Back in 2015, at the React.js conference, Facebook introduced their new framework React Native stating that it would revolutionize the way mobile applications are created. Initially, when it was released, there was only support for iOS but since then the support for Android has been added and is still expanding.
React Native has been showing relevant growth in the past five years. Among the apps in the play store, there are over 32k apps developed with React Native with over 38 billion downloads, making React Native the third most-used open-source framework in the app development market.
The Ever-Growing Popularity of React Native
React Native is expanding massively in terms of popularity as a convenient solution to build mobile apps with less strain on your budget. There are a lot of renowned brands such as Instagram, Tesla, Bloomberg, Walmart, Discord, Skype, Wix, and many more making extensive use of React Native framework to stand out in the competitive app development market.
The expert team behind React Native is modernizing its architecture constantly. Their goal is to make React Native more lightweight by reducing API surface area and improving the speed of apps developed with the library. The community suggestions and users’ issues are quickly addressed and this one factor will be responsible for its steady growth.
Mobile app development: Its types
As the mobile app development industry is rolling out various apps now and then, businesses need to keep a keen eye on the types of applications to leverage a better customer experience. Every day, different types of apps are developed keeping in mind different purposes and user needs.
The need to understand the app dynamics has become much of a necessity for businesses aiming for success out there in the competitive digital market. Before we dive into the advantages of React Native, here are the three basic types of mobile apps for mobile app development.
Web App
Web apps execute on the mobile platform but instead of running directly on the OS, they are executed within the mobile browser. Once developed, it can be deployed on any platform, there’s no need to target a particular platform.
Hybrid App
Hybrid applications are half web apps and half native apps. They make use of native features and can be distributed through an app store. Hybrid apps are the best solution to make MVP(Most Viable Products) that can be made available even offline.
Native App
Native app development is when an app is created targeting a particular platform such as Android or iOS. It allows us to utilize the maximum potential of a mobile device. As it targets only one operating system, it provides faster and more efficient performance.
Benefits of Using React Native for App Development
Hybrid app platforms are evolving to balance the user experience and web development cycles. Among them, React Native is best known for developing complex hybrid apps that give a natural user experience with its advanced features and ability to dive into native ones on each platform.
The biggest advantage of React Native is that you have to use one framework, one styling engine, and one toolchain to develop apps for both platforms. React Native is rich and feature-filled. Let us walk you through the benefits of using React Native for your react native app development.
Speeds Development Process
The applications developed using React Native provides a smooth and seamless app development process. The most appealing side of React native is that it speeds up the app development process without compromising on the quality of the application.
React Native is very different from other Javascript frameworks that offer a slower service comparatively. With React Native you will notice that they focus on delivering high-quality applications within a short period. The reason being its speedy development process is React Native app development framework, React JS UI.
Saves Money
With React native 90% of the framework’s code can be implemented on multiple platforms. The single codebase certainly minimizes the development time as you have to develop an application only once in Javascript. Along with that, as the development time is minimized, the react native app development cost gradually decreases too. This proves beneficial for budding startups where there is a cost constraint.
Moreover, React Native apps even lower your maintenance and development costs to a great extent. As you don’t have to deal with two separate codebases for Android and iOS, it is quite budget-friendly.
Rich User Interfaces
With the help of pre declarative components such as Slider, Picker, and Switch, React Native helps you develop unique user interfaces. You can even use iOS and Android-specific components to make your app more compelling on iOS and Android respectively.
As React Native comes along with an open-source Javascript library, programmers can use it to make very fast-loading UIs. this helps in providing a great user experience for their end-users. React tools and components help you become more efficient when creating intuitive and beautiful UI.
Reusable Codes
The feature of the single codebase is like a unique selling proposition of React Native. The reusability of similar codes saves you from the headache of investing additional time and effort in developing individual platforms. It becomes much more feasible for app developers.
React Native goes by a principle, ‘Write once launch anywhere’. The concept of this principle is that you can reuse the written code for both android and iOS. It promotes a cross-platform possibility where an application can be deployed on iOS platforms as well as Android platforms at the same time.
Free and Open-Source
One of the many perks of React Native is that it is free and open-source. This allows developers to use its libraries and frameworks for free. The thing that not many know about is that it is also worked under the MIT license. It is a software license that gives your app legal protection and puts limited restrictions on its reuse of it.
Moreover, the loyal community around React Native app development implements its extensive libraries and APIs. It can be used in app development code without any operability concerns.
Realtime app updation
React Native accelerates the app development process with massive readymade components and hot reloading features. You can save up to 40% of the development effort with the help of an expert and experienced React Native app development companies, leading to shorter development time making it easy to market.
Hot reloading helps in keeping the app running smoothly, even when the app is growing. With the hot reloading function, while you are adding new versions and updates of the app, it takes less than a second to save the file and see the changes.
Quick Updates
Facebook is trying its best with the help of updates to ensure that businesses always find a reason to opt for React Native. It is constantly getting recognized within the purview of the latest versions and quick updates.
React Native comes along with a streamlined process for updating apps. The updates are implemented in an app through the air update feature so that the developers don’t news to update apps through the play store or the app store. Along with that, they don’t require permission from Google or apple for quick updates.
Third-party Integrations
React Native has a way of integrating and synchronizing itself with native modules. With the help of the frameworks, it can be integrated with components and app features such as camera, GPS, etc feasibly. This not only eliminates the need for additional integration efforts for developers but also supports internal device programming.
A lot of the features in React Native get a JavaSript library that unifies code in JavaScript itself. This keeps the platform specifics well handled in its open-source libraries.
Written in JavaScript
React native simply lets you develop mobile applications using only javascript. This lets programmers compose a mobile UI from declarative components themselves. The correspondence of the mobile components with the web components makes it easier to develop the applications, especially for JavaScript developers.
When it comes to React Native app development, you don’t need your developers to learn an unknown language or coding syntaxes if they are already familiar with JavaScript.
React Native Communities
Last but not the least, another best benefit of React Native is that it comes with an extensive community backed by Facebook. This community has experts sharing diverse demographic and experience backgrounds helping anyone with their existing issue.
React native communities help in exploring the latest trends and new curves in app development. It provides a lot of helpful assistance to anyone who is facing a problem or an issue while working with React Native.
Winding-up
The best part about React native is that it is continuously upgrading and progressing itself with innovative solutions. React Native is growing fast and bringing in a digital revolution with no signs of stopping. Now more than ever, apps developing with React Native are skyrocketing thanks to the popularity of cross-platform applications. Conclusively, if you want to reach new heights of success, developing an application with React Native would be a wise choice.
