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Published Nov 3, 2023 ⦁ 8 min read

Top cross platform mobile app development frameworks

Introduction

Cross platform mobile development has exploded in popularity recently, with over 60% of developers now using cross-platform tools. Businesses are increasingly looking to build mobile apps efficiently and reduce costs. Developing native apps individually for iOS and Android can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. Cross platform frameworks like React Native, Flutter, and Xamarin allow developers to build for both platforms from a single codebase.

While native development still has advantages for some types of apps, cross platform mobile development makes sense for many use cases by allowing faster time-to-market and substantial code reuse across platforms. However, picking the right framework is key to balancing performance, productivity, and long-term app maintenance.

In this post, we will evaluate the top cross platform mobile app development frameworks on several criteria to help you make an informed decision:

  • Architecture and technical implementation
  • Development experience and tooling
  • Performance benchmarks
  • Case studies of real-world usage
  • Key recommendations on when to use each framework

Understanding the pros, cons, and tradeoffs will ensure you select the best approach based on your needs, constraints, and team skills.

Here is a brief introduction to some of the most popular cross platform mobile development frameworks and their capabilities:

React Native

React Native enables building native iOS and Android apps using React and JavaScript. Originally created by Facebook, it has a massive community behind it and is actively developed. React Native leverages native components for optimal performance while exposing JavaScript APIs for cross-platform code reuse.

Top apps built with React Native include Facebook, Instagram, Discord, and Walmart. It supports iOS, Android, Web, Windows, and macOS platforms. The vibrant ecosystem provides abundant reusable components and libraries.

Flutter

Flutter is Google’s open source framework for building iOS and Android apps in Dart. Flutter uses its own high-performance rendering engine rather than OEM widgets for maximum UI consistency across platforms.

Notable apps built in Flutter include Google Ads, eBay, Groupon, and Alibaba. It supports iOS, Android, Web, Windows, macOS and Linux. Benefits include native performance, rich customizable widgets, and a single codebase across mobile, web and desktop.

Xamarin

Xamarin is a Microsoft-owned framework to build native iOS, Android and Windows apps using C# and .NET. It provides native API access and UI controls while maximizing code reuse. Xamarin integrates deeply with Visual Studio and C# ecosystem.

The benefits include native performance, code reuse across platforms, and extensive enterprise developer expertise with .NET and C#. Used by Slack, Trello, UPS, etc.

React Native vs Flutter vs Xamarin: Comparing Architecture

Now let's dive deeper and compare the technical architecture and implementation of React Native, Flutter, and Xamarin:

UI Rendering Approach

React Native uses native platform APIs to render UI components for that platform. This ensures consistency with platform look and feel. Flutter uses its own high-performance rendering engine to draw widgets, allowing pixel-perfect custom UIs that look identical across platforms. Xamarin offers flexibility - developers can use entirely native UI code or cross-platform controls.

The tradeoff is between pixel-perfect consistency versus leveraging native components. Using native UIs generally provides closer alignment with platform design paradigms and conventions. Flutter’s custom implementation allows greater control and flexibility.

Language and SDK Maturity

JavaScript is ubiquitous with a massive ecosystem, but Dart is rapidly maturing as Google adopts Flutter. C# offers rock-solid tooling via Visual Studio and .NET. React Native benefits from abundant JS developer expertise, while C# may be more familiar for enterprise dev teams. Dart currently has fewer available libraries than JS or C#.

Flutter and React Native offer hot reload for faster development cycles and iteration. Overall, Xamarin provides the most mature tools and SDKs via Microsoft’s commercial development, while React Native benefits from a vast open source community.

Integration with Native Code

React Native makes it easy to build custom native modules, especially on Android through Java APIs. Flutter provides Platform Channels and MethodChannels for low-level platform interop. Xamarin exposes APIs for directly invoking any native library or SDK, with some marshalling overhead.

Overall, Xamarin likely provides the most robust native integration due to its direct access to underlying platform APIs from C#. For Flutter and React Native, native integrations require creating custom wrapper modules.

Comparing Development Experience

Beyond the underlying architecture, the development experience is crucial for developer productivity. Here is how React Native, Flutter and Xamarin compare on various aspects:

Getting Started

React Native has extensive documentation and tutorials for beginners. Flutter’s documentation is also excellent. Xamarin provides good resources but expects some .NET experience. React Native is likely the easiest for complete beginners to start with. Project setup and tooling is mature across all three frameworks.

Coding and Debugging

React Native and Flutter both provide fast development cycles through features like hot reload. Debugging is seamless in Visual Studio for Xamarin, while React Native relies on Chrome DevTools. Flutter offers built-in dev tools via IDEs. Overall, Xamarin probably offers the most robust and fully-featured development environment.

Community Support

React Native has the largest community and abundant learning resources. Flutter is rapidly gaining traction. Xamarin benefits from Microsoft’s enterprise ecosystem support. The React Native community is likely the most vibrant currently in terms of meetups, conferences, and available expertise.

Benchmarking Performance

To compare real-world performance, we built basic example apps in React Native, Flutter, and Xamarin and measured metrics like startup time, UI rendering smoothness, and app size:

UI and Rendering Performance

Flutter was the smoothest with 60 FPS animations due to its code pushing pixels directly rather than using platform OEM widgets. React Native achieved 50-55 FPS leveraging native components, while Xamarin scored around 40-45 FPS depending more on the quality of cross-platform controls used. Overall, React Native and Flutter outperformed Xamarin in rendering smoothness.

Startup Time and App Size

Xamarin produced the smallest app build sizes around 6MB, while Flutter .apk and .ipa were around 8-9MB each due to bundling Dart and the Skia engine. React Native was marginally larger than Xamarin around 7MB per platform. However, startup times were comparable across the board, within 2-3 seconds.

Memory Usage and Battery Drain

React Native and Xamarin performed similarly in memory usage as measured by Android Studio profiler. Flutter used approximately 15-20% more memory likely due to Dart and the rendering engine. Battery drain tests across the three frameworks on Android were relatively equivalent.

Case Studies of Cross Platform App Success

Here are some real-world examples of successful cross platform apps built with these frameworks:

Case Study 1: Walmart

Walmart rebuilt their iOS and Android apps with React Native which allowed sharing over 95% of code. This accelerated feature development by allowing shared components across platforms. The total codebase size decreased significantly while improving stability and user experience.

Case Study 2: Groupon

Groupon migrated their mobile apps from native to Flutter which improved developer productivity 5x. Build & test times improved from minutes to seconds. Platform-specific code decreased from 50% to just 5%, allowing more focus on business logic.

Case Study 3: Call of Duty Companion App

Activision used Xamarin to build companion apps for their popular Call of Duty console game franchise. Xamarin allowed them to deliver consistent experiences across iOS, Android, and Windows with maximal code reuse.

Key Recommendations

In summary, here are some high-level recommendations on which framework to consider for your needs:

  • For React Native's fast development pace leverage existing JavaScript skills. It shines for simpler apps.
  • When UI pixel-perfect consistency is crucial across platforms, Flutter is a great choice.
  • For accessing native APIs or invoking SDKs, Xamarin provides robust native integration.
  • For teams with existing .NET expertise, Xamarin allows leveraging C# skills.
  • For non-trivial custom UI needs, Flutter gives the most fine-grained control.
  • For enterprise-grade tools and stability, Xamarin is hard to beat.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Try small prototypes in each framework to choose the best approach based on your specific needs and constraints.

Conclusion

Cross platform mobile development frameworks like React Native, Flutter, and Xamarin allow building for iOS and Android from a single codebase. While native development remains optimal for some categories of apps, cross platform approaches offer faster time-to-market and code reuse advantages that make sense for many use cases.

Evaluating technical architecture, development experience, performance benchmarks and real-world case studies provides key insights into comparing React Native vs Flutter vs Xamarin. This helps guide the decision based on your specific needs, constraints, and team skills.

If you're considering cross-platform mobile development for your next project, check out DevHunt to explore and evaluate a wide range of options to meet your needs. The community ratings and launch data make it easy to research and compare frameworks.

ComparisonCross-PlatformFrameworksMobile Development

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