Comparison Between Ionic Vs React Native

Mar 13, 2018 Mobile 16529 Views

Ionic and React native are the two leading frameworks used by the developers in 2018. however ionic is developed by Drifty in 2013 and react native is developed by Facebook. Sometimes it becomes very difficult for developers, whether to choose between iOS and Android or between Ionic vs React Native.

Before diving in the differences between Ionic vs React Native, let’s briefly remind ourselves what are Hybrid vs Native App.

The hybrid app allows you to easily build on multiple platforms like ios, android, windows so learning languages like HTML, CSS, Javascript one can create powerful hybrid apps.If you are looking for a quicker and cheaper way to develop an app, you need to go for hybrid Mobile App Development. whereas Native apps are those applications that are designed for a specific mobile Operating Systems like iOS or Android. They are built using different programming languages like Swift or Objective-C for developing iOS app and Java (Android Studio) for Android apps now since they are developed keeping one OS in mind, they feel more right to the users as compared to any other type.

Ionic Overview

Ionic Framework is an ultimate open source software development kit (SDK), used for developing hybrid mobile applications and web technologies by using JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5. Ionic mainly focused on the look, feel and User Interface of an app.Ionic is mainly built on two combinations of Apache Cordova and Angular. That’s why it is highly recommended to all, who are planning to develop their next app should consider Ionic as their framework of choice.

In addition, Ionic provides tools and services for developing hybrid mobile apps using Web technologies like CSS, HTML5, and Sass allowing web developers to use HTML and TypeScript to create mobile applications that can be effectively deployed on Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. All together Ionic technology offers the great solution for creating both mobile web apps and native apps.

What's New in Ionic 3?

Ionic is using SemVer (Semantic Versioning). There is a major update to the framework in Ionic 3.0. Likewise, the changeover from Ionic 1 to Ionic 2, the Ionic 3.0 is not a new framework, completely.

Given a version number, MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH increment the:

MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backward-compatible manner,
PATCH version when you make backward-compatible bug fixes.

When we upgrade our internal version of Angular, we are bumping the Ionic version according to whether the Angular upgrade is major, minor or a patch. Since this release upgrades Ionic to be compatible with Angular 4.0 and it also has incompatible API changes, it had to be a major release.

Angular 4

They have updated Ionic to be compatible with Angular 4 This upgrade introduces new features, smaller and faster applications, support for a more recent version of TypeScript, and much more.

TypeScript 2.1 and 2.2 compatibility

Typescript is the superset of javascript which acquires all the classes of javascript along with its own. Like Angular, Ionic has been updated to work with a more recent version of TypeScript. This upgrade will improve the build time and type checking in your application. It also introduces support for mix-in classes, the ability to use async-await in Ionic, and much more.

IonicPage Decorator

Gone are the days of passing a deep link configuration to your application’s root module. You can now set up deep links by using the @IonicPagedecorator. This makes it easier to set up lazy loading in your application, set the priority of lazy loading pages, and customize the configuration for each individual page.

Lazy Loading

Ionic 3 includes support for lazy loading. The changes affect the file structure and navigation of your application, but they will ultimately speed the application up. Every time we load the application components loads and which makes the app to perform slow but while using lazy loading only required components loads and which improves the speed of the application.

Advantages of the Ionic Framework

Open source
It helps in creating default mobile app UI functionalities easily and efficiently.
Write once, run on all mobile devices
It is enveloped by Cordova and PhoneGap.
It helps in creating default mobile app UI functionalities easily and efficiently
Good availability of "Plugins"

React Native Overview

React Native is a Javascript framework for rendering mobile application in iOS and Android. React is a Facebook’s Javascript library for building user interfaces which target mobile platforms. So now developers can make mobile applications using this Javascript library which can be shared between platforms that make it easy to develop in both iOS and Android.

Features of React-Native

1. Community Support
There are considerable advantages to using such a community-driven environment like the availability of a huge team of enthusiastic JS and native developers willing to share their knowledge and expertise and huge catalogs of freely available components.

2. Code Reuse & Cost Saving
By using React Native, you can use the same code for deployment on iOS as well as on Android. This means a huge saving in development time and cost. Theoretically, the development effort could be cut by half. In practice, the cost saving will be a little lower.

3. Virtual-Dom Support
If you have two windows opened – one containing the code and the other showing a mobile screen as a result of the code – you can immediately see the effect of what you have changed in one screen, on the other screen.

4. Performance
The React Native architecture is very well tuned to mobile devices. It makes use of the GPU, while native platforms are more ‘CPU intensive’ which improves the performance.

5. Architecture similar to React
The modular and intuitive interface makes it very easy for other developers to delve into someone else’s project and build upon it. This increases the flexibility within a development team and makes it easier to create updates and upgrades to web applications. Additionally, testers will need less time to understand the programming logic and build appropriate testing scenarios. This will lead to valuable time-savings for both mobile and web platforms.

Advantages of React Native

It is independent of the iOS and Android platforms. This means that the code developed can be used across both platforms.
As React Native allows you to use the same code for deployment on iOS as well as on Android
When discussed with so many React Native developers of this community, any issue related to React Native can be quickly solved.
Easy and Live Reloading no need to refresh the window it automatically refreshes the virtual Dom.
It is managed by a very strong community of developers and corporations, which helps novice developers to speed up the learning and development process.

Ionic 3 Vs React Native: Which is better

Choosing the right framework depends on many factors like your project, your user requirements, the acquired skills of your team, your budget and many factors. They both do different things, and both do it well.

I personally value the React native as native rendering more than the rest. React Native is preferable for speedy app development without compromising the quality of apps for multiple platforms.In React Native, writing pure native applications, or pure hybrid apps are possible.

Check out our process on how to Build a Complete Mobile App with Ionic Framework