Kotlin vs NativeScript vs React Native

Overview

NativeScript

Stacks533

Followers1.1K

Votes516

GitHub Stars25.3K

Forks1.7K

React Native

Stacks34.4K

Followers29.5K

Votes1.2K

GitHub Stars124.4K

Forks24.9K

Kotlin

Stacks17.7K

Followers11.9K

Votes650

GitHub Stars51.5K

Forks6.1K

Kotlin vs NativeScript vs React Native: What are the differences?

Popularity and Adoption: Kotlin is a programming language that focuses on the Android platform, gaining popularity among Android developers due to its concise syntax and interoperability with existing Java code. NativeScript is a framework for building native mobile applications using JavaScript or TypeScript. React Native, on the other hand, is a popular framework developed by Facebook for building cross-platform mobile applications using JavaScript. While Kotlin is specific to Android development, NativeScript and React Native allow developers to build applications for both iOS and Android platforms.
Performance and Native Components: Kotlin compiles down to Java bytecode, which runs on the JVM, while NativeScript allows direct access to native APIs for maximum performance. React Native uses a bridge to interact with native components, which can introduce performance overhead compared to Kotlin and NativeScript.
UI Components and Design: Kotlin relies on XML layouts for defining user interfaces, similar to Java. NativeScript uses a single codebase for both iOS and Android applications, with full access to native components for a consistent look and feel. React Native utilizes a JavaScript to UI mapping, allowing developers to create components using JavaScript for a more flexible UI design approach.
Tooling and Community Support: Kotlin has strong support from Google and the Android community, with dedicated tools and resources for Android development. NativeScript provides a robust set of CLI tools for building and testing mobile applications efficiently. React Native benefits from the large community of JavaScript developers, offering a wide range of libraries and plugins for extending functionalities.
Code Reusability and Maintenance: Kotlin enables code reuse through its interoperability with Java, allowing developers to leverage existing Java libraries and frameworks. NativeScript promotes a single codebase for iOS and Android, reducing the need for platform-specific code. React Native encourages code sharing across platforms, with the ability to write platform-specific code when necessary for optimal performance.
Learning Curve and Documentation: Kotlin offers a smooth learning curve for Java developers, with comprehensive documentation and resources provided by Google. NativeScript requires knowledge of JavaScript or TypeScript for building applications, with documentation tailored to guide developers through the framework's features. React Native benefits from the vast resources and tutorials available for JavaScript developers, making it easier for newcomers to get started with cross-platform development.

In Summary, Kotlin is tailored for Android development, providing strong community support and interoperability with Java, while NativeScript focuses on building native mobile applications with direct access to native APIs, and React Native offers cross-platform development using JavaScript with a wide range of libraries and resources.

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Advice on NativeScript, React Native, Kotlin

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

Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

176k views176k

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

Detailed Comparison

NativeScript	React Native	Kotlin
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.	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.	Kotlin is a statically typed programming language for the JVM, Android and the browser, 100% interoperable with Java
100% Access to Native Platform API;NativeScript is free of charge as an open source project;Code with JavaScript. Style with CSS;Cross-platform UI abstractions;Shared business logic and data models	Native iOS Components;Asynchronous Execution;Touch Handling;Flexbox and Styling; Polyfills	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars 25.3K	GitHub Stars 124.4K	GitHub Stars 51.5K
GitHub Forks 1.7K	GitHub Forks 24.9K	GitHub Forks 6.1K
Stacks 533	Stacks 34.4K	Stacks 17.7K
Followers 1.1K	Followers 29.5K	Followers 11.9K
Votes 516	Votes 1.2K	Votes 650
Pros & Cons
Pros 75 Access to the entire native api 47 Support for native ios and android libraries 46 Support for javascript libraries 46 Angular 2.0 support 44 Native ux and performance Cons 5 Lack of promotion 1 Slower Performance compared to competitors	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 Slow	Pros 73 Interoperable with Java 55 Functional Programming support 51 Null Safety 46 Official Android support 44 Backed by JetBrains Cons 7 Java interop makes users write Java in Kotlin 4 Frequent use of {} keys 2 Hard to make teams adopt the Kotlin style 2 Nonullpointer Exception 1 Slow compiler

What are some alternatives to NativeScript, React Native, Kotlin?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

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.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Related Comparisons

Kotlin vs NativeScript vs React Native: What are the differences?

Popularity and Adoption: Kotlin is a programming language that focuses on the Android platform, gaining popularity among Android developers due to its concise syntax and interoperability with existing Java code. NativeScript is a framework for building native mobile applications using JavaScript or TypeScript. React Native, on the other hand, is a popular framework developed by Facebook for building cross-platform mobile applications using JavaScript. While Kotlin is specific to Android development, NativeScript and React Native allow developers to build applications for both iOS and Android platforms.
Performance and Native Components: Kotlin compiles down to Java bytecode, which runs on the JVM, while NativeScript allows direct access to native APIs for maximum performance. React Native uses a bridge to interact with native components, which can introduce performance overhead compared to Kotlin and NativeScript.
UI Components and Design: Kotlin relies on XML layouts for defining user interfaces, similar to Java. NativeScript uses a single codebase for both iOS and Android applications, with full access to native components for a consistent look and feel. React Native utilizes a JavaScript to UI mapping, allowing developers to create components using JavaScript for a more flexible UI design approach.
Tooling and Community Support: Kotlin has strong support from Google and the Android community, with dedicated tools and resources for Android development. NativeScript provides a robust set of CLI tools for building and testing mobile applications efficiently. React Native benefits from the large community of JavaScript developers, offering a wide range of libraries and plugins for extending functionalities.
Code Reusability and Maintenance: Kotlin enables code reuse through its interoperability with Java, allowing developers to leverage existing Java libraries and frameworks. NativeScript promotes a single codebase for iOS and Android, reducing the need for platform-specific code. React Native encourages code sharing across platforms, with the ability to write platform-specific code when necessary for optimal performance.
Learning Curve and Documentation: Kotlin offers a smooth learning curve for Java developers, with comprehensive documentation and resources provided by Google. NativeScript requires knowledge of JavaScript or TypeScript for building applications, with documentation tailored to guide developers through the framework's features. React Native benefits from the vast resources and tutorials available for JavaScript developers, making it easier for newcomers to get started with cross-platform development.

Kotlin vs NativeScript vs React Native

Overview