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I'm embarking on a side project. Its a native hybrid app. I've used Phonegap / Ionic / Angular a lot to build apps quickly. I'm researching React Native at the moment. Has anyone who's used both of these have any comments or +/- about each one?

Joel
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1 Answers1

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I've used both extensively. We have been using React Native in production for about 5 months now, and have previously worked with Ionic / Angular, and Phonegap projects for 3 years.

Here are the pros and cons of React Native, in my opinion, from someone who has fairly extensive experience in both. I'm not going to go into Ionic since you already have some experience there.

React Native Cons:

  1. New technologies that you have to learn (React if you haven't already used it, Android environment & understanding of Xcode)
  2. New data architecture and frameworks (Redux/Mobx/Flux/Reflux/etc...)
  3. Fairly new and documentation is still coming along but not completely there yet (Though the community is amazing at helping answer questions)
  4. Learning how to style React Native is just similar enough to CSS to get you in trouble and frustrate you in the beginning

React Native Pros:

  1. Very fast development time
  2. Amazing user experience when loaded on device (true native feel in my experience vs hybrid)
  3. Hot reloading
  4. Flux & similar data architecture (once you learn and understand it)
  5. Fun to build once you learn it
  6. Not a steep learning curve
  7. Amazing community

If I were to meet someone and recommend one over the other I would definitely recommend React Native. That being said, PhoneGap / Cordova and Ionic are all still very solid and if you feel productive and are not in the position to spend some time learning a new technology, I would say stick with one of those.

Nader Dabit
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    Thanks. React Native is sounding good. – Joel Oct 22 '15 at 22:02
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    thanks for sharing your experience. but the only thing I should add is that if you want to have a browser platform too (I mean a desktop browser web app) react native have some difficulties and Cordova is much better choice. – Mohammad Rafigh Oct 23 '15 at 20:46
  • @nader-dabit I am using react for my web. I have a whole bunch of components and routes. Shall I just create a react native webview for ios/android app. Or shall I develop views/text/images etc for native. Or is there a way I can reuse react web components in react native. Let me know your 2 cents. Thanks in advance. – Ravi Mar 28 '16 at 04:04
  • Thanks for the explanation, can you elaborate on Live Reload? – Bhumit Mehta Jul 13 '16 at 08:01
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    @BhumitMehta check out *hot reloading*: https://facebook.github.io/react-native/blog/2016/03/24/introducing-hot-reloading.html – Mr. B. Nov 19 '16 at 12:55
  • Is react native cross platform? For example, if I'm only comfortable in ios and not android or vice versa. Do I need good understanding of both android and ios to be able to write xplatform apps with react ? – bianca Sep 28 '17 at 23:51