React Native vs Native App Development: Differences and Considerations

Mobile applications have traditionally been written in native languages. Lately, however, hybrid cross-platform frameworks have been gaining market share. The recent swell of React Native’s popularity has raised the question: should developers use React Native for mobile development instead of native app development? 

In the last 4 years, the React Native framework has grown to a community of over 2,000 contributors that averages 1,200,000+ weekly downloads through npm. Some of the largest companies in the world have embraced React Native, including Facebook, Pinterest, Skype, Uber, and Brex. Its widespread adoption is primarily driven by the convenience of its cross-platform nature and the unique technological approach used to accomplish this.

Despite React Native’s success, many people maintain that traditional native mobile apps are still the way to go. The proponents of native primarily cite its performance advantages and robustness when compared to hybrid alternatives. Tradeoffs exist between both options, and careful consideration is required when choosing between the two technologies. This article will weigh in on the matter by delving into what makes React Native so popular, and explore how it works under the hood. We’ll also look at the pros, cons, and business impacts of each option, giving you the facts worth knowing before making a choice one way or another.

Comparing React Native vs Traditional Native Apps

React Native is written primarily with JavaScript and classified as a “hybrid” framework, meaning that it’s platform-independent. This separates it from traditional apps written in native languages such as Java or Kotlin for Android, and Swift or Objective-C for Apple. Instead, hybrid apps have a single codebase that produces an app that will run on both Android and iOS devices. The benefit to this is obvious: less code and related logistics when compared to writing a pair of native apps using different languages. The drawbacks of hybrids are that they aren’t as performant as their native equivalents, and they sometimes lack the ability to make full use of a device’s resources.

Most hybrid frameworks that you may be familiar with, such as Ionic, Cordova, and Phonegap, rely on what’s known as a WebView to accomplish their cross-platform capabilities. Essentially, they embed a webpage inside a native app and hook into it to integrate with the underlying device. The problem with this is that WebViews, especially when hosting complicated apps, run into performance issues and other limitations.  

React Native does things a little differently. It doesn’t use WebViews, but rather a system that allows it to render native components (hence the name) from its base JavaScript code. There’s a common misconception that React Native compiles JavaScript down to native languages such as Swift or Java, but that isn’t the case. To get a better understanding, let’s compare the underlying structure of a “Hello World” app featuring a labelled button written in React Native to its equivalent native iOS version: