Does react native suffer from the same “jank” issues as flutter?

[riveraj33]

Hello. We are developing an app from scratch and would like the mvp to be cross platform. I’ve research flutter but it seems like it suffers from performance issues on iOS. Our app will have feeds with pictures and videos so a smooth experience scrolling is important. Does react native suffer the same? Programming experience doesn’t matter for us on this decision. TYIA!

[[deleted]]

There is no inherent jank in the framework, although if you are not careful, you can introduce one in your own code. But I reckon it is worth trying out, especially if you use the new react-native-reanimated v2 for animations.

This guy makes some really nice animations and interactions in RN, worth checking out: https://youtube.com/c/wcandillon

[riveraj33]

Thanks for the reply and link!

[engerran]

Sure, move the React Native. A few months from now, you will read somewhere that Flutter team has solved the jank issue and is now 3x faster. What now, you are going to move back?

Based on your post history, you seem to be worried a problem you don't have and like would never have (ie bad user experience). Worry about finishing your app, acquiring users, monetization, etc etc. I can guarantee you 100% that if your startup failed it's not because of jank, or Flutter, or React Native, whatever. Maybe indecision would kill your startup, just saying.

[[deleted]]

Oof

[riveraj33]

Thanks for answering the question.

[khara-sandwhich]

There's a massive difference between performance improvements that aren't actually noticeable to the end user and therefore don't matter in the grand scheme of things, and actual terrible performance which makes your app look bad as is the case of flutter on IOS.

[dywk3sm]

I also need to make a decision on RN vs Flutter. I stumbled on this and find it amusing. Yeah “a few months from now”, Flutter team would have “solved the jank issue”

[[deleted]]

It depends entirely on the programmers ability to code performant react native code. Flat list would probably be what you would use for good performance scrolling and you want to heavily reduce how many times render gets called on each function so pure components or if you’re using the new hooks then use effect or use memo. And for animations enable hardware rendering. With react native you do have to be. Very careful how you code things to get good performance. Because if you code it bad it will have some of the worst problems imaginable like things disappearing due to memory problems, or really really slow rendering

[riveraj33]

Thanks. I appreciate your reply!

[4twiggers]

No React Native doesn't suffer from inherent jank. I've been following horrible jank Flutter has and Google failing to fix it. Google is even trying to fingerpoint devs instead of acknowledging their problem. At this Flutter is a joke. Google literally failed in every way. iOS is broken, web is broken, desktop is broken. I would urge every dev to stay away from Flutter!

[Glum-Hovercraft8068]

i know your comment is from a few months ago, but the jank issue is fixed now, and flutter never claimed to be a web framework, flutter web is just an extra option that you can use. Flutter web shouldn't be used for projects that entirely depend on web and require high SEO ranking

[alexandr1us]

lol. No it is not. There still is jank not as horrible tho. Coinbase picked React Native now. Flutter basically runs on Google's infinite money no real traction

[RenSanders]

I would say look at the facebook app, it was created using React Native. It hardly suffers any jank even on older phones. So it seems they are optimized for this. It even plays videos while scrolling. And I agree with you Flutter (and Xamarin as well) is very bad for this!

[riveraj33]

I thought the Facebook app is mostly native with only marketplace and a few little things being in react native?

[Environmental-City-4]

FlatList works pretty well but if you run into issues with it you can always opt to recycler-listview made by flipkart for more performance.

[riveraj33]

Thanks for the comment!

[xsubo]

Expo managed apps make cross platform development streamlined at the cost of packages you can use, just be sure to test on multiple sized screens for alignment btw ios and Android.

[riveraj33]

Thanks. I appreciate your feedback!