutter competition and the cross-platform approach as a whole.

Flutter vs React Native: Final Words

Compromises in choosing the mobile development technology—Flutter or React Native—usually lead to picking the wrong one. This results in an unscalable application that prevents further company growth at the end of the day. Trust our experience—we’ve re-written from scratch over 100 apps for our clients. Also, check out our AirBnB experience with cross-platform development and further migration to native.

If you haven’t decided yet which is better for your project in the competition of Flutter vs React Native, chances are the answer is beyond the given alternatives. Drop us a line and we’ll assist you with choosing the most suitable mobile app technology specifically tailored to your project, as we’ve already helped many Fortune 500/1000 companies worldwide address the same challenge.