Expo vs Visual Studio App Center

Overview

Expo

Stacks811

Followers693

Votes66

Visual Studio App Center

Stacks113

Followers232

Votes4

Expo vs Visual Studio App Center: What are the differences?

Introduction: Expo and Visual Studio App Center are both popular tools used by developers for building and deploying mobile applications. While they have some similarities, there are key differences between the two that make them unique in their own ways.

Development Approach: Expo is a comprehensive development tool and platform that allows developers to quickly build and test React Native applications without the need for configuring complex native build tools. It provides a streamlined development experience with features like live reloading, instant previews, and easy device testing. On the other hand, Visual Studio App Center is a mobile app lifecycle solution that offers a wide range of services such as build, test, distribute, monitor, and engage. It supports multiple platforms and frameworks, including React Native, and provides extensive CI/CD capabilities.
Built-in Features: Expo comes with a rich set of pre-built features and components that are readily available for developers, including APIs for camera access, push notifications, location services, and more. These built-in features help speed up the development process and simplify the integration of common functionalities in React Native apps. In contrast, Visual Studio App Center does not provide pre-built features like Expo. Instead, it focuses more on the continuous integration and deployment aspects of the app lifecycle.
Native Code Support: Expo primarily focuses on web-based and pure JavaScript development for React Native apps, aiming to provide a smooth cross-platform experience. It restricts direct access to native code and libraries, which can be a limitation for certain projects that require native code integration. On the other hand, Visual Studio App Center supports both JavaScript and native code development, allowing developers to easily incorporate platform-specific features and libraries as needed.
Data Storage and Backend Services: Expo provides a set of cloud-based services, such as Expo Push Notifications, Expo Payments, and Expo Auth, which simplify the integration of common backend functionalities in applications. It also offers built-in data storage options like AsyncStorage for persisting data locally. In contrast, Visual Studio App Center does not provide specific cloud-based services or data storage options. It focuses more on the build, test, and deployment aspects, while leaving backend integrations to be implemented using other tools or services.
Deployment and Distribution: Expo offers a simplified deployment process with its over-the-air (OTA) updates feature. Developers can publish updates to their apps without requiring users to download a new version from the app store. On the other hand, Visual Studio App Center supports various distribution channels, including app stores, private distribution groups, and direct installation via email or QR code. It provides more flexibility in terms of distributing the app to different target audiences.
Analytics and Monitoring: Expo provides basic analytics and monitoring capabilities, allowing developers to track user sessions, crashes, and performance metrics through its own dashboard. However, it lacks advanced custom tracking options and fine-grained monitoring features. In contrast, Visual Studio App Center offers more comprehensive analytics and monitoring capabilities, allowing developers to track custom events, set up funnels, perform A/B testing, and gain deeper insights into app usage and performance.

In summary, Expo offers a streamlined development experience with ready-to-use features and simplified deployment, while Visual Studio App Center provides a comprehensive mobile app lifecycle solution with extensive CI/CD capabilities and advanced analytics and monitoring features. Choosing between the two depends on the specific requirements and priorities of the development project.

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Advice on Expo, Visual Studio App Center

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

Expo	Visual Studio App Center
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.	Automate the lifecycle of your iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS apps. Connect your repo and within minutes build in the cloud, test on thousands of real devices, distribute to beta testers and app stores, and monitor real-world usage with crash and analytics data. All in one place.
-	Build; Test; Distribute; Crashes; Diagnostics; Analytics; Push; CD/CI;
Statistics
Stacks 811	Stacks 113
Followers 693	Followers 232
Votes 66	Votes 4
Pros & Cons
Pros 15 Free 13 Hot Reload 9 Easy to learn 9 Common ios and android app setup 6 Open Source	Pros 1 Slack integration 1 Show error issues for mobile devices 1 For Mobile apps diagnostics and tracking 1 Bug tracking integration
Integrations
React Native	GitHub Bitbucket Azure DevOps Slack

What are some alternatives to Expo, Visual Studio App Center?

Jenkins

In a nutshell Jenkins CI is the leading open-source continuous integration server. Built with Java, it provides over 300 plugins to support building and testing virtually any project.

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.

Travis CI

Free for open source projects, our CI environment provides multiple runtimes (e.g. Node.js or PHP versions), data stores and so on. Because of this, hosting your project on travis-ci.com means you can effortlessly test your library or applications against multiple runtimes and data stores without even having all of them installed locally.

Codeship

Codeship runs your automated tests and configured deployment when you push to your repository. It takes care of managing and scaling the infrastructure so that you are able to test and release more frequently and get faster feedback for building the product your users need.

Flutter

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

React Native

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.

CircleCI

Continuous integration and delivery platform helps software teams rapidly release code with confidence by automating the build, test, and deploy process. Offers a modern software development platform that lets teams ramp.

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.

TeamCity

TeamCity is a user-friendly continuous integration (CI) server for professional developers, build engineers, and DevOps. It is trivial to setup and absolutely free for small teams and open source projects.

Related Comparisons

Expo vs Visual Studio App Center: What are the differences?

Development Approach: Expo is a comprehensive development tool and platform that allows developers to quickly build and test React Native applications without the need for configuring complex native build tools. It provides a streamlined development experience with features like live reloading, instant previews, and easy device testing. On the other hand, Visual Studio App Center is a mobile app lifecycle solution that offers a wide range of services such as build, test, distribute, monitor, and engage. It supports multiple platforms and frameworks, including React Native, and provides extensive CI/CD capabilities.
Built-in Features: Expo comes with a rich set of pre-built features and components that are readily available for developers, including APIs for camera access, push notifications, location services, and more. These built-in features help speed up the development process and simplify the integration of common functionalities in React Native apps. In contrast, Visual Studio App Center does not provide pre-built features like Expo. Instead, it focuses more on the continuous integration and deployment aspects of the app lifecycle.
Native Code Support: Expo primarily focuses on web-based and pure JavaScript development for React Native apps, aiming to provide a smooth cross-platform experience. It restricts direct access to native code and libraries, which can be a limitation for certain projects that require native code integration. On the other hand, Visual Studio App Center supports both JavaScript and native code development, allowing developers to easily incorporate platform-specific features and libraries as needed.
Data Storage and Backend Services: Expo provides a set of cloud-based services, such as Expo Push Notifications, Expo Payments, and Expo Auth, which simplify the integration of common backend functionalities in applications. It also offers built-in data storage options like AsyncStorage for persisting data locally. In contrast, Visual Studio App Center does not provide specific cloud-based services or data storage options. It focuses more on the build, test, and deployment aspects, while leaving backend integrations to be implemented using other tools or services.
Deployment and Distribution: Expo offers a simplified deployment process with its over-the-air (OTA) updates feature. Developers can publish updates to their apps without requiring users to download a new version from the app store. On the other hand, Visual Studio App Center supports various distribution channels, including app stores, private distribution groups, and direct installation via email or QR code. It provides more flexibility in terms of distributing the app to different target audiences.
Analytics and Monitoring: Expo provides basic analytics and monitoring capabilities, allowing developers to track user sessions, crashes, and performance metrics through its own dashboard. However, it lacks advanced custom tracking options and fine-grained monitoring features. In contrast, Visual Studio App Center offers more comprehensive analytics and monitoring capabilities, allowing developers to track custom events, set up funnels, perform A/B testing, and gain deeper insights into app usage and performance.

Expo vs Visual Studio App Center

Overview