Cross-Platform App Development: React Native vs Flutter

Comparing Underlying Platforms

Before diving into their web capabilities, let’s compare the underlying platforms. We’ll consider factors such as beginner friendliness, community, plugin support, developer productivity, app performance, web support, and testing and deployment.

Beginner Friendliness

React Native requires a multi-step process to set up, including:

• Installing Node.js
• Installing Git
• Installing Watchman
• Installing Expo CLI
• Generating a new project

Flutter’s setup is more straightforward, involving:

• Downloading the SDK
• Installing prerequisite tools
• Adding the SDK to your system path

Community

Flutter has a strong community, with:

• 125k stars on GitHub
• Around 100k questions on Stack Overflow

React Native has a similar number of questions on Stack Overflow, but fewer stars on GitHub.

Plugin Support

Flutter has a decent plugin system, but React Native wins in this category, allowing us to use almost any npm module.

Developer Productivity

React Native is a more viable option for web developers, as it uses JavaScript and a subset of CSS for styling apps.

import React from 'eact';
import { View, Text } from 'eact-native';

const App = () => {
  return (
    
      Hello, World!
    
  );
};

Flutter’s documentation is more organized and detailed, but can be overwhelming for beginners.

App Performance

Flutter is the clear winner when it comes to app performance, as it compiles directly into native code.

Web Support

Both platforms have web support, with React Native’s being more mature. Flutter web uses the CanvasKit renderer, which offers great performance but has a poor startup time.

Testing and Deployment

React Native relies on community-built testing and deployment tools, while Flutter has built-in testing support and can be used with various deployment tools.

Flutter Web Overview

Flutter web allows us to compile Dart code into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code. It uses two renderers: the HTML renderer and the CanvasKit renderer.

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

void main() {
  runApp(MyApp());
}

class MyApp extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return MaterialApp(
      title: 'Flutter Demo',
      home: Scaffold(
        appBar: AppBar(
          title: Text('Flutter Demo'),
        ),
        body: Center(
          child: Text('Hello, World!'),
        ),
      ),
    );
  }
}

The main advantage of the HTML renderer is its compact size, while CanvasKit offers great performance but has a poor startup time.

React Native for Web Overview

React Native for Web makes it possible to use React Native components and APIs on the web. It allows for code-sharing between multiple platforms and supports server-side rendering.

import React from 'eact';
import { View, Text } from 'eact-native-web';

const App = () => {
  return (
    
      Hello, World!
    
  );
};

Pros and Cons of Each Platform

Flutter

Pros:

• Performance
• Inbuilt widgets
• Detailed documentation

Cons:

• Steep learning curve

React Native

Pros:

• Beginner friendliness
• Access to the JavaScript ecosystem

Cons:

• Slower hot reloading
• Limited native UI components

Which is Better: Flutter Web or React Native for Web?

The answer depends on your project’s performance needs and your team’s experience. If you need butter-smooth UI interactions and animations, Flutter web might be the better choice. If you’re willing to explore third-party solutions and have existing JavaScript experience, React Native for Web could be the way to go.

For more information, check out the official documentation for Flutter and React Native.