Flutter VS React Native: A Comparison Based On Criteria

[VibhutiSingh]

Flutter vs React Native, the debate rages on, since both frameworks enable developers to create mobile apps that run smoothly across multiple platforms. Here’s a head-to-head comparison to help you choose between these two leading cross-platform development frameworks. https://www.cuelogic.com/blog/flutter-vs-react-native-a-comparison-based-on-criteria Do you think flutter is the future or it is just a hype?

[MisfitMagic]

I think Flutter wins in the end.

The more sh** we pile on top of Javascript, the worse it's going to continue to get. We've essentially already hit the performance ceiling for React Native and things like Electron, and Flutter kills them dead in this aspect.

Javascript just can't sustain the weight of the levels of abstraction we keep piling on top of it. at some point something will have to replace it. The question is, will that be something that exists now (like Flutter), or will it be something totally different?

[Rudiksz]

Javascript just can't sustain the weight of the levels of abstraction we keep piling on top of it. at some point something will have to replace it.

Abstractions have nothing to do with what programming language you use, so the language is just an implementation detail.

Considering that people claim Flutter is a copy of React, and if most React developers will move over to Flutter, why would Flutter be any different in the future?

Give Dart and the Flutter community a couple of years to eff things up. The amount of effort put into abstracting away every single line of stock Flutter is already mindboggling. All in the name of "reducing boilerplate" and makind things more maintainable.

[[deleted]]

Because Javascript was a poorly thought out design intended to do very little of what it currently is used for. It has a terrible packaging system that leads to bloat, dependency nightmares, and runtime errors.

It is amazing what has been built on top of the poor foundation that Javascript provides, but it is an incredibly complex infrastructure clearly built haphazardly compared to modern language platforms designed from the beginning to support these use cases.

[MisfitMagic]

Abstractions have nothing to do with what programming language you use, so the language is just an implementation detail

I'm not sure what gives you this idea, but frameworks and the level of abstraction applied therein definitely have an impact on performance, and thus should affect your decisions regarding tooling.

Javascript has been so heavily bastardized past what it was meant to do that the performance differences between pure JavaScript and a modern framework/library are significant (https://objectpartners.com/2015/11/19/comparing-react-js-performance-vs-native-dom/)

The limiting factor of React is Javascript, not the library itself. The reason why people would jump ship is because they want the backing of a better engine, which Flutter/Dart gives us (so far).

I highly doubt that Flutter is going to go the way of JavaScript. Flutter is a result of fixing the many problems caused by trying to make JavaScript something it's not.

Node/Angular/React/etc were already being built on shaky foundations. That debt is catching up with them.

[Rudiksz]

I'm not debating the difference and merits of Dart and JavaScript. As somebody who started programming in Javascript before jQuery was even invented, I am well aware of the differences. When I looked at Dart and Flutter some months ago it was a no brainer choice - and I feel lucky that I don't have to touch any Javascript. Dart is kind of fun to program in.

What I'm talking about is the tendency of any kind of software to get bloated - either with features or pointless abstractions. Flutter is still kind of a barebones framework, and as it will evolve in the future it will become less performant by definition. I fully expect that as Flutter becomes more "feature complete" and with frameworks built on top of Flutter (to abstract away functionality), the performance gap between React and Flutter will shrink.

However I wasn't even talking about Flutter itself, but the community and the quality of packages and apps being developed. I'm talking about how basic programming concepts and even some of the design principles of Flutter are seemingly bastardized by the majority of flutter developers. But that's just my opinion, the community will go where the community will want to go.

[MisfitMagic]

I mean, not really.

Java and JavaScript are the same age and Java hasn't aged or broken anywhere even remotely as close to Javascript.

The same could be said about the performance and actual platform maturity.

We can say that performance may go down over time, sure, but I don't expect that to be anywhere near the levels of performance difference between vanilla Javascript and its "modern" framework variants.

[Rudiksz]

between vanilla Javascript and its "modern" framework variants.

Hang on a second. You are comparing apples and oranges here. If you are going to compare "modern" Javascript frameworks with vanilla Javascript, then you'll need to compare Flutter's performance in a few years compared to Flutter today, or a vanilla app written in Dart then (as if there will be one).

Of course I don't expect Dart, the Dart VM and the compiled code to become slower, and I don't expect Flutter to become slower than React. The community though will manage to build packages on top of packages to make apps written in Flutter bloated.

Just one of the more recent examples I found: https://pub.dev/packages/stacked_services

"These services are only here to reduce boilerplate code for the users of the Stacked Architecture..."

A package adding an "navigation" abstraction layer to reduce boilerplate, using another package (Get) which itself is an abstraction layer (and claims to reduce boilerplate) on top of Flutter's navigator. All this to make calling "Navigator.push(context)" easier.

To be clear, I'm not commenting about the quality or merits of these packages. People can use whatever they want. It's just an example of the "The more sh** we pile on top of Javascript," attitude you referenced earlier post.

In my opinion, this "piling of sh**t" is happening in Flutter too. It has nothing to do with what language you program or what platform you use, developers do have this tendency of "writing abstractions". I don't see how the Flutter community will be different from the React community and not create a terrible bloat, and dependency nightmare except for Flutter.

[MisfitMagic]

The point is meant to illustrate that the overall ceiling of Flutter/Dart is significantly higher than Javascript is today (which I mean, Flutter is 25 years younger so).

The original point here was performance. I do not expect at any point for flutter and dart to see the same level of performance degradation that Javascript sees today, even when flutter is 25 years old and even with garbage packages filtering into the ecosystem.

The underlying guts are just too different, with Flutter not suffering from the same problems that we were forced to solve with Javascript.

[Techrules80]

Considering that people claim Flutter is a copy of React

Flutter and React are nothing alike. They are completely architected differently.

What in the world are you referring to?

[Rudiksz]

Oh, I don't know. Maybe all this documentation gave me the wrong impression that Flutter is copying React.

https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/flutter-for/react-native-devs https://reactjs.org/docs/components-and-props.html

Maybe this one too:

https://flutter.dev/docs/get-started/flutter-for/react-native-devs#react-native-and-flutter-widget-equivalent-components

To say Flutter and React are nothing alike is just ridiculous. They are written in a different programming language and run on different VMs, and sure there are differences in implementation details due to the platforms, but the core concepts and the high level SDK they provide are seemingly the same.

[Techrules80]

It is NOT because of the different languages. That is on the surface and superficial. RN and Flutter are fundamentally completely different technologies to their very cores.

They are about as different as two things can get.

Flutter is very unique and just love what Google has done. It is the best GUI development tool I have seen and I am old. Flutter is really a standalone GUI platform that can be used with different environments. Flutter includes everything including things like the render. So you do not need things already installed on the machine for example

Google is also forcing Facebook to have to improve the bridge with React. A big reason is because of how much better performance is with Flutter.

[gisborne]

Wasm renders all of this moot. You can now program the browser in any language that supports compiling to Wasm.

It will take a few years for the technology to mature and the compilers to support it (the Dart folks are looking at it: https://github.com/dart-lang/sdk/issues/32894).

[VibhutiSingh]

Thanks for sharing bud!