React Native Or Xamarin : Which One Is Better ?

React Native Or Xamarin : Which One Is Better ?

The smartphone industry has been continuously increasing over years at tremendous scale . Google’s android and Apple iOS are the two most popular operating system in the industry which together contributing 95 % of the smartphone world .

As it has been seen year by year growth in smartphone industry, so is the demand for mobile application today . Thousand of apps are getting flooded in the app market every day on both Android and iOS platform . Thereby it is important to develop apps that can the ability to stand out in the crowd pool of apps . And in order to achieve it , there is a need of good mobile app development company who are aware of. right sets of tools required for app development .

When it comes to development of apps , there is always a long debate which gets followed in respect to choosing the technology stack . Apps can be either build on Native platform or cross platform . Each of the platforms has their own pros and cons . But since this article is about cross platform app development , we are limiting our discussion to cross platform app development only .

Also Read : Which Apps Suits You Best : Hybrid VS Native ? 

When it comes to cross platform app development  these are lots of different spices available in the market such as Ionic app development , PhoneGap app development , React Native app development , Xamarin app development and so on . An app is said to be cross platform app when. developer has to right a single code for the application which works across both Android and iOS and other operating system as well such as Windows .

While talking about native , each platform has their own specific sets of developers , who have to write code individually for each platform , which usually takes longer time .

We although has a long discussion but question remains the same : React Native Or Xamarin ?

Introduction To React Native And Xamarin 

React native is a cross platform development tools that allows use of Javascript , but Xamarin uses C# for designing awesome user interfaces . The big app examples of React natives apps are facebook , Instagram , Airbnb , while Slack and Pinterest are developed on Xamarin .

One of the best thing why more person are preferring React Native is that it is a free tool for building any kind of application , while on the other hand Xamarin does not offers a lot on free module specially if you’re designing for big purposes .

Comparison Between React Native And Xamarin

# Developmental Comparison

As we are aware that both Xamarin and React Native are open source framework but the development platform is completely different for both of them .

Xamarin development requires configuration of Microsoft’s Visual Studio which in turn contain the tools for generating Android SDK . For iOS , Xcode is required which is only available for Mac .

In React Native , developer needs to install Node together with Atom and visual studio to write javascript code

# Performance Comparison

Xamarin performs higher on both 32-bit an 64-bit mode which aids developer in designing fastest UI use native tools directly .

On the other hand React Native is presently not capable of delivering 64-bit mode on android , and thereby does not gives good result on both Android and iOS platform , but it does have an option to cushion design the UI using native widgets .

# Complexity Of Code

React Native is based on the concept of Just In Time (JIT) that helps conversion of programmable source code into native codes just before the program is run . The major drawback of this is it can’t be used in iOS apps .
Whereas on the other hand Xamarin uses Ahead-Of-Time (AOT) complication since JIT is not expandable to iOS . In AOT code is combined even before starting of the application. The main reason behind this is security feature that does not allow writeable executable segments , which thereby makes Xamarin a better choice .

# Speed And Time For Development

When it comes to developmental time and compile of mobile apps – the bigger the size of the app , Xamarin will take longer to compile . That means bigger project consumes more time and so in the cost in Xamarin .
On the other hand , React Native is based on javascript , and it contains the hot reloading feature which aids developers in seeing the changes recently made by them without recompiling the app , they simply has to just refresh the app , thereby giving fast testing environment .

# Debugging

When talking about Xamarin , debugging is a simple process and can be done in the same way as that of a .NET application using Visual Studio , which thereby contributes to positive aspects for Xamarin .

When it comes to debugging in React Native , it can be done in similar way as debugging in web applications. You can either take advantage of chrome developer tool or any other third party debug tools.

# Design

In Xamarin , we have 2 approaches for designing the UI  , the first one being platform -specific way ( ie by using XML for android and storyboards for iOS ) , on the other hand developers can also use Xamarin . Forms that can the capability of sharing the code on both android and iOS platform .
In React Native allows you to use customised components thereby we can say React Native is better choice for developers as projects has always been defined by the level of UI it contains .

# Framework

React Native uses one way data flow for all developmental purposes , whereas on the other hand Xamarin uses MVVM framework style .Both frameworks has their own pros and cons and it depends on person requirement which framework to be used .


Both platforms has their own pros and cons and the use of the one totally depends on each client individual requirement . However in comparison on the matter of facts Xamarin is more preferable by developers due to its end user faster performance along with classic approach .React native delivers low performance and at the same time does not offer native looks and feel that Xamarin delivers . We have cleared our vision , now the choice is unto you .