Xamarin vs React Native: How To Choose Best Framework For Cross-Platform App Development

The very first stage of product development in 2022 is to choose the right technology for mobile app development. Choosing the right technology will help you to speed up and deliver the product and services to the customer on demand. Many business organizations are now looking for cross-platform development, using technology like react native and Xamarin for mobile app development that will reach many brands across the largest number of devices.

What made cross-platform development so popular? React Native and Xamarin, help to deliver the user experience that mimics native apps. React native had 38% markers last year for cross-platform app development, but both of them are equally popular. So a question arises about how to choose the best framework for cross-platform app development.

This article consists of a business overview of the different benefits of both React Native and Xamarin for app development and how to choose the right cross-platform app development platform

What is React Native?

React native is used by facebook in 2015, making huge change for developer and setting a high bar cross-platform app that are more similar to native apps. React native is launched for a better mobile experience. It is powerful and easy to use.

The pros and cons of React Native:

PROS	CONS
Multiple Platform	May lack certain custom modules
Render to Native UI	Advanced features may require native development
Hot Reloading	Performance still not as fast as native app performance
Easy to Learn and Use	JavaScript runtime
Fast Performance	Log when new iOS/ Android features released
Stable	Less efficient design
Update are not required, app store approval

What is Xamarin?

Xamarin was founded in 2011, It is based on Mono( a .NET framework) and microsoft purchased it in 2016. It is an open source framework used to create cross-platform apps in C# and .NET. Benefit of Xamarin is the ability to conver platform specify elements at runtime.

The pros and cons of Xamarin include:

PROS	CONS
Native UI, API and performance	Creates large application
Visula studio tools are easy to use and centrally integrated	Visual Studio only option
Xamarin Form(shared UI) and Xamarin (native UI) can be mixed	Limited functionalities
Leverages common enterprise knowledge of C# and .NET	Designed to work in a windows environment
Complete UI customization	Requires app store approval for updates
Can be used for native app building as well as cross-platform apps	Not loved by developers

React Native vs Xamarin:

Finding the right platform out of both React Native and Xamarin or any other cross platform app development framework, you must be aware about the short and long term implications. There are following key parameters who can consider while choosing the right app development platform.

1. Popularity: React Native has 38% market shares in 2021, compared to the 11% market share for Xamarin. These figures remained relatively stable in recent years.

2. Performance: Both React Native and Xamarin are excellent in performance. Xamarin is slight better because it it offer platform specific hardware acceleration. REact does not support multi processing which can result in performance hit.

3. Cost of Development: Both react native and Xamarin are free and open source. The only difference is Xamarin is restricted to Visula studio and React Native offer lot of flexibility to select IDE or text editor.

4. Maintainability: It is measured by how quickly each framework is updated. React Native does not need any approval from app store to make any update, While Xamarin take 1-3 days to be approved and integrated into the app store.

5. Choice of Programming Language: if you are using C# as a programming language then Xamarin is the solution for your. If you are preferring javascript as a programming language then React Native is the best fit for you.

6. UI and UX: React Native and Xamarin both are suited for simple UI. React Native may not support some of UI elements as Xamarin support use of native APIs.

7. Time To Market: For replacing native applications cross platform application framework are ideally more suitable to accelerate time to market. It depends on the availability of IT skills in the language you have choosed and libraries available for the applicatio development.

8. Consumption of App Memory: Optimizing usage and preventing leaks of memory are important consideration for any mobile application. React Native is clearly not suitable from memory stand point whereas Xamarin is suitable on an average basis.

9. Scalabiltiy: Every cross-platform app is created by keeping scalability in mind, React Native give advantage in term of availability and speed of updates to available libraries.

Conclusion

Cross-platform app development has now growing as a common for application development.Is React Native better than Xamarin? Many features to measure the right technology is mentioned above. It depend on the requirements and needs of your business logic.