Flutter vs React Native vs Xamarin: Which is the best choice for 2019?

Originally published by Sophia Martin at https://towardsdatascience.com

As every one of us assonant with one point in mobile app development — “The Platform Makes The Massive Difference“. There are numerous app development frameworks available like Flutter, Xamarin, and React Native in the market for the two famous Operating Systems used in mobile technology - Android and iOS. Often, the app owner finds it a little difficult to opt for which hybrid app development for Android and iOS.

So possibly if you have landed on this page, I assume you are at six and seven between the different frameworks and platforms.

While doing the homework, I come upon the most common queries of businesses and app developer that are pocketed below:

• Which is better Flutter or React Native or Xamarin at the performance?
• What is the difference between React Native and Flutter and Xamarin?
• Is Flutter Better than Xamarin?
• Flutter Vs Xamarin Vs React Native — What to choose in 2019 for the best cross-platform app development platform?

By the end of the blog, you will be sure to select among Xamarin vs React Native vs Flutter the right app development platform for your project. So, let’s take the deep-dive into the comparison of the latest cross-platform app development to choose the best one in 2019 and ahead!

1. Xamarin Vs React Native Vs Flutter — Popularity Check (The Latest Trends By Google Analytics & Stack Overlay)

Synopsis: React Native is a popular choice as per the Google Trends in comparison to Xamarin and Flutter.

The cross-platform app development framework is popular as it allows to run the same code on varied development platforms. After every half-year, the position fluctuates and a new one pops up. But, React Native and Xamarin have been a popular choice in the race for quite a long.

# Stats 1 According to the Stack Overflow survey:

React Native is the most loved choice followed by Xamarin. Without any doubt, React Native has gained immense popularity since its inception. The drift occurred between August 2015 to September 2016 and it sailed well through the gigantic waves.

Image Source

#Stats 2 The Untold Story Of Google Analytics says:

React Native was far behind Xamarin in the most popular choices till 2017.

But with exponential growth, React native urged to come back in the competitive world with advancements and has made it to the topmost position in the list of the cross-app development framework. Moreover, with the pool of professionals and experienced cross-app developers, India is popularly known for the place to hire mobile app developers for your project.

Image Source

Although, it is clear that React Native is the most loved and downloaded platform in 2019. But, it is not about just being the best here, there are a lot of other factors that decide the best framework, especially for the app development solutions.

2. Xamarin Vs React Native Vs Flutter — A Quick Sneak From History To Introduction

Before we dive deep into the specific details of their design, library, and tools, let’s have a quick rundown of what is Xamarin, React Native and Flutter.

• Xamarin: Xamarin is a prominent choice among developers and the reason behind it is — “ Seamless Functionality”. Launched in 2011, Xamarin offers code re-usability and sharing codes with other platforms while giving access to native API’s. Simultaneously developers are delivered with platform-specific functions like native apps.

This cross-platform app development framework relies on the C# programming language that performs wonder for well-known platforms — Android, iOS, and Windows.

• React Native: It is an entrusted yet trending as the best software development solutions in India based on Javascript. It creates genuine, robust, and natively rendering mobile apps for both the famous platform — iOS and Android.

It is dependent on React, i.e Facebook’s Javascript for creating UI’s, opposing the browser and targeting the mobile platform. Earlier, it was solely developed by Facebook for iOS but lately, it’s available for the Android version also.

• Flutter: Flutter is the new entrant in the space, that allows simple yet continuous cross-platform app development. It is a free and open-source platform based on Dart — a responsive, Object Oriented language which is primarily easy to learn.

It has its own specific gadgets that are particularly drawn with its own rendering motors. They are tangible, dynamic, and alluring. Its architecture is based on nowadays popular choice “Reactive Programming”.

3. Xamarin Vs React Native Vs Flutter — Top Use Cases

The cross-platform app development is the first choice among the best mobile app development companies in India. Without any doubt, cross-platform is reinventing the app development landscape exponentially.

These platforms are used by numerous organizations from big B’s to startup in the digital space.

Now, it’s time to look at some popular mobile apps that are established on cross-platform app development approach React Native Vs Flutter Vs Xamarin:

React Native: A colossal number of apps are using React Native from hot new startups to established companies. Curious to see what an app can accomplish with React Native, check out on the below apps.

• Since its inception, it’s used for maintenance and coding Of Facebook Ads Manager and analytics, accompanied by some other Facebook products.
• Skype, a famous communication tool for video calls and chats.
• Pinterest, a social web and mobile application popularly known for discovering ideas for what you love.

Xamarin:

Xamarin 7 years of existence has grown into 1.6 million developers across 120 countries with Microsoft acquiring it to make it a part of its visual studio environment.

Being a versatile mobile app development platform, Xamarin accelerates in almost all niches developers worked on. Below are some of the top apps used in various categories.

• Transistor (Gaming Zone)

A sci-fi based action RPG that welcomes you to wield an extraordinary weapon to fight against a futuristic city.

• PictureX (Photo & Video)
• JustGiving (Health & Lifestyle)

It is a fund raising platform with motive of creating good things around 164 countries and raising $ 3.3 billion for the cause they are supporting.

• World Bank App

The world bank survey application expands its capabilities on digital devices and mobile. Basically, it consists of a mobile app, a survey tool, server software for data collection and survey management.

The biggest challenge for the World Bank team was to create on-device data storage that consists of question lists, survey data, etc. Developing the app in Xamarin and visual studio, World Bank managed to build an app to organize surveys on various mobile platforms confidentially.

Flutter:

Flutter is the top choice for the best mobile app development companies in India, Google and developers around the world too.

Here in, I have clutched apps made with Flutter:

• Google Ads

It helps you keep your Google Ads campaign running smoothly irrespective of where your business takes you.

• Google Greentea

“ Google Greentea “ is an internal customer management app widely used by Google sales to offer rich visualization for keeping a track of the sales target.

• Alibaba

Benchmarked as the world’s biggest online commerce company, used Flutter to create and curate an ever-lasting app experience for Android and iOS app with 50M+ downloads.

4. Xamarin Vs React Native Vs Flutter — Performance Analysis

Flutter ranks top among the list with 75.4% and React Native following with 62.5% among the most loved Framework.

Image Source

Something to not wear a cold-shoulder is that React Native has been in the race for a long duration and a huge number of mobile applications are developed on it from the past few years. Whereas, Flutter is just a year old and has been the talk of the digital space, its performance bespoke.

Do you have benchmarks comparing the performance of Android and iOS apps developed in Xamarin c# and Javascript?

• Xamarin : Its performance is comparable to native mobile applications, which makes it a go-to option for developing the high-performance app with native outlook and feel.

From the technical perspective, Xamarin with native libraries wrapped in DOT.NET for cross-platform app development. Adding on, Xamarin can leverage all native and the latest API’s access to utilize the lurking potential in Xamarin apps such as ARKit for iOS and Android-Multi Windows.

• Flutter : There is general notion that Flutter delivers better performance than React Native and Xamarin. But, this is not any misconception, indeed it is because Dart code is compiled with native machine code, therefore eliminating the need for Javascript bridge.
• React Native : React Native based applications usually have an issue with rendering large datasets, because they are dependent on Javascript bridge. Thus, improving the speed of an application with the help of third-party libraries can be a considerable option, but not enough to beat Flutter in the competitive race.

5. Xamarin Vs React Native Vs Flutter — Community Brace

Developing a user community as well as providing direct brace and direct communication with customers is the right ingredient to see how big the pie is. Especially I am talking about the fanatics who spend their life online.

So, to start with let’s take in account Xamarin Vs React Native.

Image Source

• Xamarin : A major part of developers support already exist. A behemoth assistance can be found through website, forums, and communities. As a surprise, according to Github the number of repository, users, and contributors are half that to React Native.
• React Native : Still a toddler in the framework industry. There is developer support but are lagging in-depth knowledge sometimes turns as the biggest challenge. As per Reddit, React Native has a large community of around 10k users.

Whereas, according To Google Trends, the most searched cross-platform mobile app development are Xamarin and React Native with a subtle difference. While React Native was mostly searched in China, Vietnam, Hong-Kong, and Israel, and Xamarin was the top-choice in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Africa, and Italy.

• Flutter: While Flutter is the newbie in the field of the best software development solutions in India but has gained a lot of attention in the Google I/O conference in 2017.

The biggest event “Flutter Live” took place in December 2018, aiming to grow rapidly and solve all the common issues with the right resources.

6. Xamarin Vs React Native Vs Flutter — The Diameter Of Framework

• Xamarin: Xamarin supports the implementation of two common architectural models — MVC (Model View Controller) and MVVM (Model View View Model).

Model View View Model is useful for developing different processes with the same code base whereas, Model View Controller can define the difference between presentation and application logic, therefore, accelerating the app development process. So, if you are an ASP.NET wizard then this is your thing.

• React Native: React Native supports the modularity of the applications that authorize mobile application development code to be differentiated in various blocks. It works on the modern and one-way data flow provided by React.

Thus, if you are on tap with the latest Javascript, undoubtedly proceed with it.

• Flutter: Flutter Apps framework size are too big. Sometimes, it leaves developers frustrated when the file size of the hello world app reaching 6.7 MB. Even after minimizing to 4.7 MB, it remain still bigger than many other.

For a clear vision, Flutter core engine takes upto 2.7 MB+ space of the framework and app code which makes app binaries a bit heavy in size.

Lately, there are numerous packages available for Flutter, including HTTP request, image processing tools, various network protocol clients, WebSocket connections, embedded databases as well as push notifications to sensors and cameras.

7. Xamarin Vs React Native Vs Flutter — Research Curve

The process of stage setting for the developers to utilize the new framework does take time. It needs lots of configuration of software installation and similarly have to be sure the technology have proper documentation to get user up and running.

• Xamarin: Xamarin is solely dependent on Visual Studio and the Xamarin SDK. However, make sure to hire software developers that are well-acknowledged with VS Code and can get up early and match the pace. However, Xamarin requires a different configuration for iOS and Android — Xamarian, iOS, and Xamarin.Android.

However, the Xamarin getting started guide for Android and iOS describes the onboarding process for new developers as it is solely dependent on Visual Studio. So, if the developer isn’t from the Microsoft backdrop, it probably means a larger learning curve to get acquainted with Visual Studio and learning Xamarin SDK.

• Flutter: The getting start guide for Flutter includes comprehensive information on IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and platform setup for both — Android and iOS. On top of all, Flutter consist of a CLI tool called Flutter doctor which help to sail well through the entire process. It looks after the installed tools on the local machine and the tools that are needed.

Once the Flutter doctor command is contented, you can move up for the next flutter app. When the setup is done, you can walk to a new flutter app through CLI easily.

• React Native: Taking a look at the latest Google trends, React Native is growing exponentially in popular trends whereas Xamarin remains stagnant. As per the trend, React Native is a bottleneck for the best mobile app development companies in India to lead as the best app development technologies.

Nevertheless, Xamarin vs Flutter vs React Native in 2019 conclude a neck to neck competition to the two most talked technologies of town. Besides this, the graph is a crystal representation of the diminishing trend.

8. Xamarin Vs React Native Vs Flutter — Tangibility

• Xamarin: Xamarin is extremely flexible for the development of an app. You can also use the new Xamarin.forms to create enterprise apps for iOS, Windows phone, and Android with 100% shared C# code.

As an option, the mobile applications developer creates bespoke UI for each platform with a 70–80% shared code.

• React Native: React Native is flexible. As it is component-based, it allows a huge amount of modularity. It’s only a view library that makes it the best mobile development solution that can be paired with any other library or framework of your choice.

Besides, it’s Javascript!

Its one of the most tangible libraries out there, but using it rightly is the biggest challenge.

• Flutter: Flutter is also flexible. As easy to install and coding on low-end machines. Along with this, there is no more need to worry that the Operating System would not be able to manage Flutter.

Quit the contrary, Flutter doesn’t need a powerful machine.

And, while we are talking about Flexibility, we should not forget “Hot Reloads”. One of its great kinds of Flutter things is a hot reload. Developers can see the changes they have made to the code at the same instant.

It just takes seconds to see the change, the team quickly add on features, fix the bugs and experiment. Thus, no more lag time to see the changes you have made.

In The End… What I have concluded after in-depth research and comprehensive reading about Xamarin vs Flutter vs React Native comparison are wrapped in below 4 mentioned points.

React Native in the current scenario has steady growth, impeccable code structure, and great community support with a good adoption base for developers.

Flutter has great potential for mobile app development.

Xamarin code written in C# can be ported to iPhone and Android app development both without any hassle.

Xamarin and React Native offers the best diameter of a framework, learning graph and marks the top place in the popular choices for mobile app development technologies.

Hopefully, after finish reading the exclusive comparison analysis, you must be clear about Xamarin Vs Flutter Vs React Native — which framework is right for you.

Thanks for reading ❤

If you liked this post, share it with all of your programming buddies!

Follow us on Facebook | Twitter

Further reading

☞ Flutter: Adding Bluetooth Functionality

☞ Let’s Develop a Mobile App in Flutter

☞ React Native Web Full App Tutorial - Build a Workout App for iOS, Android, and Web

#mobile-apps #react-native #flutter #xamarin #ios