What is React Native? Why Is It Grow­ing In Popularity?

Have you been curi­ous to explore more on React Native since it has opened the door to sev­er­al oppor­tu­ni­ties in mobile appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment ser­vices?  

Mobile appli­ca­tions cater to many busi­ness activ­i­ties that fur­ther accel­er­ate growth, pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and prof­itabil­i­ty. In the sec­ond half of 2022, almost 3.5 mil­lion appli­ca­tions will be avail­able on Google Play and 2.2 mil­lion on Apple Store. 

And for devel­op­ing native apps, React native devel­op­ment ser­vices are becom­ing a pop­u­lar choice; as a result, you should under­stand React Native excep­tion­al­ly well. 

This blog will answer all your queries relat­ed to React Native while pro­vid­ing you with insight­ful pieces of infor­ma­tion on it. So, with­out much delay, let’s dis­cuss what react native is and why sev­er­al react native app devel­op­ment com­pa­nies are thriving! 

What is React Native?

React Native can be called one of the most sought-after inno­va­tions in the back­ground of tech­no­log­i­cal solu­tions to date. It helps in cre­at­ing and devel­op­ing native appli­ca­tions that are cross-plat­form applicable. 

The con­ven­tion­al appli­ca­tion method would require the devel­op­ers to work on dif­fer­ent oper­at­ing sys­tems indi­vid­u­al­ly to launch the app on all. Oth­er­wise, the app would func­tion only on lim­it­ed oper­at­ing sys­tems that were worked upon. 

Also, these appli­ca­tions would have to be worked upon from scratch! All the above-men­tioned sit­u­a­tions even­tu­al­ly led to extra time and resource usage. 

Today, with the help of React Native devel­op­ment, only one devel­op­ing team is required to devel­op mobile appli­ca­tions for dif­fer­ent plat­forms at one time. 

But where does React Native come from?

React Native is an inspi­ra­tion from Facebook’s javascript library React. React Native pri­mar­i­ly assists in devel­op­ing mobile appli­ca­tions rather than tar­get­ing web apps.

React Native is a for­mu­la­tion of JS (JavaScript) and JSX (XML-Esque markup) and is based on the com­po­nents of UI.

Sim­i­lar to Objective‑C and Java, React Native ren­ders ele­ments with APIs using com­po­nents that are mobile native.

In mobile-web apps, the Ul (User Inter­face) is opti­mized on mobile screens with a respon­sive web design that feels slick. How­ev­er, React Native has a com­plete mobile-app-based approach and doesn’t come any­where in opti­miz­ing web appli­ca­tions into mobile screens.

As stat­ed above, you already know React comes from the Java library, but where does Native come from?

As stat­ed, Native Appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment refers to app devel­op­ment for spec­i­fied oper­at­ing sys­tems. Both Android and iOS, pro­vide devel­op­ers with tools like UI and SDKs for app development. 

How­ev­er, if the appli­ca­tion is to be devel­oped for both plat­forms, it must be done indi­vid­u­al­ly. Here’s when React Native pops up as a solu­tion and helps react native app devel­op­ment across all plat­forms at once. 

Native and Cross-Plat­form Apps vs. React Native Apps 

Let us look at the table below to under­stand the dif­fer­ence between con­ven­tion­al Native and Cross-plat­form appli­ca­tions and Mod­ern React Native Applications.

React Native Performance

The con­cept of React Native was devel­oped back in 2013 and has now gained an out­stand­ing share of the app mar­ket base pro­vid­ing a base for effi­cient mobile solu­tions. The tech­nol­o­gy is still at its infant stage, but react native grow­ing pace is high­ly considerable.

To make the busi­ness mod­el more com­pe­tent, more and more start-up busi­ness own­ers are choos­ing to hire React Native devel­op­ment ser­vices for their appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment requirements.

Source,

All the top Appli­ca­tions, like Face­book and Insta­gram, are prod­ucts of React Native. 

After 2013, React Native was impro­vised in the year 2017. The impro­vi­sa­tions included:

• Cut­ting-edge list views to avoid inef­fi­cient performance
• The new list of struc­tured com­po­nents for exces­sive mem­o­ry usage, along with dif­fer­ent row numbers
• React Native play­ground named Snack as a means to share case stud­ies of issues and demos

While the per­for­mance is still sub­ject to sig­nif­i­cant issues, the over­all rat­ing is good, espe­cial­ly for user experience!

7 Rea­sons Prov­ing the Pop­u­lar­i­ty of React Native: 

React Native, an open-source JavaScript frame­work has become a com­mon choice, and com­pa­nies are choos­ing to react native for iOS app devel­op­ment needs.

Com­mu­ni­ty Popularity:

The developer’s com­mu­ni­ty of React Native has become extreme­ly large, carv­ing a pop­u­lar frame­work for itself. The users have con­stant­ly been try­ing to iden­ti­fy issues and bugs in the react native plat­form to improve it con­tin­u­ous­ly. Anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant fact is that the web­sites that use React are high-pro­file and have incred­i­ble UI UX draw­ing user atten­tion and paving the way for sev­er­al mobile app devel­op­ment companies.

Code Reusabil­i­ty

React Native devel­op­er can use the code they had writ­ten before for cross-plat­form app devel­op­ment. The same code can be used to devel­op cross-plat­form apps with­out dif­fi­cul­ty. This indi­rect­ly cuts down on react native devel­op­ment ser­vices, main­te­nance, and deploy­ment time. All of this togeth­er means low cost for the react native app devel­op­ment company.

Ease in Debugging

React Native comes with high­ly effi­cient Debug­ging and Error Detec­tion tools. These act as greater advan­tages for react native devel­op­ers in spot­ting and slack­ing bugs faster. It again helps in reduc­ing the time con­sump­tion and app deployment. 

Hot Reload­ing

Hot reload­ing helps in refresh­ing the files with made changes. In this con­text, all the changes the devel­op­ers make about the UL or appli­ca­tion can be imple­ment­ed while the react native app is run­ning. This offers a bet­ter devel­op­ment expe­ri­ence while also enabling the developer’s enhance their productivity.

Third-Par­ty Plugins

Exten­si­bil­i­ty is the oth­er great advan­tage of React Native. Third-par­ty plu­g­ins are pos­si­ble for this mobile frame­work that pro­vides acces­si­bil­i­ty to those device fea­tures that aren’t acces­si­ble from Javascript.

The exist­ing plu­g­in library (grow­ing) has every­thing from read­ing NFC tags to aug­ment­ed real­i­ty. It allows devel­op­ers to save time and focus on oth­er areas of work. 

Per­for­mance and UI

React native works inde­pen­dent­ly from UI, which means the appli­ca­tion will keep up with high per­for­mance with­out sac­ri­fic­ing qual­i­ty. The appli­ca­tion imple­ments the hybrid writ­ing method of com­bin­ing Javascript, HTML, and CSS, an exten­sive­ly used method.

No Exces­sive Recompiling

With React Native, the appli­ca­tion needn’t get built from scratch. There are numer­ous ready­made com­po­nents that the devel­op­ers can read­i­ly use. 

How­ev­er, some codes are not avail­able and require build­ing from scratch. Look­ing at the pace of updates and releas­es, most of the codes would be soon available.

Why is React Native Pop­u­lar Among Startups? 

More than expand­ing amongst oth­er sources, React Native has become a pop­u­lar choice amongst start-ups. Are you won­der­ing how and why? Fol­low along to under­stand more and better!

Cross-Plat­form Solution

Through­out the entire write-up, the point has been indi­cat­ed and explained. It is advan­ta­geous for start-ups because they need not spend extra resources and time on app development. 

Also, if they could tar­get only one plat­form, React Native helps them reach both Android and iOS in the same framework.

A Bud­getary Solution

Stat-ups usu­al­ly have a defined bud­get that they can­not extend. App devel­op­ment pay is pri­mar­i­ly depen­dent on time and com­plex­i­ty. React Native uses one code­base for devel­op­ing the app across Android and iOS.

Fur­ther, there are in-built solu­tions avail­able that reduce the com­plex­i­ty lev­els. Togeth­er, it helps cut down costs to a con­sid­er­able extent.

Requires Less Devel­op­ment Time

Because of reduced com­plex­i­ty lev­els, the app can be devel­oped much faster when com­pared to native app devel­op­ment; the solu­tion fits the start-up’s fixed and strict timelines. 

Get­ting late is still accept­able for exist­ing brands, but in the process of build­ing a new brand, such things can­not be overlooked.

Employ­ees Less Developers

Start-ups do not have the band­width to employ mul­ti­ple or giant app devel­op­ment teams. One user can eas­i­ly take charge of devel­op­ing the app on React Native. Fur­ther, the work can be ren­dered to a React Native expert firm because of the easy workload. 

Changes and Updates are Easy

Start-ups need flex­i­bil­i­ty with their business’s mobile appli­ca­tions. They are explor­ing and under­stand­ing the mar­ket; thus, fre­quent changes would be real. 

This would require them to keep updat­ing infor­ma­tion and func­tion­al­i­ties as per their under­stand­ing. React Native pro­vides third-par­ty logins that make updates very easy. 

Pros and Cons of React Native

Last­ly, let us look at the pros and cons of React Native to give it the per­fect conclusion.

Con­clu­sion

React Native is a devel­op­ing con­cept; while it has man­aged to pull-off many rev­o­lu­tion­ary changes in mobile app devel­op­ment, there are still many things to work upon. Noth­ing comes out per­fect in one go; thus, with time, React Native shall become much bet­ter and more advanced.

From all the infor­ma­tion put above, it is clear that React Native has man­aged to get a much bet­ter start for itself. How­ev­er, there’s more to come!

FAQ’s

Why is React Native the most pop­u­lar frame­work for mobile app development?

Many sig­nif­i­cant fac­tors make React Native for mobile app devel­op­ment so pop­u­lar. Some of it includes the cross-plat­form solu­tion, sim­pli­fied code­base to work on, and extreme­ly easy on time and budget.

What is the dif­fer­ence between native and cross-plat­form apps?

Native apps are devel­oped for one spe­cif­ic plat­form, such as Android or iOS. A native appli­ca­tion would­n’t work on both plat­forms. How­ev­er, cross-plat­form appli­ca­tions are avail­able on all oper­at­ing sys­tems. There are many advan­tages and disadvantages.

What pro­gram­ming lan­guages are used in React Native?

React Native uses one code­base for Android and iOS, JavaScript, and JSX. It makes the devel­op­ment process much easier. 

What are some of the pop­u­lar apps devel­oped on React Native?

One of the sig­nif­i­cant rea­sons why the pop­u­lar­i­ty of React Native has touched the skies is the frame­work used for apps like Face­book, Insta­gram, Twit­ter, and others.

Is React Native expensive?

No! React Native is an inex­pen­sive solu­tion. Because it takes less devel­op­ment time and reduced com­plex­i­ty, the devel­op­ing charge becomes less.