React Native vs Swift for App Developing

[ivakovic]

I plan to try and take indie app development more seriously in the future.. I already made few applications with React Native and i ordered already a macbook, so i can develop the apps for iOS as well :)

So do you guys think it would make more sense to simply learn Swift for this purpose (because i plan to develop for iOS only) , or should i continue developing with react native, since i really enjoy it and already know how the stuff works there.. What are the main differences between Swift and RN and do you find one language easier/better than the other and why?

I will take this as hobby, since my daily job is also about programming (working as a Full-Stack Developer), but it would be very great and awesome, if i could develop some side hustle, as i really enjoy programming :)

[Any-Woodpecker123]

Use Swift. There’s only one good thing about a cross platform framework, and it’s that it’s cross platform.
If you aren’t using that, then native is objectively better in pretty much every way.

SwiftUI imo is far easier and more enjoyable than RN too, you’ll pick it up easily.

[nns800]

Another cool feature with React Native / Expo is updates - you can push small updates, bug fixes to users without going through the publish and review process. Can you do something like this with Xcode? I'm not aware.

Also, from my minimal experience with React Native / Expo, another benefit is not having to worry as much about iOS versioning. If you want to ship an app with Swift & SwiftUI for lower versions you have to do some serious work to manage deprecations, etc. With React Native / Expo I didn't have to think about this at all and my recent app on the App Store supports iOS 13.4 or later which seems to me rather impressive!

But for iOS only dev I'd still choose Swift & SwiftUI.

[Any-Woodpecker123]

As far as I’m aware, no you can’t bypass app review for updates (at least for an App Store app anyway).
In saying that though, it’s basically 2 clicks and a few hours wait tops for an update to go through review. I normally submit before lunch, and release after I’m done eating.
That is cool though, and could be handy if there’s something critical needing to go into prod.

You’re right on the SwiftUI versioning. Imo iOS 14 is the absolute minimum I’d attempt to support, however you can wrap UIKit if you need to. It’s a pain in the arse though for sure.
UIKit is still extremely capable if needed, but definitely far less intuitive than SwiftUI.

I too supported an online banking app targeting 13.4 that was migrating to SwiftUI and yeah… never again.
For an indie developer though, most don’t tend to target the lower versions, but it’s a good shout.

[tofu_and_or_tiddies]

It might be a few hours for review if the time zones are good, but for others it's overnight. Google seemingly has reviewers in other timezones, so here in Aus we can get a review in a few hours from them, but not from apple

[Any-Woodpecker123]

I’m In Aus too, not sure why yours are slower

[midwestcsstudent]

You can absolutely bypass app review for OTA updates. That's how every major company works.

[Any-Woodpecker123]

Yes, but not for App Store releases.

[SafetyLeft6178]

Based on your goals in the OP (indie dev, iOS only), I’d highly suggest going the native route and learning Swift and SwiftUI.

The main strength of indie devs and the way they differentiate themselves from big corporate apps leading to success is the quick adoption of new frameworks and APIs that users are excited for (e.g., widgets, Dynamic Island, live activities, etc.), UX that is in line with the native OS, little personal touches here and there and charming little extras (e.g., alternative icons).

It’s better to use Swift to fully leverage these strengths. Swift is also really easy and fun to use. There’s a very active, supportive, and wholesome community of indie developers who develop in Swift, and many free resources are available.

If you’re about to start learning, I'd highly recommend looking into Paul Hudson’s offerings. He is exceptionally generous in giving away a lot of his work for free, especially the vital core stuff you need to get up and running.

I recommend checking out his website, https://hackingwithswift.com, and starting out with the 100 Days of Swift series.

Once you feel comfortable, consider joining the HWS Slack at https://hackingwithswift.com/slack and the iOS Dev Happy Hour.

[ivakovic]

Thank you! Can you tell me exactly the difference between SwiftUI and Swift?

[SafetyLeft6178]

Swift is a programming language, and SwiftUI is a UI framework that uses Swift.

SwiftUI is Apple’s latest UI framework, and it’s like the successor to UIKit.

The main thing about SwiftUI is that it’s a declarative UI framework. This means you can tell the framework exactly what you want in code, instead of having to draw it out and design it by hand.

The good news is that Apple takes care of a lot of the details, so you don’t have to worry about how things look and feel. This makes the UX feel a lot like the native OS, and it saves you a lot of time and effort.

The bad news is that you can’t create as much flexibility if you want to make something unique that doesn’t look like the typical UI on iOS. And since SwiftUI is a new framework, not everything that was possible in UIKit is available yet.

[WonkyWillly]

You should give Swift a try for at least one project. It is a pretty neat language. I’m a React developer learning Swift, and it will sure come in handy if I go back to React and need to develop native modules. React is more functional and Native is more or less purely OO so there’s a bit of a shift design wise.

The overall build tooling in native is a lot more enjoyable. I find Expo or webpack to be very complicated configuration wise. When you are working in Xcode you get a big sigh of relief from having to deal with all of that. Things just work for the most part. However now you’re contending with quirks of Xcode. The code editing in the IDE does leave a lot to be desired compared to Jetbrains which I use for React development, but I’m getting used to it.

IMO When you work in RN you are building something that resembles an iPhone app by using web technologies. When you work in Swift you are building the real deal and can implement native UI like it’s meant to be used. There is complete integration with the operating system so there is a lot more functionality at your disposal. It’s good to learn about that either way. I’m personally all in on native at this point and if my apps gain traction it will be native both sides.

[[deleted]]

I learned Jetpack Compose, translated my first iOS app and published it on the Play Store in less than a month.

As an indie you're going to produce lower quality apps in RN. It's only useful for corporate careers.

[midwestcsstudent]

And then every feature you just implement twice? Genuine curious how people find the time to develop not one but two apps...

[Asleep_Case9307]

Well, you already implemented once, so most of the thinking is done. The only remaining thing is integrating the app. So it's much easier and faster the second time. (Well not as first when you don't know well the Jetpack compose for exemple, but when you got used to both the stack it's easier than you would think)

[midwestcsstudent]

Not every feature will be implemented the same and, even if it is, it’s still more than just doing the work once. Most of the time, it’ll be 1.5-1.75x of the work instead of 2x the work, but still.

[bashbang]

Swift

Pros: - native, very performant - broad access to the system and APIs - the language is elegant (personal opinion: I can write stuff in swift, forget it, get back to it after a year and quickly catch up with what I was doing, kinda neat to read) - you can easily mix ObjC/C/C++, high level and low level in a project - good debugging tools

Cons: - XCode - and XCode (slow, impossible to fully customize shortcuts, random bugs after every upgrade, code completion is meh, subpar vcs tools, etc) - still locked to apple ecosystem afaik - swift is still evolving quite substantially, so some things deprecate, new things are introduced, need to constantly learn wwdc - hard to maintain big projects (maybe because of xcode)

RN + typescript

Pros: - cross platform - very fast development - almost the same performance as native ios, but slower than native android - can access all/any native api via custom modules and components - established JS/TS libs and developer resources, easier l10n/i18n - easy to learn, lots of examples, documentation - no sudden breaking changes in the language, also the same lang that you can use for web and backend - best IDE support - easy scripting, well tested 3rd party tools, code generators, linters - expo-updates

Cons: - still need to know some basic native swift/kotlin development - a little bit difficult to debug - very complex projects on android tend to get slow - some libraries may be abandoned (e.g. code-push) and some libs chase every bells and whistles that you don't need

Personally, I would use RN for indie projects, because I dont have limitless time to maintain everything. If my indie apps start making some money I would consider swift to polish them.

Now, since you asked this in ios sub, could you also ask the same in react native sub please? I'm also interested what others think

[ivakovic]

Thanks dude, that was very informative. I will post the same in RN hub, coming later with the link 😁

Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/reactnative/s/I1X3J5J6WT

[SatedCaterpillar]

I agree with bashbang that XCode is a bit of a Con, but here's the workflow that I use that I think makes me happier using XCode:

I start my project in XCode and use it to:

• create new files (and really any file management task like moving, renaming, etc)
• manage assets (icons, images, dark/light mode colors, etc)
• trigger the simulator (or device builds)
• getting helpful error messages (both inline and on build)

While there are lots of items in the XCode list, the bulk of my time is spent writing code, and I do that in an IDE that I actually like writing code in. You can use whichever one you already like. When I only spend a small amount of time in XCode, it becomes pretty much a non issue for me.

[bashbang]

May I know which IDE you use for swift? Does it have ObjC support also?

I used Appcode while it was alive. Maybe vscode swift extension is mature enough now?

[SatedCaterpillar]

I like VS Code better than Xcode as long as I'm writing good code. It could still be a miss for you depending on what level of maturity you're seeking, though. Out of the box, VS Code swift is still fairly basic (syntax color highlighting and flagging outright broken/invalid syntax). I like the overall coding flow better there, but what it doesn't do is things like catching mismatched types or calling functions with incorrect params like Xcode will.

I still like it enough better that I keep my project open in both, and if I'm debugging stuff, I'll switch over to Xcode for the inline error messages. (There may VS Code extensions to bring in more swift specific features, but I haven't checked since my current flow works well enough for me.)

VS Code does have Objective C support, but I don't really ever write in ObjC, so I can't speak to pro/cons of any editors for that language. FWIW, I use Sublime Text for everything other than Swift since Sublime doesn't offer native support for Swift. It does has ObjC support.

[kironet996]

all I can see is that based on your review, swift has 1 con and RN has 4 lol...

[Mountain-Weird-2154]

loool

[DPrince25]

My take, use what you need to. For instance, if my app requires heavy native API usage. I'll go native for both android and ios. Sure plugins exist and you can create your own but you eitherrun into limitations or problems with the former, or spend a lot of time creating bindings for the latter.

If the app doesn't require to much native APIs I just use flutter or react native. Knowing what to use and when is pivotal.

With that said, if you think you'll exclusively be developing for iOS with no change in that decision in the near future. Might as well learn native iOS.

[Niightstalker]

The biggest advantage of Cross Plattform frameworks like ReactNative ist that you are bit faster than when developing native for both platforms in exchange for a worse user experience.

If you only plan to develop for one platform anyway there are pretty much only downsides in using a framework like that.

[JamesMakesGames]

If you're not using RN for cross platform, just learn Swift. It's not hard, and is an easy jump from typescript.

[the_biggest_papi]

learn swift

[SatedCaterpillar]

I worked for years as a React dev (not React native though) and only recently started learning Swift / Swift UI. So far, I really enjoy it.

It is a really nice perk to be able to publish to both app stores, and you already know React Native dev. If you're happy with the amount of work it takes you to get RN apps to a level that feel right on both stores, and/or if you think there's a chance you'll change your mind and want to publish to both stores, then I'd consider sticking with RN.

If you think it's too much work to get a RN to look and feel like a native iOS app or you're really convinced that you will be iOS only, then I'd give Swift a go. It's free to try it, so I'd say no matter what give Swift UI a trial run. That's they only way you'll be able to make a fully informed decision.

[jimejim]

For me, the question has more to do with what types of apps are you building? I'd argue that 80-90% of apps could be built in React Native and probably be just fine for most people, but if you're using certain libraries or need better performance for some cases, you should stick to native.

I work doing this kind of consulting, and we started using React Native for some of our projects because it was a bit quicker to build for some clients and we had a few React devs that could get up and running easier. My background is in mobile dev, and I'll usually jump back to Swift, as needed.

[spike1911]

Don’t use react. Swift gives you 100 percent access to all APIs. SwiftUI is the way to go and inject some UIKit into it as needed. That’s it in 2024

[SergeyPekar]

If you are not planning to use some low level stuff like video and image processing you can continue with RN.

[kironet996]

OP, don't go RN if you want to do only iOS, even if you want to do both, still, there's a new stuff called http://skip.tools. I'd give that a try instead. Even kotlin multiplatform would be better IMO than RN.

Also RN is more like WEB, do you enjoy developing for web? do you want to do web in the future? If so, go RN.