You have to know that always there are alternatives, so let’s go to check them out and of course their difference.
These are simply alternatives to using Flutter, at least in a certain way. Flutter is not the only tool, the only approach that allows you to build iOS and Android apps with one programming language and with one project codebase.
There are other solutions too, also besides React Native and Ionic, there for example is also Native Script and so on, but React Native and Ionic are probably the biggest competitors to Flutter and I just want to show some examples of where Flutter differs from them.
So why would you use Flutter and not React Native or Ionic?
Now let’s see how each of these approaches works. Flutter uses Dart and the Flutter framework and Dart is a programming language developed by Google.
React Native on other hand uses Javascript and the React library.
Ionic uses just Javascript and any or no framework at all that you want.
Now the result of Flutter is that you get compiled native apps, so you get real native apps compiled for the target platforms.
For React Native, that’s pretty much the same but I wrote partly compiled here because the apps are compiled to native apps but there also are parts in your code, in your Javascript code which is actually not compiled but which is basically enclosed in the native app and runs as Javascript in the native app, instead of as compiled code and that’s different for Flutter, there all the code is compiled and runs as native machine code, and for Ionic, nothing is compiled.
There you actually have a web app that is wrapped inside of a native app, so you still get a native app that you can publish to the app stores but it’s just a wrapper around your web app.
Now the advantage of this Ionic approach is that you can use normal web technologies and if you’re a web developer, it’s particularly easy to create such apps and you can use all your normal web development skills to build cross-platform apps there. A downside of this wrapped approach of course could be performance.
And for Flutter, it’s also important to understand that we don’t compile to iOS or Android UI components but that Flutter gives you an app that controls the entire screen and every pixel on it.
For React Native, that’s different, there you do compile to iOS and Android UI components, so the parts of the React Native app that are compiled is at the end of the user interface and there, for example, if you render a button, it is compiled to the native iOS button for iOS and to the native Android button for Android, which means you have fewer customization possibilities because for example if you can’t add a drop shadow to the native iOS button, you can’t add it to the React Native button because that’s compiled to the iOS button.
For Flutter, since it controls every pixel on its own, you can style it in whichever way you want, or Flutter lets you at least because the native button restrictions don’t matter to Flutter.
On the other hand, in Ionic, there is no compilation to Native equivalence, instead, you have a web app, so you can style a button as you could style it in any web app, it’s not compiled to a native button.
With Flutter, you can build cross-platform apps, mobile apps, and actually, even web apps and desktop apps, though as long as that’s in the very early stages.
For React Native, it’s pretty much only about mobile apps, though there is a project, an unofficial project if you will, which allows you to use your React Native app also to get a web app as a result.
In Ionic, you by default since you build a web app that’s wrapped by a native app, you by default have a web app as well, right?
You also have full cross-platform support, you can get a mobile app with this wrapped approach, you have a web app anyways and you can also build a desktop app by wrapping it around this web app so to say, with a tool named Electron.
Let’s think about, who’s working on these projects?
Flutter is developed by Google, React Native is developed by Facebook, and Ionic is developed by a company which is called Ionic.
They all have big companies backing them, especially React Native and Flutter of course but also the Ionic company is earning its money with the Ionic framework.
Regarding the future, all three should be very stable and under active development for a long time, so that shouldn’t influence your choice.
What should influence your choice then?
Well for Flutter, there you have a great advantage that you have real native apps, so you get great performance, no web view wrapped app which automatically has a bit worse performance because of that wrapping, instead, you have meshing code which is running and that gives you a great performance and because Flutter controls every pixel on the screen, you also have high flexibility, you have a lot of control over your app.
Some people also might not like this approach of not having the platform primitives but instead, having Flutter control everything because you could argue that it’s, therefore, harder to get the default Android and iOS look and that it requires a bit more work from your side to get the look but that’s up to you to decide, I think the higher customization possibilities actually aren’t too bad and are a nice advantage but in the end, that’s of course up to your personal preference.
React Native and Ionic are certainly nice alternatives and that’s why I wanted to share their difference. As a final summary here, Flutter is a great choice of course because you have real compiled apps and with every pixel controlled by Flutter, you have a lot of flexibility and high performance.
I hope you have enjoyed this article since is my first post, I would like to invite you if you wish, to share it and follow me, if you want more interesting posts like this and similar technologies.
Thank you very much.-
