When to choose React Native for your application

React Native is the first robust cross-platform language for mobile that is gaining a lot of traction right now. There are plenty of applications in that take advantage of React – think giants like Facebook, Skype, Instagram, Tesla, and Airbnb.

Mobile devices are all over the place, and you can be that users have installed many different apps on their smartphones. Is there any way your application could stand out?

React Native could be your solution.

Read on to find out what React Native is and why it might be the right choice for your mobile development project.

What is React Native?

To put it simply, React Native is a framework that allows building native mobile apps with the help of a battle-tested programming language, JavaScript.

Without React Native, you'd first have to develop your mobile app using Java or Swift/Objective-C, depending on whether you wanted your app to work on Android or iOS. With React Native, you no longer have to make that choice. You can build a fully-functional app on both platforms in much less time and use a single coding language.

React Native was created by Facebook to build its social platform. After a while, Facebook also released ReactJS for web development as open source. But when dealing with their mobile app, Facebook still encountered some challenges. For starters, developers had to maintain two codebases: one for iOS and one for Android. When implementing features in Swift on iOS, developers had to duplicate their work to implement the same features in Java on Android.

With React Native, developers can write code in JavaScript and deploy it to both Android and iOS, avoiding all the issues that crop up with asynchronous app development.

Why choose React Native for your project?

React Native was for a long time seen as unfitting commercial requirements simply because it wasn't developed or supported enough to build native-like apps. But it's becoming more popular and gaining serious community support these days, making it easier for everyone to take advantage of it to write apps.

So when is it a good idea to use React Native?

React is an excellent solution if you already have frontend developers but no mobile developers, and you would like to create a simple application. However, avoid treating React as a substitute for mobile developers. To create an application, you'll still need the people who know the functionalities provided by the system offers and can use them correctly.

React also comes in handy for applications that don't require a strong integration with the system. If you want to have a more integrated application, it's possible to insert native code to your codebase, but then you're performing an action that doesn't make sense in the cross-platform availability of React.

One of the main advantages of React is the fast iteration of changes which works great when working on proof of concept projects. React allows redeploying changes onto devices very quickly without the need for standard rebuilding of the project.

An important thing to consider when choosing between native and React is the fact that the framework's future as a third-party product is unclear. If your project is to last long and become the core of our business, and you don't have infinite financial resources for retraining and employment, native development is a smarter choice.

Read also: How to choose the programming language for the project

The takeaway

According to Statista, by 2020 mobile apps are going to generate $188.9 billion in global revenue through both app stores and in-app advertising.

If you want to ride the mobile successfully, you need to pick the right development strategy for your mobile product. And that begins with choosing between native development and taking advantage of solutions like React Native. I hope this article helps you in making that choice.

Have you got any questions about React Native?

Leave a comment below; we're always looking forward to solving new challenges and puzzles in our mobile development projects.