Ionic vs React Native vs Native: Which one is better?

As the web technology advances, hybrid framework has became a viable choice for mobile development due to the nature of “write once, run anywhere”. But when it comes to each project, it hard to decide which technology to use.

The first two tools that come to mind when discussing this topic are Ionic and React Native. They provide an opportunity to create advanced solutions that are significantly cheaper than native ones and, additionally, feature very accessible technical support. So, which participant of the React Native vs. Ionic stance should be taken into account?

Ionic

Ionic Framework is an open source UI toolkit for building performant, high-quality mobile and desktop apps using web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript).

Ionic Framework is focused on the frontend user experience, or UI interaction of an app (controls, interactions, gestures, animations). It’s easy to learn, and integrates nicely with other libraries or frameworks, such as Angular, or can be used standalone without a frontend framework using a simple script include.

https://ionicframework.com/docs/intro

React Native

React Native. Having caused a real sensation in the mobile development niche, React Native is a full-blown JS-framework from Facebook developers. RN provides developers with the capability to create cross-platform software closely similar to native applications, which is also practically equal in performance. It is based on the ReactJS library.

This framework’s defining feature is the fact that it uses native components (which are individual to each platform and require dedicated bridges to set up a connection to JS code) for frontend, not requiring the employment of browsers or WebViews. This affects the application’s performance most positively.

https://applikeysolutions.com/blog/ionic-vs-react-native-what-s-the-difference

Native

Uses native java/swift to develop. Two separate projects for IOS and Android, no cross-platform

Comparison

Ionic

Advantage:

  1. IOS and android can basically share code, pure web thinking, fast development, simple and convenient, one-time coding, running everywhere, if you are familiar with web development, the development is less difficult. The documentation is very comprehensive, the system level support is better, and all UI components have html simulation, which can be used in both platforms.
  2. An online update is allowed to allow dynamic loading of web js.
  3. There are many documents, many developers, and many video tutorials are easy to learn.
  4. The problem is easy to solve and the technology is mature.

Disadvantage:

  1. Take up a bit of memory (but the phone memory is too large to affect).
  2. Not suitable for game type app, web technology can not solve all problems.
  3. For the more performance-consuming places, you can’t use the native thinking to achieve complementary advantages, such as high-experience interaction, animation, and so on.

React-Native

Advantage:

  1. Although it is impossible to run a code everywhere, basically even the two sets of code are the same jsx syntax, using js for development. User experience, higher than html, and high development efficiency.
  2. Flexbox layout is more simple and efficient than native.
  3. Online update is possible, in July 2015, App Store review policy adjustment: Allow dynamic loading code to run on JavaScript Core.
  4. Closer to the original development.

Disadvantage:

  1. It has more requirement for developers. When the officially packaged controls and APIs can’t meet the requirements, they need some native knowledge to expand. The scalability is still far less than the web. It is also far better than writing Native code directly.
  2. The official said very concealed: learn once, write anywhere. People can’t say run anywhere. In fact, from the official API to see SliderIOS, SwitchIOS.. and so on these controls, then there will be SliderAndroid, SwitchAndroid…, it is likely that you need to write multiple sets of code for different platforms.
  3. From Native to the Web, there are a lot of conceptual changes, which will inevitably lead to compromise. For example, the web uses a CSS cast version, and Native gets the final style through css-layout and then converts it into native native expression (such as IOS’s Constraint\origin\Center), such as animation. In addition, if both Android and IOS does the same encapsulation, concept conversion is more complicated.
  4. Development is still immature. At present, many UI components are only implemented by IOS and in android they need to be implemented by itself.
  5. The documentation is not complete enough The learning curve is too high.
  6. There are few documents and it is difficult to learn.

Native

Advantage:

  1. The best experience and function implementation.
  2. Improve mature development documentation and demos.

Disadvantage:

  1. Android development learning curve is higher.
  2. Separate development of each platform. It is difficult to have IOS, android dual platform master.
  3. High development costs and long development cycle.

Conclusion

In conclusion:

  • If cost and development time are limited and the application will be deployed to both IOS and Android. It’s better to use Ionic framework.
  • If customer has specific design requirements and there are different based on platform. It is better to use React Native.
  • If customer wants to have best performance and development time/cost allows. Then, native is an option. But there will be two different development and maintenance teams working on each of the platform.