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Electron vs React Native: What are the differences?

When it comes to developing cross-platform applications, Electron and React Native are two popular choices. Electron is a framework that allows developers to build desktop applications using web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, while React Native is a framework that enables the development of mobile applications using JavaScript and React. Although they share some similarities, there are key differences between the two.

  1. Performance: Electron apps are known to consume high amounts of memory and can have slower performance compared to native applications. On the other hand, React Native apps, being closer to native, generally have better performance and use less memory.

  2. Deployment and Distribution: Electron applications are easily distributed as standalone executables that can be installed on various operating systems. React Native apps, while they can generate executables for different platforms, need to be submitted to respective app stores for distribution.

  3. User Interface: Electron allows developers to build highly customizable desktop UIs using web technologies, providing a wide range of design possibilities. React Native, on the other hand, focuses on providing a set of native components that are available for use across different platforms. This allows for a more consistent user experience but limits the flexibility of UI customization.

  4. Platform Support: Electron supports Windows, macOS, and Linux, making it suitable for building desktop applications for a wide range of operating systems. React Native primarily targets iOS and Android platforms, making it ideal for mobile application development but limiting its compatibility with desktop platforms.

  5. Development Workflow: Electron developers typically use tools like Electron Forge and Electron Builder to streamline the development process and package the application for distribution. In React Native, developers rely on package managers like NPM and use platform-specific build tools to create app binaries.

  6. Native Capabilities: Electron applications have access to a wide range of native system capabilities through APIs, allowing developers to interact with the file system, hardware, and other system resources. React Native, while it supports native integration, requires additional modules or third-party libraries to access native features.

In summary, Electron is best suited for building feature-rich desktop applications with advanced UI customization, while React Native is ideal for creating mobile applications that prioritize performance and cross-platform compatibility.

Advice on Electron and React Native
Nikhilesh Goyal
Senior Embedded Engineer at GreyOrange · | 5 upvotes · 467.9K views
Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutterReact NativeReact Native
and
UnityUnity

Hi Friends, I am new to #MobileAppDevelopment and I need to make a #CrossPlatformMobileApp. I want guidance regarding which tools should I use to build a mobile app. Main requirements: integrate Unity game engine and provide a platform for social chats.

Past experience - C++ and Python

I have tagged Flutter and React Native but if anything better than both please suggest them.

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Replies (3)
Sahil Singh
Product Manager at AutoVRse · | 10 upvotes · 427.8K views
Recommends
on
UnityUnity

Hey, If you are using Unity you are going to have to do the end to end development on Unity, you can directly build for android and iOS on Unity. I dont see how Flutter or React Native fit into this equation. Unity is a standalone engine. As for Social Chats, you could use Firebase or your own API and integrate that in Unity in C#

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Recommends
on
UnityUnity

I agree with Sahil. If Unity is a requirement, best way is to use just that to create your app.

If you really want, it should be possible to use Flutter and Unity together. Using Flutter Unity Widget. Although I wouldn't recommend it just yet. It's too early days.

If you do end up using it, I would be very interested in reading about your experiences.

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Mathieu Grenier
Recommends
on
UnityUnity

You can start by small steps with Flutter and after Unity. Flutter = best choice to build a small cross-platform mobile app. With or no flutter, use directly Unity. Y'll have complete control but it's harder for new mobile developers. Keep in mind, the requirement is Unity!

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Needs advice
on
ExpoExpoReact NativeReact Native
and
ReduxRedux
in

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

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Replies (1)
Javier Silva Ortíz
Senior Full Stack Developer at Aleph Engineering · | 6 upvotes · 289K views
Recommends
on
ReduxRedux

Well, the first resource I would recommend you is my upcoming book by Packt Publishing, "Professional React Native", but it's due late January next year :) . Now jokes aside (the book's real by the way :) ), the easiest way to build a iOS/Android/Web app with React Native is to do: npm install -g expo-cli expo init some-project cd some-project expo eject

You might have heard of Expo, but trust me, stay away from it. Expo highest value is that it's an already pre-configured 3 platforms environment, but if you don't eject then you're vendor-locked to what Expo has to offer in iOS and Android, which is very poor compared to going full React Native on these platforms, they can't even handle Google Sign In properly and by the way, even if your app is 10 lines of code your app size will be over 40 MB if you don't eject, yep it's that bad, plus the performance is regular and the loading times slow, not to mention that you're stuck with their build service which the free tier makes you wait for hours for a free build slot. It's important to note that when ejecting you don't lose the Web, you simply do expo start --web to start your dev environment and expo build:web to build a static website that you can serve with any web server. Regarding state management, don't bother with "lifting state up" philosophies mixed with Context API to manage your state, lifting state is a great pattern and helps your codebase, Context is great to avoid prop-drilling, but NEVER mix them to achieve app-wide state management, for that, simply go for Redux or MobX, the hype is all about Redux, but I consider MobX far better in many aspects. However, as you're getting new into this I would recommend you start with Redux AND PLEASE grab yourself npm install @manaflair/redux-batch so that you can batch updates and don't bring your app to a crawl. Forget that "connect HOC" thing with React-Redux, don't bother for a second with it, go with Hooks and useSelector and useDispatch and the likes, it will make your code SO much cleaner and smaller. Adopt clean and new Hooks philosophy, avoid writing class components as much as possible and write function components augmented with Hooks.

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Needs advice
on
React NativeReact Native
and
Vue NativeVue Native

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!!!

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Replies (1)
Barry Hylton
Recommends
on
Vue NativeVue Native

Vue Native is definitely production-ready in my experience. I've used both, have apps built with both in production right now, and both are fine technologies. As far as I can recall, there's nothing in RN that you can't do in VN. Given that, I would say go with "the devil you know".

That said, the one downside of VN over RN is that there are a lot more people using RN last I checked, so there are likely more resources readily available.

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Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutter
and
React NativeReact Native

Hi, I'm a web dev and am using Electron for a desktop app. Now I have to develop a mobile app with the following features:

  • Posting/uploading files by users, private messaging between users, download files, moderation of the uploads, push notification of new posts.
  • Mods can ban users and delete files.
  • Share buttons from the library folder of the user phone.
  • When a user uploads a photo, a pencil tool for deleting staff on the pic.

Which tool is better for such a project?

Thanks in advance

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Replies (2)
Lee Dydo
Technology Development Manager at Outform · | 5 upvotes · 378.1K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Given your experience in electron I think the shortest hop is going to be React Native. Especially since half of the requirements are server-side. Google is doing a pretty great job bringing up Flutter and the tooling is pretty great. For me however, dart seemed like quicksand and not everything is in its final home. React Native is mature, and considering my cursory analysis of your experience and the low complexity of this project, you've got quite a lot of room to grow into Javascript Land. Ultimately, my recommendation is always "play with both, see what you like, and get to know the documentation and the community." Keep your head on a swivel and set aside time to peek greener pastures, but spend most of your time delving deeply into what you're already doing.

But yeah, go with React Native first, get bored of it, learn what the shortcomings are through experience and then see if something else is really more attractive or just a new shiny.

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Varun Sharma
CTO at Nugen Computer & I.T. Services · | 5 upvotes · 378K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Well, I will personally recommend to go for React Native as I have worked in both of them. React native has big community and it is easy to opt as compared to Flutter. There no doubt about the fact that Flutter is a great framework for developing both Android/IOS apps. However, you should have some experience to go for the same. Both will require prior knowledge as for React Native you have to go through Javascript first with which you are already familiar and for Flutter you need to go through Dart. So being familiar with Javascript you should go for React Native. You can go expo which has lot of inbuilt functionalities for the React Native developers.

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Needs advice
on
FlutterFlutterIonicIonic
and
React NativeReact Native

Hi, we are an early startup (with an iPOC prototype) but need to get started on our MVP, and our tech developers in India recommended a hybrid, and they use Ionic, then we spoke with a software company in the US and he recommended Flutter or React Native. Any advice or input for us on the differences between these? Our app will need Bluetooth GPS for "near me" and social media sharing reviews capability, and also link on the backend with businesses. Thanks in advance for any help you can give!

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Replies (6)
Dario Alves
Arquiteto de Software at Senior sistemas · | 2 upvotes · 488.7K views
Recommends
on
React NativeReact Native

Maturity, Community, Facility, Libs React Native is the principal platform of mobile cross-platform development today, Flutter is it's a promise.

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Ahmad Khan
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

I would never recommend you to go with Ionic, Because of the User experience it provides is subpar. Flutter is most promising, Can be easily used to develop great user experience in no time. React native is also good, but it's phasing out in my opinion, while Ionic has already phased out. Flutter also provides great developer experience, resulting in fast and productive developers. I would have to press hard to think of a CON about flutter when recommending it for your needs.

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Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Flutter is built on DART which is written in GO. GO compiles to binary. Hence is faster than any java based framework. It provides superior performance and has a simplified UI process for designing apps.

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Kevin Lücke
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

It depends also on your team skills. Flutter is fast to learn, fast to develop with and the performance is much better in comparison to React. If your team is already highly skilled in React Native it could be the better option - if not Flutter is my 100% recommendation. We rapidly prototype and deliver MVPs with Flutter since two years.

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Nicolas Kovacs
Recommends
on
FlutterFlutter

Even if React Native is older (I didn't say mature) you should go for Flutter, It's works really well and the developer experience is great (auto-completion, plugin etc). I spent years with React Native and now I am using Flutter and I don't regret It. Even if you have to learn a new language, It's pretty simple even more If you know some OOP, Java and Javascript ES6 syntax in some case. One other advantage is the facility to design app in Flutter, you have widgets for everything and you can adapt any design made by your designer. For example you can't make a simple custom box shadow with React-Native ...

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Recommends
on
IonicIonic
at

I don‘t have practical experience with flutter but between ionic and react native I‘d say both a perfectly viable options and we have used both for a number of production apps. We normally go with ionic on capacitor because we build a lot of pwa/web apps so we can use the same code for all. We don‘t use much of ionic elements, we do most styles on our own.

The comments that the user experience is bad I cannot agree with. A well designed and developed ionic apo can hardly be distinguished from a native app. But obviously that depends also on the usecase and type of app.

I hope this helps

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Decisions about Electron and React Native
Md.Riad Hasan Sarker
Javascript

one language can do simply everything(Development).

--Web Development, App Development, Desktop Development.

  1. You may learn java,kotlin for android development. 2.Swift or objective c for ios development. 3.php,python, or anything else for Web development including javascript.
  2. For desktop development you may learn c# or something like this.
  3. And JavaScript is playing a crucial part in entire data science workflow etc etc

Let's Come to the point ..

There are React,Vue,Anguar or node etc for Web Development. There is React Native for Android/ios development. Electron for Desktop development. All those technologies are based on javascript.

Your single programming language knowledge makes you boom...

Are you going to be love Javascript? it obviously makes you crazy than your thinking!!

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Thuan Nguyen
FE Lead at SOLID ENGINEER · | 5 upvotes · 613.5K views
  • Javascripts is the most populated language in the world.
  • Easy to learn & deployed production
  • Fast development
  • Strong community
  • Completed Documents
  • Native performance with lower RAM used.
  • Easy to handle native issues by using native code like Java / Objective C
  • Powered by Facebook.
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Nick Skriabin

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.

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Aleksandr Filatov
Contract Software Engineer - Microsoft · | 2 upvotes · 391K views

I've done some Hybrid Mobile apps with both technologies Apache Cordova and React Native and described my experience in my blog.

In a few words, I would suggest to use each technology in accordance what what is your current code base and what do you want to achieve.

React Native is a great option if you need that extra edge in performance with multi-threading and native UI rendering. Or you already have a web app based on React which you want to port to mobile.

On the other hand, if you have an existing web application code and you want to reuse some or all, including the ability to use web third-party libraries, then Cordova is the best option.

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Pros of Electron
Pros of React Native
  • 69
    Easy to make rich cross platform desktop applications
  • 53
    Open source
  • 14
    Great looking apps such as Slack and Visual Studio Code
  • 8
    Because it's cross platform
  • 4
    Use Node.js in the Main Process
  • 210
    Learn once write everywhere
  • 170
    Cross platform
  • 166
    Javascript
  • 121
    Native ios components
  • 68
    Built by facebook
  • 65
    Easy to learn
  • 44
    Bridges me into ios development
  • 39
    It's just react
  • 39
    No compile
  • 36
    Declarative
  • 22
    Fast
  • 13
    Virtual Dom
  • 12
    Insanely fast develop / test cycle
  • 12
    Livereload
  • 11
    Great community
  • 9
    It is free and open source
  • 9
    Native android components
  • 9
    Easy setup
  • 9
    Backed by Facebook
  • 7
    Highly customizable
  • 7
    Scalable
  • 6
    Awesome
  • 6
    Everything component
  • 6
    Great errors
  • 6
    Win win solution of hybrid app
  • 5
    Not dependent on anything such as Angular
  • 5
    Simple
  • 4
    Awesome, easy starting from scratch
  • 4
    OTA update
  • 3
    As good as Native without any performance concerns
  • 3
    Easy to use
  • 2
    Many salary
  • 2
    Can be incrementally added to existing native apps
  • 2
    Hot reload
  • 2
    Over the air update (Flutter lacks)
  • 2
    'It's just react'
  • 2
    Web development meets Mobile development
  • 1
    Ngon

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Cons of Electron
Cons of React Native
  • 18
    Uses a lot of memory
  • 8
    User experience never as good as a native app
  • 4
    No proper documentation
  • 4
    Does not native
  • 1
    Each app needs to install a new chromium + nodejs
  • 1
    Wrong reference for dom inspection
  • 23
    Javascript
  • 19
    Built by facebook
  • 12
    Cant use CSS
  • 4
    30 FPS Limit
  • 2
    Slow
  • 2
    Generate large apk even for a simple app
  • 2
    Some compenents not truly native

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- No public GitHub repository available -

What is Electron?

With Electron, creating a desktop application for your company or idea is easy. Initially developed for GitHub's Atom editor, Electron has since been used to create applications by companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Slack, and Docker. The Electron framework lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is based on io.js and Chromium and is used in the Atom editor.

What is 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.

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What are some alternatives to Electron and React Native?
Photon
The fastest way to build beautiful Electron apps using simple HTML and CSS. Underneath it all is Electron. Originally built for GitHub's Atom text editor, Electron is the easiest way to build cross-platform desktop applications.
React Native Desktop
Build OS X desktop apps using React Native.
React
Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.
JavaFX
It is a set of graphics and media packages that enables developers to design, create, test, debug, and deploy rich client applications that operate consistently across diverse platforms.
pygame
It is a cross-platform set of Python modules designed for writing video games. It includes computer graphics and sound libraries designed to be used with the Python programming language.
See all alternatives