React Native: Factors That Make It Your Ultimate Mobile App Development Choice

Mobile apps have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. We use apps for everything from hailing rides and ordering food to banking, shopping, and entertainment. The rising importance of mobile apps has led to massive growth in the mobile app development industry. Businesses are increasingly investing in mobile apps to tap into this lucrative market.

With several mobile app development frameworks to choose from, React Native has emerged as a front-runner. React Native is an open-source framework developed by Facebook for building cross-platform mobile apps using JavaScript and React. In this blog, we will discuss the key reasons to choose React Native for app development.

What is React Native?

React Native is a JavaScript framework used to develop mobile applications for iOS and Android platforms. It provides developers the flexibility to write the code once and run it across multiple platforms with minimal extra coding.

The defining feature of React Native is that it uses the same fundamentals as React, a JavaScript library for building user interfaces. However, instead of targeting the web, React Native apps target mobile platforms.

React Native lets you build mobile apps using only JavaScript without relying on platform-specific languages like Swift for iOS or Java/Kotlin for Android. This allows developers to reuse their web development skills to build excellent mobile apps.

The Popularity of React Native

Ever since Facebook open-sourced React Native in 2015, it has continued to grow in popularity and usage. As per a 2020 Stack Overflow survey, React Native ranks as the 3rd most loved and wanted framework for mobile app development.

Popular apps built with React Native include Facebook, Instagram, Discord, Skype, Tesla, Airbnb, Walmart, and Bloomberg. According to App Brain Stats 2021, over 150,000 mobile apps have been developed using React Native.

The surging popularity stems from the benefits that React Native offers for mobile app development, which we will dive into next.

Cross-Platform Development

One of the biggest selling points of React Native is the ability to build cross-platform mobile apps. Instead of building apps separately for iOS and Android, you can use React Native to develop for both platforms simultaneously.

This is achieved by running the same JavaScript codebase through platform-specific rendering APIs provided by React Native. This allows up to 90% of the code to be shared between platforms while still getting a native look and feel.

Compared to other cross-platform frameworks like Xamarin or Flutter, React Native provides a true native app experience since it uses native UI components instead of emulated ones.

The cross-platform capabilities offer immense time and cost savings compared to building apps natively for each platform.

Cost-Efficiency

React Native is designed to deliver significant cost savings in mobile app development and maintenance.

Since most of the code can be shared between iOS and Android apps, React Native drastically cuts down on total development time and resources required. For the same app being built natively for iOS and Android, React Native offers around 60% savings in time and cost.

The shared codebase also makes it easier for a small development team to build and maintain apps for two platforms simultaneously, further reducing costs. Overall, React Native results in huge cost efficiency in the long run.

Faster Development

React Native speeds up mobile app development considerably thanks to some unique features:

• Hot Reloading - This enables developers to view changes instantly without recompiling the app. Tweaks are reflected immediately as you code, saving a huge amount of time and effort.
• Reusable Components - The component-based architecture promotes reusing UI components across platforms and projects. Components can be easily imported for faster development.
• Third Party Libraries - There are tons of open source libraries and modules for React Native that add useful functionality and streamline app development.
• Intuitive Platform - The similarity with React web development allows web devs to come onboard React Native faster. Writing mobile apps feels natural thanks to the React design paradigm.

Overall, React Native equips developers to build feature-rich mobile apps far quicker than traditional native development.

Large Community and Ecosystem

As an open source project actively maintained by Facebook alongside a large community of contributors, React Native benefits from a thriving ecosystem.

React Native has an extensive community of developers who collaborate to fix bugs, provide feedback, and release helpful libraries and tools regularly. There is great support available through forums, blogs, conferences and meetup groups.

Additionally, React Native offers seamless integration with third party platforms like GitHub, CodePush, AppCenter, and Bitrise for continuous deployment and delivery.

This vast ecosystem saves considerable effort and speeds up app release. Finding solutions to common problems is easy with so much support.

Excellent Performance

Delivering optimal performance is crucial for mobile apps. Subpar performance can negatively impact adoption and retention.

React Native bridges the gap between native and hybrid apps by providing nearly identical performance to native apps. Apps are rendered natively ensuring smooth animations and responsiveness.

Computationally intensive tasks can be handed over to native code for boosted performance. React Native is capable of delivering exceptional 60fps animations on par with high-quality native apps.

Continuous improvements by Facebook and the community are helping React Native inch closer to fully native performance.

Native Look and Feel

Users expect mobile apps to have a seamless native experience in terms of UI design and UX. Apps that appear too hybrid or web-like tend to get rejected quickly.

React Native enables crafting true native apps with the right look and feel for each platform. Since UI is rendered using native code, apps look consistently native across devices and OS versions. Smooth animations and gestures make apps feel natural.

Platform-specific APIs can be leveraged to maintain consistency with native design language and patterns. This results in excellent user experience and adoption.

Easy Learning Curve

For web developers, getting started with mobile development generally involves tackling new languages and frameworks like Swift or Java. However, React Native allows leveraging existing JavaScript and React skills.

The React design pattern of components feels familiar to web devs. React Native uses the same fundamentals as React, making the ramp up easier. Developers only need to learn the platform-specific APIs and tools.

Abundant resources like documentation, tutorials, courses and guides focused on React Native are available for learning. React Native is designed to be accessible to web devs for writing mobile apps quicker.

Code Reusability

React Native promotes writing modular and reusable code by breaking down apps into logical, reusable components. These components encapsulate code related to a specific UI element and functionality which can be reused.

Components like buttons, headers, modals, forms, etc. can be easily reused across apps. Developers can also publish custom components as open source libraries for the community.

Existing knowledge of React components carries forward as the composition paradigm remains the same. React Native maximizes code reuse to reduce duplication.

Integration with Third-Party Services

Mobile apps often need integration with external services like social media, payments, maps, analytics etc. React Native simplifies network requests and background tasks needed for these integrations.

Thanks to React Native modules like Fetch, WebSocket, Geolocation, AsyncStorage etc., integration with REST APIs, cloud databases, notification services, and more become straightforward.

Popular third-party SDKs and APIs provide out-of-the-box integration for services from Stripe to Facebook without needing native code. This allows adding more functionality easily.

Easy Updates and Maintenance

React Native allows pushing app updates over the air via services like CodePush or AppCenter. Since the codebase is shared, bug fixes and improvements can be released simultaneously on both platforms.

Updating native modules and dependencies is also simple. This takes away lengthy submission and review processes associated with native app stores.

The ease of maintaining apps through rapid iterations and real-time fixes improves stability. Apps can be kept up-to-date continuously to prevent bugs and security flaws.

Case Studies

Let us look at some real-world examples of companies using React Native successfully:

Facebook - The social media pioneer introduced React Native in 2015 and now uses it extensively across iOS and Android apps like Facebook Ads Manager, Sports Stadium, and Social VR.

Bloomberg - The finance and business media giant utilized React Native to build its core Android app called Bloomberg Professional. React Native decreased development time from 6 months to just 2.

Discord - The popular messaging platform leveraged React Native to develop across iOS and Android while sharing around 90% of code. This accelerated development velocity allows quicker innovation.

These examples demonstrate React Native's capabilities to deliver great user experience and faster time-to-market.

Conclusion

React Native has clearly emerged as the ideal framework for crafting high-quality mobile apps while maximizing code reuse and minimizing cost.

The benefits highlighted like cross-platform development, excellent performance, easy integration, faster iterations, and a thriving ecosystem make React Native the best bet for most mobile app projects.

If looking to build mobile apps on budget without compromising user experience, do consider hiring dedicated React Native developers.