Overview

React Native

Stacks34.3K

Followers29.5K

Votes1.2K

GitHub Stars124.4K

Forks24.9K

Next.js

Stacks7.2K

Followers5.1K

Votes328

GitHub Stars135.4K

Forks29.7K

Next.js vs React Native: What are the differences?

Next.js and React Native are two popular frameworks used for building web and mobile applications respectively. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Target Platform: The main difference between Next.js and React Native lies in the platforms they target. Next.js is primarily used for building server-rendered React applications that run in the browser, while React Native is specifically designed for building mobile applications that run natively on iOS and Android devices. This means that Next.js applications can be accessed through web browsers, while React Native applications can be downloaded and installed as standalone apps on mobile devices.
User Interface: Another key difference between Next.js and React Native is how they handle the user interface. Next.js uses HTML, CSS, and client-side JavaScript to render the user interface on the browser, which provides a more traditional web-based experience. On the other hand, React Native uses platform-specific UI components to render the user interface, allowing the app to have a more native look and feel on mobile devices.
Code Sharing: Next.js and React Native also differ in terms of code sharing. With Next.js, code written for the web application can generally be reused for the server-side rendering, but it may not be directly compatible with React Native. React Native, on the other hand, allows for a significant amount of code reuse between iOS and Android platforms, as the majority of the codebase is written in JavaScript.
Development Workflow: The development workflow for Next.js and React Native also varies. Next.js applications are typically developed using existing web development tools and workflows, such as npm or yarn for package management and industry-standard build tools like webpack. React Native, on the other hand, has its own set of tools and development workflow, including the use of Expo or React Native CLI for package management and running the app on emulators or devices.
Performance Optimization: Performance optimization is handled differently in Next.js and React Native. In Next.js, server-side rendering can improve initial page load times and search engine optimization (SEO) by pre-rendering the application on the server. React Native, on the other hand, focuses on performance optimization for mobile devices, with features like the VirtualizedList and FlatList components for efficiently rendering large lists.
Third-party Libraries and APIs: The availability and compatibility of third-party libraries and APIs can also differ between Next.js and React Native. Next.js, being a browser-based framework, can leverage a wide range of existing JavaScript libraries and browser APIs. React Native, on the other hand, has its own set of native modules and APIs for accessing device functionalities, although it also provides bridging capabilities to interface with existing native libraries.

In summary, Next.js is primarily used for building server-rendered React applications that run in the browser, while React Native is specifically designed for building mobile applications that run natively on iOS and Android devices, providing a more native look and feel. Code sharing, development workflows, performance optimization, and third-party library compatibility also differ between the two frameworks.

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Advice on React Native, Next.js

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.

490k views490k

Comments

Taylor

May 5, 2020

Review

Hey guys,

My backend set up is Prisma / GraphQL-Yoga at the moment, and I love it. It's so intuitive to learn and is really neat on the frontend too, however, there were a few gotchas when I was learning! Especially around understanding how it all pieces together (the stack). There isn't a great deal of information out there on exactly how to put into production my set up, which is a backend set up on a Digital Ocean droplet with Prisma/GraphQL Yoga in a Docker Container using Next & Apollo Client on the frontend somewhere else. It's such a niche subject, so I bet only a few hundred people have got a website with this stack in production. Anyway, I wrote a blog post to help those who might need help understanding it. Here it is, hope it helps!

758k views758k

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

React Native	Next.js
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.	Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.
Native iOS Components;Asynchronous Execution;Touch Handling;Flexbox and Styling; Polyfills	Zero setup. Use the filesystem as an API; Only JavaScript. Everything is a function; Automatic server rendering and code splitting; Data fetching is up to the developer; Anticipation is the key to performance; Simple deployment
Statistics
GitHub Stars 124.4K	GitHub Stars 135.4K
GitHub Forks 24.9K	GitHub Forks 29.7K
Stacks 34.3K	Stacks 7.2K
Followers 29.5K	Followers 5.1K
Votes 1.2K	Votes 328
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 51 Automatic server rendering and code splitting 44 Built with React 34 Easy setup 26 TypeScript 24 Universal JavaScript Cons 9 Structure is weak compared to Angular(2+)
Integrations
No integrations available	React

What are some alternatives to React Native, Next.js?

Node.js

Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Laravel

It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

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.

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

Flutter

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Symfony

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Spring

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