Capacitor vs React Native

Overview

React Native

Stacks34.4K

Followers29.5K

Votes1.2K

GitHub Stars124.4K

Forks24.9K

Capacitor

Stacks288

Followers326

Votes2

GitHub Stars14.2K

Forks1.1K

Capacitor vs React Native: What are the differences?

Capacitor and React Native are two popular frameworks for building cross-platform apps. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Language: Capacitor allows developers to write code using web languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. On the other hand, React Native uses JavaScript as its primary programming language. This means that developers with a background in web development may find it easier to transition to Capacitor, while those with more experience in JavaScript may prefer React Native.
Development Approach: Capacitor follows a hybrid approach to app development, allowing developers to build apps using web technologies and then packaging them into native wrappers. React Native takes a different approach by using a bridge to connect JavaScript with native components. This bridge allows React Native apps to have a more native-like feel and performance.
UI Components: Capacitor provides a set of basic UI components that are styled to match each platform. Developers can easily customize these components further to fit the app's design. React Native, on the other hand, offers a vast library of pre-built UI components, giving developers a wider range of options to choose from. These components are designed to closely mimic the native platform's UI, providing a more native look and feel for the app.
Community and Ecosystem: React Native has a larger and more established community compared to Capacitor, which means there are more resources, tutorials, and libraries available for developers to leverage. The larger community also leads to a more rapid development process and better support for solving any issues that may arise during development.
Performance: When it comes to performance, React Native has the advantage. Since React Native apps are compiled into native code, they can achieve faster execution speeds compared to Capacitor apps, which rely on the webview for rendering. However, the performance gap has been closing, thanks to advancements in Capacitor and the use of web technologies that have improved performance over the years.
Compatibility with Existing Code: If you have existing code written in JavaScript or web technologies, Capacitor would be a better fit as it allows you to reuse and integrate your existing code more easily. React Native, on the other hand, requires a separate integration process for existing code written in web technologies, as it needs to be rewritten and adjusted to work within the React Native framework.

In summary, Capacitor offers a web-focused development approach with the ability to write code in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. It provides a hybrid approach to building apps and offers a simpler learning curve for web developers. React Native, on the other hand, uses JavaScript as its primary language and offers a more native-like experience with a larger community and a wider range of pre-built UI components.

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Advice on React Native, Capacitor

Nick

CTO at Pickio

Jun 2, 2020

Decided

We built the first version of our app with RN and it turned out a mess in a while. A lot of bugs along with poor performance out of the box for a fairly large app. Many things, that native platform has, cannot be done with existing solutions for RN. For instance, large titles on iOS are not fully implemented in any of existing navigations libraries. Also there's painfully slow JSON bridge and many other small, yet annoying things. On the other hand Flutter became a really powerful and easy-to-use tool. A bit of a learning curve, of course, because of Dart, but it worth learning. Flutter offers TONS of built-in features, no JSON-bridge, AOT compilation for iOS.

491k views491k

Comments

Andrea

May 26, 2020

Needs adviceon

Vue.js

Vue Native

React

I'm a huge fan of Vue.js and I'm pretty comfortable with it. I need to build a mobile app for my company and I was now wondering whether I could make use of VueJS with Vue Native instead of switching to React. I know Vue Native builds on top of RN. My question is whether I'd have as much freedom with Vue Native over RN and whether you feel like Vue Native is "production ready" or not. Not sure of which shortcomings I may find using Vue Native... Thanks a lot!!!

336k views336k

Comments

Furqan

Jul 16, 2020

Needs adviceon

React Native

Hello guys, I am new here. So, if I posted without specific guidelines, please ignore.

Basically, I am an iOS developer and developing native apps for the last three years. Recently, I started learning React Native to develop apps for both platforms. If anyone out there knows any useful resources that will become a better react native developer.

@{#newbie}|topic:null|

325k views325k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

React Native	Capacitor
React Native enables you to build world-class application experiences on native platforms using a consistent developer experience based on JavaScript and React. The focus of React Native is on developer efficiency across all the platforms you care about - learn once, write anywhere. Facebook uses React Native in multiple production apps and will continue investing in React Native.	Invoke Native SDKs on iOS, Android, Electron, and the Web with one code base. Optimized for Ionic Framework apps, or use with any web app framework.`
Native iOS Components;Asynchronous Execution;Touch Handling;Flexbox and Styling; Polyfills	Build web apps that run equally well on iOS, Android, Electron, and as Progressive Web Apps; Access the full Native SDK on each platform, and easily deploy to App Stores (and the web!); It provides native functionality for web apps, and is optimized for Ionic Framework; Build apps with standardized web technologies that will work for decades, and easily reach users on the app stores and the mobile web; Easily add custom native functionality with a simple Plugin API, or use existing Cordova plugins with our compatibility layer; Open source
Statistics
GitHub Stars 124.4K	GitHub Stars 14.2K
GitHub Forks 24.9K	GitHub Forks 1.1K
Stacks 34.4K	Stacks 288
Followers 29.5K	Followers 326
Votes 1.2K	Votes 2
Pros & Cons
Pros 214 Learn once write everywhere 174 Cross platform 169 Javascript 122 Native ios components 69 Built by facebook Cons 23 Javascript 19 Built by facebook 12 Cant use CSS 4 30 FPS Limit 2 Some compenents not truly native	Pros 1 Modern 1 Full compatible with ios
Integrations
No integrations available	Electron Apache Cordova Ionic iOS Android OS

What are some alternatives to React Native, Capacitor?

Ionic

Free and open source, Ionic offers a library of mobile and desktop-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components for building highly interactive apps. Use with Angular, React, Vue, or plain JavaScript.

Flutter

Flutter is a mobile app SDK to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Xamarin

Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

NativeScript

NativeScript enables developers to build native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Universal while sharing the application code across the platforms. When building the application UI, developers use our libraries, which abstract the differences between the native platforms.

Apache Cordova

Apache Cordova is a set of device APIs that allow a mobile app developer to access native device function such as the camera or accelerometer from JavaScript. Combined with a UI framework such as jQuery Mobile or Dojo Mobile or Sencha Touch, this allows a smartphone app to be developed with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Framework7

It is a free and open source mobile HTML framework to develop hybrid mobile apps or web apps with iOS native look and feel. All you need to make it work is a simple HTML layout and attached framework's CSS and JS files.

Qt

Qt, a leading cross-platform application and UI framework. With Qt, you can develop applications once and deploy to leading desktop, embedded & mobile targets.

PhoneGap

PhoneGap is a web platform that exposes native mobile device apis and data to JavaScript. PhoneGap is a distribution of Apache Cordova. PhoneGap allows you to use standard web technologies such as HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript for cross-platform development, avoiding each mobile platforms' native development language. Applications execute within wrappers targeted to each platform, and rely on standards-compliant API bindings to access each device's sensors, data, and network status.

Expo

It is a framework and a platform for universal React applications. It is a set of tools and services built around React Native and native platforms that help you develop, build, deploy, and quickly iterate on iOS, Android, and web apps.

Vue Native

Vue Native is a mobile framework to build truly native mobile app using Vue.js. Its is designed to connect React Native and Vue.js. Vue Native is a wrapper around React Native APIs, which allows you to use Vue.js and compose rich mobile User Interface.

Related Comparisons

Capacitor vs React Native: What are the differences?

Capacitor and React Native are two popular frameworks for building cross-platform apps. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Language: Capacitor allows developers to write code using web languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. On the other hand, React Native uses JavaScript as its primary programming language. This means that developers with a background in web development may find it easier to transition to Capacitor, while those with more experience in JavaScript may prefer React Native.
Development Approach: Capacitor follows a hybrid approach to app development, allowing developers to build apps using web technologies and then packaging them into native wrappers. React Native takes a different approach by using a bridge to connect JavaScript with native components. This bridge allows React Native apps to have a more native-like feel and performance.
UI Components: Capacitor provides a set of basic UI components that are styled to match each platform. Developers can easily customize these components further to fit the app's design. React Native, on the other hand, offers a vast library of pre-built UI components, giving developers a wider range of options to choose from. These components are designed to closely mimic the native platform's UI, providing a more native look and feel for the app.
Community and Ecosystem: React Native has a larger and more established community compared to Capacitor, which means there are more resources, tutorials, and libraries available for developers to leverage. The larger community also leads to a more rapid development process and better support for solving any issues that may arise during development.
Performance: When it comes to performance, React Native has the advantage. Since React Native apps are compiled into native code, they can achieve faster execution speeds compared to Capacitor apps, which rely on the webview for rendering. However, the performance gap has been closing, thanks to advancements in Capacitor and the use of web technologies that have improved performance over the years.
Compatibility with Existing Code: If you have existing code written in JavaScript or web technologies, Capacitor would be a better fit as it allows you to reuse and integrate your existing code more easily. React Native, on the other hand, requires a separate integration process for existing code written in web technologies, as it needs to be rewritten and adjusted to work within the React Native framework.

Capacitor vs React Native

Overview