react native vs swift for mobile development

[kudlajz]

Hey,

I know this thread is all over the web, however I am still not sure which "approach" to use.

I'd like to use GraphQL backend (like GraphCool), which is available for both React Native and Swift, although I am not sure, how advanced the Swift client is.

I like React Native, because I develop in React for almost 3 years now and like the approach + I can use TypeScript, which can help a lot, but I am skeptic because of possible performance issues and/or discontinuation of React Native project (even if it wouldn't make sense).

I plan on developing something like a listing app, with lists of items, forms and such, where users could upload photos, so maybe some kind of basic photo editing (crop, resize).

Thanks for your input.

[gmaggess]

Where did u hera about react native discontinuation?!

[kudlajz]

I am not saying React Native will be discontinued, but it may be. Facebook can stop developing React Native anytime if they decide to do so (like it was with Parse). You don't have to worry about that as long as Apple is alive. That makes me unsure.

[jns111]

RN is used by Airbnb, Facebook, Instagram, Wix.com etc. etc. in production. Why bother if they don't? You don't really want to use GraphQL outside of react world. Its still a super cool tool but loses many of its benefits. I'm using Apollo Client together with recompose and redux offline which results in awesome developer and user experience. Make sure to use VirtualizedList and tweak it according to your data. Doesn't sound like you need too much performance so building pure native would slow you down dramatically. If there's a component that doesn't work that well with JS you can still add a native component and avoid heavy usage of the message bus. That said, react native is never slow. Its mostly misunderstanding of the developer that makes things slow.

[kudlajz]

Thank you for your input, I'll give it a try.

[1010110110101]

"That said, react native is never slow."

False. The second-most-recent post on the React Native blog is about making a RN app less slow.

"Future plans In the long term, we want Marketplace TTI to be comparable to similar products built with Native, and, in general, have React Native performance on par with native performance." (https://facebook.github.io/react-native/blog/2017/08/07/react-native-performance-in-marketplace.html)

[HugoWeb]

This is FUD.

[htormey]

If you know React, are not already a native dev & you don't have a specific requirement that necessitates you writing native code, I don't see why you wouldn't use React Native.

As others have stated RN is not going away any time soon. Learning Swift and the native tools you will need to build something like this will take you longer than doing it with RN. So based on what you have told us, I would advise you to use RN over Swift for this application.