React Native vs Flutter — What to Choose in 2021?
Tags: career, reactnative, flutter, webdev
Published: 2020-08-22 14:02:50

**In a post-COVID world, If you’re wondering to pick any one of React Native & Flutter to learn mobile application development which can help you land a job immediately, then, you came to the right place because here I’m going to finally answer that question for you.**

I’ve worked on both of them and have quite a good experience to draw a line between these two very popular and most used technologies to build cross-platform mobile applications.

Cross-platform mobile apps have been a player in the last few years and are used by some very successful and prominent applications in the market. Also, it is the best choice for the employers right now when the market itself is so frugal after the COVID pandemic.

Yet before you start working on any of them you must know which one is beneficial for you at the moment since technologies are changing every day and so the market does.

I’ll compare them based on the following points:

[**1. Backed by whom?**](#backed-by-whom)
[**2. Job Prospects**](#job-prospects)
[**3. More Loved & Popular**](#more-loved-and-popular)
[**4. Learning Curve**](#learning-curve)
[**5. Performance**](#performance)
[**6. Adoption & Community**](#adoption-and-community)
[**7. UI Components and Customisability**](#ui-components-and-customisability)
[**8. Who is using them?**](#who-is-using-them)
[**9. Decisive Summary**](#summary)

So let’s start one by one.

# Backed by whom?

Well, both of these frameworks are made and backed by the biggest tech giants Google and Facebook respectively.
Google made flutter. Facebook made React.

**Both Winners.**
<a href="https://imgur.com/x8SW5pm"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/x8SW5pm.jpg" title="Both Winners" /></a>

# Job Prospects

React Native was launched in 2015 and the React Library on which it works was launched in 2013, while Flutter launched lately in 2017. Which made React Native handy for developers and created a good market dominance already.

However, Flutter seems to be grown exceptionally in the last couple of years. Being the best competitor indeed, we can see its good future in the job market in the next couple of years.
The demand for React native over Flutter is quite visible in this survey report by Stackoverflow as well. [Check here.](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted)

So, if you’re looking for a job in mobile app development then React Native would be a better choice. Post-COVID, the job market of React Native has increased and there’re more employers looking for React Native developers to develop and launch their products in the market in no time.

**React Native is the undisputed Winner.**
<a href="https://imgur.com/jDHdhzA"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/jDHdhzA.jpg" title="React Native is Winner" /></a>
# More Loved and Popular

It’s so obvious for a platform to gain popularity over time if it has been long in the industry and serves a good purpose. But gaining such popularity & love being new is rare. So, from the same [survey by StackOverflow in 2019](https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted) Flutter wins being more loved than React Native.

Also if we check their GitHub repositories, [Flutter got 98.9K Stars](https://github.com/flutter/flutter) while [RN is on 89.6K Stars](https://github.com/facebook/react-native) even after staying longer than Flutter. So it’s a quite visible Flutter is something on people's minds.

**Here the winner would be Flutter.**
<a href="https://imgur.com/ISUClD6"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ISUClD6.jpg" title="Flutter is Winner" /></a>
# Learning Curve

JavaScript is one of the most popular languages in the developer community and is used for React Native mobile app development. So anyone who knows JavScript already can learn “React” and hence can transition to React Native in no time.

While if we compare with Flutter, it uses the programming language Dart. If you’re familiar with Java or C++ then learning Dart won’t be tough for you. However, it’s a new language and has a learning curve. So if you want to make apps in Flutter, you need to learn a whole new language that might seem not winning in this category.

**So the winner is React Native.**
<a href="https://imgur.com/jDHdhzA"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/jDHdhzA.jpg" title="React Native is Winner" /></a>
# Performance

When it comes to performance, Flutter has the upper hand as it’s compiled to ARM or x86 native libraries, which makes it considerably fast. React Native isn’t compiled to native code, and it still has the JavaScript layer, making it less performant than Flutter.

In the future when we start to create much more intense software for mobile apps, performance will be extremely big criteria when it comes to deciding between which framework you’re going to use so actually **the winner of this category is most certainly Flutter**.
<a href="https://imgur.com/ISUClD6"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ISUClD6.jpg" title="Flutter is Winner" /></a>
# Adoption and Community

When it comes to building big applications, the community is a must to check. Because you might require help from people working on the same platform when getting stuck with something. So the criteria are how active and vast community you get and how much available the support is.

React Native has a massive developer community and countless 3rd party libraries & UI components to help you make your work simple. Even you get high-quality tutorials for React Native in almost every tech channel that makes it very convenient to work with.

In terms of programming languages, at least till now, Dart isn’t as widely used as JavaScript and so Flutter has a less experienced and smaller community at the moment.

While it is quite predictable that Flutter is catching up with RN very fast, yet **React Native is the Winner here**.
<a href="https://imgur.com/jDHdhzA"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/jDHdhzA.jpg" title="React Native is Winner" /></a>
# UI Components and Customisability

Flutter has its own set of custom widgets, rendered and managed by the framework’s graphics engine. It is designed to support Material Design out of the box. It saves time. A developer using Flutter can create most of the views with pre-made widgets which are easily customizable and cross-platform consistent.

React Native provides only basic out of the box components which are adaptive to a platform, like a button, slider, or a loading indicator.

As said earlier, there are lots of 3rd party components available for React Native. A developer can use them in a project but that requires additional effort and time.

**Flutter has to be the Winner here.**
<a href="https://imgur.com/ISUClD6"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ISUClD6.jpg" title="Flutter is Winner" /></a>
# Who is using them?

React Native is being used by Facebook Ads Manager, Myntra, Instagram, Bloomberg, Airbnb, Discord, etc. while Google Ads & Alibaba uses Flutter for their mobile apps.

So, React Native seems to be accepted by bigger apps and have better endorsements.

**The Winner in this category is React Native.**
<a href="https://imgur.com/jDHdhzA"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/jDHdhzA.jpg" title="React Native is Winner" /></a>
# Summary

**React Native looks more promising for you if:**
✔ you have some prior experience working on JavaScript
✔ Look for some endorsements from people already using it
✔ Might very often require additional support from the community
✔ Need a job immediately

**Go for Flutter if:**
✔ Performance is a big deal for you even if you are diverting from Native app developments(Android/iOS)
✔ Want things already made on your table
✔ Ready to learn a new and beautiful language
✔ You need to quickly build an MVP for your app

I hope you got a broader idea of what to choose when starting a career in any of them or building a mobile application that can stay competitive for a longer time.

You can add more points why you will choose one over the other in a post COVID world ..

...

Thanks for reading this blog!

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More About Author: [Om Bharatiya](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ombharatiya)

Happy Coding <3