Comparing React Native to other Trending Cross-Platform App Development Technologies!

Comparing React Native to other Trending Cross-Platform App Development Technologies!
react native app development
A survey conducted by Statista reveals; “Cross-platform technologies are used by approximately one-third of the mobile app developers as of 2020. Out of the contemporary cross-platform frameworks, 42% of software developers used React Native, 39% used Flutter, 18% used Cordova, 18% used Ionic and 14% used Xamarin”.
The aforesaid data indicates the popularity of React Native framework amongst the trending cross-platform frameworks. Yet, an app creator finds it difficult to select a framework for the next app development project; due to the availability of multiple options. So, despite React Native’s high adoption rate, businesses are curious to know about where this framework stands in comparison to its competitors – Flutter, Cordova, Ionic, and Xamarin. And, to be honest, it is a smart move to analyze all the available options and weigh the pros and cons of the most popular framework before narrowing down on a single option for app development.
This article compares React Native to the other cross-platform frameworks to provide clear visibility to entrepreneurs planning to invest in cross-platform app development. But, before proceeding further; take a quick look at the language and technology stacks used by each of the contemporary cross-platform frameworks.

React native and its Competitors: Programming Languages and Technology stacks used

React Native uses JavaScript, a most popular, dynamic, and high-level programming language. React Native blends the goodies of JavaScript and the web framework ReactJS. It also permits the writing of modules in Swift, Objective-C, or Java languages.
Flutter uses the Dart language. Dart can be compiled into the native code for enhancing the app’s performance. During build creation, Dart gets compiled into the code for ARM and x86 processors (Ahead of Time) and can also be translated into JavaScript as well as support dynamic compilation through the runtime (Just in Time).
Cordova enables one to use web technologies like CSS3, HTML5, and JavaScript for cross-platform app development, avoiding the usage of the native development language for each mobile platform. The applications are executed within wrappers meant for each platform and depend on the standard API bindings for accessing the data, sensors, and network status of each device.
Ionic makes use of web technologies such as JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5 for writing and running applications. The Cordova wrapper is needed for accessing the native platform controllers. Ionic’s core is written in Sass and the chief programming language is TypeScript. The usage of Typescript enables Ionic developers to detect as well as eliminate errors while code typing, and as such enhances the code quality. However, the usage of TypeScript is optional as the entire app can be written in plain JavaScript.
Xamarin uses the .NET framework and C#, a statically typed language; for all mobile platforms. A developer using C# with Xamarin can achieve the same outcome as delivered by Swift, Objective-C, or Java.

React Native Compared to the Contemporary Cross-Platform App Development Frameworks

react native app development company
React Native vs Flutter
  • JavaScript is an easy-going and common programming language than the lesser-known Dart. Besides, Flutter development involves a steep learning curve. So, it’s easier for a React Native app development Company to find the necessary expertise and train professionals. Also, Flutter possesses richer and more organized documentation than React Native.
  • React Native is easy to install and configure. Yarn and NodeJS would be required as Package managers when React-Native CLI is installed globally through the command line. Contrarily, Flutter installation needs additional effort – downloading the binary for the mobile platform, then adding path variable through the command line – that is complex as well as time-consuming.
  • Owing to the JavaScript bridge, React Native can render native components for every platform and hence replicates the look and feel of native iOS and Android apps. Flutter uses built-in widgets to create native-like UI and fares better in case of complex UI creation. Additionally, Flutter apps display more consistency across various platforms.
  • React Native utilizes a JavaScript bridge to interact with the native modules. The bridge tends to lag the UI because the bridge lowers rendering speed. Flutter, on the other hand, doesn’t need a bridge for this task, owing to its multiple in-built components along with frameworks like Skia engine, Cupertino, and Material Design. Hence, Flutter applications are more stable.
  • React Native enjoys a stronger community backing which is an important advantage for an open-source framework. On the other hand community support for Flutter is smaller in comparison to React Native. Find more details about differences in this blog.
React Native vs Cordova
  • React Native apps excel in performance while Cordova apps, being WebViews, are slower and lesser responsive.
  • React Native offers a speedier interaction with core components and better native UX as it renders HTML as native UI in comparison to Cordova.
  • Cordova offers more code reusability across various platforms.
  • React Native provides a finer native user experience in comparison to Cordova
  • Debugging is easier and simpler with React Native.
React Native vs Ionic
  • While React Native follows the principle of “Learn once and write anywhere”; Ionic’s theory is “Write once and run anywhere”.
  • The Ionic developers encounter an easier learning curve due to web technologies as compared to the React Native developers.
  • React Native apps are much faster than Ionic apps and also possess elegant interfaces like native applications.
  • React Native requires an emulator or real mobile device for code testing whereas the Ionic code can be tested using any browser.
React Native vs Xamarin
  • Both are open-source platforms but Xamarin is free only for small firms and individuals.
  • React Native offers some built-in components like buttons and text inputs that are partially adaptive. These components have to be rebuilt in case of advanced features. But, Xamarin. Forms provide a complete cross-platform toolkit having native UI components for Android and iOS that are compiled into platform-specified UI components.
  • React Native boasts of better community support while Xamarin enjoys greater code reusability.

Bottom line

I hope the comparison of React Native and its contemporaries was enlightening and will assist the businesses planning to develop cross-platform apps to decide on the best cross-platform framework that suits their needs.
For technical assistance with any of these aforesaid frameworks; contact Biz4Solutions; a prominent and highly experienced mobile app development company.

Angular 10- Top Features and Modifications that You Must Know!

Angular 10- Top Features and Modifications that You Must Know!
Angular 10 updates
Angular, the TypeScript-based, JavaScript-compiled, Google-developed framework, has been prevalent in the software industry since 2009. Over time, this framework has proved highly efficient for developing intuitive and dynamic applications as required by diverse industrial sectors. Consequently, most businesses these days prefer Angular for app development. As such, increasing demand for Angularjs app development services has been observed globally. And this is obvious because, since the inception of Angular, it has come a long way releasing several advanced versions successfully in quick progression. AngularJS is known to be its first version and later, Angular 2, Angular 4, Angular 5, Angular 6, Angular 8, and Angular 9 were released. Recently, on 24 June 2020, its latest version- Angular 10 was released in the market. So let us explore this update in detail.

Angular 10 and its Value Offerings

Angular 10 update looks quite smaller than its previous versions but is an effective attempt of the Angular team to keep this framework relevant and up-to-date. This time, they have emphasized more on improving quality, ecosystem, and tools rather than new features. Every Angular App Development Company must be well versed with the top updates of this version. The noteworthy updates are as follows:
Angular 10 features
CommonJS import Warnings
CommonJS was originally meant for designing the server-side modules and not for reducing the production package size. When the AngularJS app developers make use of dependencies bundled with CommonJS, it results in larger code bundles and ultimately slow performing applications. But after this update, the developers will automatically be notified in case a CommonJS module pulls into your build.
New Date Range Picker
The new date range picker is another update in the Angular UI Material component library. The components mat date input range and mat date picker range can be used for using this range picker.
Optional Stricter Settings
Angular 10 comes with a stricter project set-up for the creation of a new workspace using “ng new”. Activating the flag- “ng new-strict” can initialize the new project just with a few settings. These settings enhance maintainability, enable the CLI to optimize the app functions in an advanced manner, and also help to identify the bugs well ahead of time. Also, the “strict” flag reduces default bundle budgets by up to 75%, changes template type checking to Strict, it selects strict mode in TypeScript, allows advanced tree-shaking to configure the app as free of side-effects, preventing declarations of type any by configuring linting rules.
Updates in JS Ecosystem
The Angular team has made a few modifications for keeping the framework synchronized and up-to-date with the JavaScript Ecosystem. For instance, TypeScript is updated to TypeScript 3.9, the static analysis tool for TypeScript- TSLint has been updated to v6, and the runtime library for TypeScript- TSLib has been updated to v2.0. They have also upgraded the project layout. There is an additional tsconfig.base.json file as well which provides enhanced support to the way build tooling and IDEs resolve type and package configurations. Due to these updates, every AngularJS app development company can leverage these functionalities to the fullest for architecting responsive, user-friendly, and customizable apps and other software projects.
Bugs Resolutions
The Angular team has focused more on problem-solving during this update. They have worked with the community and made bigger contributions this time as about 700 issues were completely resolved considering the overall framework components and tools. The issues of ranges in the parser, Terser Inlining Bug, errors created due to migration when the symbol does not exist, etc. were fixed. Additionally, 2,000 more issues were touched.
Advanced browser Configurations
Browser configurations of Angular have been updated so that the new projects can exclude less used as well as older browsers like Internet Explorer 9, 10, Internet Explorer Web, etc. The Angular app developers can add the browsers that need to be supported in the .browserslistrc file, for enabling ES5 builds and differential loading for browsers.
Some Deprecations
In Angular 10, several unimportant sections have been removed. For example, the Angular Package Format doesn’t include FESM5 or ESM5 bundles anymore. This saves about 119MB of install- and download- time, while running yarn or npm install for the libraries and packages in Angular. Since any down-levelling for supporting the ES5 is performed at the end of the build process, these formats aren’t needed any longer.
Also, WrappedValue is deprecated. Probably, it will be removed in v12. WrappedValue was useful for triggering change detection even if the same object instance was emitted or produced. When WrappedValue is utilized, there is a performance cost and this functionality is useful in relatively rare cases. As a result, the Angular team may have decided to drop it.
Additional Features and Updates
  • The team has added a program-based entry-point finder- EntryPointFinder in Angular version 10.  This is supposedly faster than DirectoryWalkerEntryPointFinder.
  • A compiler interface has been introduced during this update that covers the actual ngtsc compiler. With the use of the project interface, the language service-specific compiler can manage several Typecheck files while also building Scriptinfos as needed.
  • In Angular 10, the team has removed Autocompletion from HTML entities like &amp, due to certain performance issues and problematic value.
  • It is now possible to configure Async locking timeouts which adds support for the ngcc.config.js file. This sets the retryDelay and retryAttempts options for the AsyncLocker.
  • The team has also made type-checking performance enhancements to the compiler-CLI.
  • Angular version 10 supports the merging of several translation files. Before this version, only a single translation file was permitted per locale. Now it is possible to specify multiple files per locale for the users and with the help of messaging ID, the transactions from every file will be merged.
  • For performance improvement, the Angular team has made computation of basePaths lazy, so, the work will be performed in TargetedEntryPointFinder only if required. Before this version, the basePaths got computed as and when the finder got instantiated even though the entry-point was already processed. This was a waste of effort which has now been handled.
  • Urlmatcher’s type now indicates clearly that it can always return null.
  • Improved performance due to a decrease in the size of the entrypoint manifest and implementing a caching technique in the manifest.

Final Verdict:

With incredible features, some removals, and some modifications, Angular has enriched itself and become all the more powerful. Owing to features like data linking, reusing of web elements, tooling, etc. along with Google’s vibrant community support, the popularity of angularjs web app development and angularjs mobile app development has exponentially risen.
With this, we come to the end of our topic. We hope this blog was knowledgeable and helpful to you!