React Native

We live in a tech-savvy world today. Digital technology and the Internet have risen in standards, features, and accessibility. People are now submerged in the realm of smartphones for most of their time, and the mobile applications coupled with high-speed internet makes sure that it stays that way. New applications keep flooding the app market and the hype for the upcoming apps never ends.

The credit for all these applications and innovations go to the developers who work to make the ideas manifest, however, the development platforms that they rely upon needs to be highlighted. Many platforms have come up lately that assist the developers in their ventures. The development has become convenient with these platforms. However, this wasn’t the case always.

Before the introduction of these platforms, developers had a hard time working on projects that needed them to update the features on a platform. Developing a new application consumes more time as the components need to be coded afresh. 

A similar issue was faced by Facebook when they were having a hard time constantly updating their application features to accommodate the new features that they were offering. In the year 2011, ReactJS, created by Jordan Walke was introduced for Facebook’s timeline, and then later for Instagram’s timeline as Facebook acquired Instagram. Later when the Facebook applications for Android and iOS started becoming prominent, Facebook in the year 2015 introduced React Native which would assist developers in developing mobile applications.

So what are ReactJS and React Native? Let us find out-

ReactJS-

ReactJS is a JavaScript-based library that is used to build User Interface for web applications. It was built by Facebook and is an open-source JavaScript front end library. JavaScript libraries are concerned only with state management. Therefore, besides creating components for UI, and rendering the state to the DOM, routing requirements have to be fulfilled using other libraries. 

The DOM rendering feature offered by ReactJS makes development fast and is a notable USP of the library. Moreover, the reusability of the components from the component library of React makes development convenient. The fact that it offers server-side rendering makes it possible to efficiently control the SEO to bring in more traffic. Planning to develop a project on React JS? Hire the best React JS Programmer to shape your project.  

React Native-

While ReactJS is mainly concerned with the development of web applications, Facebook observed the requirement of a library that would assist the development of mobile applications. React Native is an open-source library that helps develop mobile applications for AndroidOS, iOS, macOS, Windows, and other operating systems.

React Native works on top of ReactJS, and can detect the platform that the application is intended for. As a result, it is able to generate platform-specific code. Developing applications using React Native is convenient due to its implementation of JavaScript. The developers need to have some experience with APIs and UI components. Moreover, React Native offers ready to use- UI libraries and Hot reloading features that make the development process less time consuming and easy, even for beginners.

Hence, ReactJS is meant for the development of web applications, and React Native is meant for the development of Mobile applications. Let us now see some advantages of ReactJS and React Native-

*Advantages of ReactJS-

->DOM Rendering

ReactJS is capable of updating the browser’s DOM seamlessly according to the updates made by the programmer, wherein only the altered sub-components are updated. This makes programming and upgrading fast.

->Component Reusability

ReactJS works on the concept of component-based architecture, where components of a large User Interface are made to sustain independently. These components can later be reused, or if they need upgradation, the process becomes convenient where only the components need to be updated.

->React-Redux

Redux is a tool that assists developers in managing and storing components in a large application where there are several dynamic elements. Using redux, the component can be directly called by the application without the hassle of dealing with the child components or callbacks. Redux is compatible with several frameworks, however, the support for ReactJS is apparently more than others.

->Community of developers

React is one of the top trending libraries on GitHub with over 150000 stars. With about 1500 open-source contributors to it, there is a well-established support community for ReactJS.

*Advantages of React Native-

->Hot Reloading Feature

React Native offers the hot reloading feature, which makes the development process fast by enabling the application to reload automatically.

->UI library

There are several UI libraries available for React Native to assist mobile app developers. The components from these libraries are compatible with the applications and offer a smooth experience.

->Usage convenience

The learning curve required to become fluent with React Native isn’t hard. The framework uses JavaScript as the basis for the program, which is easy to work with for a front-end programmer and even a non-programmer who is familiar with JavaScript.

->Code generation

React Native framework has the capability to automatically identify the platform that the program is intended for. The framework then generates the codes for the relevant platform making life easier for the programmers.

Despite these advantages that ReactJS and React Native offer, there are certain disadvantages to using them. Below are the disadvantages-

*Disadvantages of ReactJS-

->Cost and Time Overhead

Often at times while working with ReactJS, it becomes inevitable to download other supporting components to make a program work. This leads to additional costs and time consumption.

->Often requires external support

ReactJS has very few native supportive libraries, therefore, the programmer has to often rely on third-party libraries that offer the functionality to build the HTML and CSS codes into JSX code. The learning curve, however, is steep.

->Hard learning curve

Compared to React Native, the learning curve to get adapted to working with ReactJS is steep, and this makes new developers spend more time learning ReactJS.

->Poor documentation

The documentation of tools and features that ReactJS provides is scarce. This is because the tools are developed and new tools are introduced at a very fast pace.

*Disadvantages of React Native-

Lack of Documentation

Similar to ReactJS, the issue of documentation persists with React Native as well. The reason for unavailability here is the comparatively young and fewer contributors and community members.

->Compatibility issues

React Native, being comparatively new, often faces compatibility issues with other libraries and platforms as well as with the previous version of React Native. It isn’t uncommon to come across frustrated comments while browsing the community forums of React Native.

->Lack of native and external libraries

React Native does offer several native libraries for iOS and Android, but they aren’t always enough especially when the application has heavy functionalities. Moreover, the number of third-party libraries and components are quite limited as well. We can’t be sure if the community developed components will be supported by the later updates of React Native.

->Delays in SDK updates

React Native often lags on offering updates on the updated Android and iOS SDKs. This leads to an asynchronous framework relative to the updated platforms.

Conclusion-

While ReactJS is a library to develop web applications, React Native is a framework built on top of ReactJS and necessarily JavaScript. Both are growing with passing years and rising in popularity. We have discussed some crucial pros of using these tools, however, there are certain cons that developers need to be aware of as well. With that said, their utility depends upon the objective of the programmer.

Author Name:- Harikrishna Kundariya

Biography:- Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, ChatBot & Blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, Director of eSparkBiz Technologies @ReactJS Development Company. His 8+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on IoT and ChatBot.

By Anurag Rathod

Anurag Rathod is an Editor of Appclonescript.com, who is passionate for app-based startup solutions and on-demand business ideas. He believes in spreading tech trends. He is an avid reader and loves thinking out of the box to promote new technologies.