Flutter vs React: What are the differences?
Introduction
Flutter and React are both popular frameworks used for building cross-platform mobile applications. While they serve the same purpose, there are key differences between the two that developers should consider when choosing which framework to use.
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Performance: Flutter has its own rendering engine, called Skia, which allows it to achieve exceptional performance. It uses Dart, a compiled language, which enables it to provide near-native performance. React, on the other hand, uses a virtual DOM to update only the required components, which can impact performance compared to Flutter.
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Language: Flutter uses Dart as its programming language, which is a statically-typed language developed by Google. React, on the other hand, uses JavaScript, which is a dynamically-typed language widely used in web development. This difference in languages can have an impact on how developers approach and write code within the respective frameworks.
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Hot Reload: Flutter offers a feature called "Hot Reload" that allows developers to see the changes made in the code instantly, without having to recompile the entire application. This makes the development process faster and more efficient. React, while also offering a similar feature called "Fast Refresh", is not as instant as Flutter's Hot Reload.
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UI Components: Flutter has its own set of UI widgets and components that are consistent across different platforms. This means that the UI created using Flutter will look the same on both iOS and Android devices. React, however, relies on the native components of the platform, which may result in slight differences in the UI across different devices.
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Development Environment: Flutter provides a comprehensive development environment called "Flutter SDK" that includes all the necessary tools and libraries needed for development. React, on the other hand, requires additional packages and libraries to be installed separately, resulting in a more complex setup process.
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Community Support: Both Flutter and React have active and growing communities, but React has been around for a longer time and has a larger community compared to Flutter. This means that React has a wider range of third-party libraries, resources, and community support available, making it easier for developers to find solutions and get help.
In summary, Flutter and React have differences in terms of performance, language, hot reload, UI components, development environment, and community support. These differences should be considered when choosing a framework for cross-platform mobile application development.