Flutter or React Native: A comparative study

With Facebook's React Native existing without any competition for a few years, here comes Google with Flutter. Though Flutter has been around for three years, it has only now gained developers attention in the past three to four months. Flutter focuses on solving tough UI challenges with flexible animation and gesture. Will Flutter give a tough fight for React Native? Let's explore!

Flutter is a Javascript framework developed by Google that builds upon Dart and a portable C++ to implement reactive UI elements. People who work on Java will enjoy working on Flutter. This Framework provides deep customizable UI elements where native developers won't feel bad working on Flutter. Though the UI elements are not native, Flutter performs exceptionally well as it works on Dart bridge. It also supports fast reload like React Native which allows quick UI prototyping and of course, fixing bugs 😛 . Flutter's plugin installation is a quick and smooth process even if you don't have prior experience with mobile app building.

Things Flutter is better at than React Native

1. The StatefulWidget in Flutter provides a place to store and change data dynamically similar to React and React-Native
2. With Flutter, when a third party package it is connected automaticall. Contrasted with the need to manual require packages in React. In Flutter, "Everything is Automatic".
3. Recommended IDEs for Flutter include Android studio and Intellij Idea. They are awesome and easy to work with for a developer who worked on Android already
4. Though React Native has Hot Reload, it is no where as fast as Flutter.
5. In React Native it is tough to choose a navigator because no navigator in React Native is a 100% perfect (I prefer ReactNavigation). The built in navigator in Flutter is amazing. You can create a new route without connecting anything! 😛 Unlike React Native where you need import navigation components every time.

Things React Native is better at than Flutter

1. Styles are not separated in Flutter. You will need to give inline styling while creating every component. The biggest productivity killer for Flutter. 😞
2. Flutter is known for Animation and UI customization, however it is comparatively more difficult to implement it in Flutter than in React-Native.
3. Flutter does not have enough resources to fix things since it hasn't recieved enough attention from StackOverFlow. This makes hard for the developers to quickly build.
4. There is no such thing called modularity in Flutter. It is near impossible to inherit one component into another.

Flutter will be really good when they bring a separate place for styling and a construct for reusing code. Until then, solve the 2,799 open issues in https://github.com/flutter/flutter. Thank you!