React vs React native: Key features,Pros & Cons - Dotnettricks

Girdhar Gopal Singh

Print 7 min read

29 Aug 2022

Intermediate

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React and React Native are the two technologies widely used in the development of mobile and web applications. Both of them use JavaScript and are prevalent for building mobile and web user interfaces. Are you perplexed on which one to choose from Reactjs and React Native? Do you want to know which one is better than the other? Well, the following article provides complete insight on the difference between them:

What is Reactjs?

Reactjs is a JavaScript library that supports the server as well as the front-end. It is extensively used for creating user interfaces for websites and mobile apps. This library benefits from the fast-speed operation of JavaScript. This fast speed benefit combined with a new approach of rendering webpages makes this library responsive and dynamic.

After the release of this library, it turned out to be very prevalent due to its innovative approach to programming user interfaces. The same gives a tough competition to Angular, React, and other famous web development tools. Once you get familiar with Reactjs, you can become a successful react developer.

Being one of the popular JavaScript libraries, Reactjs does have a widely spread over the world having a strong community of developers, who have created an extensive ecosystem of processes and resources, collection of reusable component libraries, extensions for code editors, video resources for the learning, web browsers, and many more resources.

What is React Native?

After the release of React, Facebook started working on a cross-platform mobile framework. The idea behind this is to maintain a pace with the rising mobile needs of the tech giant. In simple terms, React Native is a cross-platform type mobile framework utilizing Reactjs for building websites and apps. The compilation of native app components allows the programmers to develop mobile apps that can operate on various platforms like Android, iOS, and Windows in JavaScript.

Similar to React, React Native is too based on JavaScript. However, it is designed to develop native mobile applications using reusable components. When it comes to the learning curve, if any developer knows React then learning react-native gets easier because React-native components use React to build it so having prior knowledge of React, learning-curve is straightforward while developing applications using React Native.

Before the introduction of React Native, the app developers were using different tools for different platforms. With React Native, you can seamlessly create applications over multiple platforms. The modules covered in React Native Training helps you to gain full expertise in this framework.

Key features of Reactjs:

Blazing fast speed:

From a business viewpoint, one of the greatest aspects of Reactjs is its capability to provide blazing fast speed for the websites and applications through the DOM (Document Object Model). React makes an in-memory data structure cache that calculates the resultant differences. Subsequently, it updates the displayed DOM of the browser. The programmer works on writing the code in a way that the whole page is rendered on every change. Only the sub-components that are modified are rendered.

With the feature of Virtual DOM, the rendering mechanism becomes effective while the user is interacting with the UI, and it benefits better usability and allows the application to serve its purpose aggressively.

Large network of developer tools:

Reactjs comes with a large community of developers. These developers have created a huge network of tools, IDEs, component libraries, web browsers, extensions for code editors, and more.

The accessibility of a broad range of extensions and third-party tools explores innovative features. For that, it saves resources and time simultaneously. The innovations are powered by the community which makes Reactjs one of the famous choices for making cutting-edge apps and websites. When you attain a react js certification, you will gradually perceive the benefits of a huge network of developer tools.

There are so many developer tools are already there in a market that makes development, design, debugging so precisely so that the time and the performance of the application get reflected into higher productivity out of it.

Saves time:

Reactjs implements a component-based architecture that facilitates the reusability of components. Therefore, it saves a huge amount of time. Essentially, this architecture works on the individual segments of a bigger user interface. Moreover, it transforms them into an autonomous, self-sufficient micro-system.

Key features of React Native:

Smooth UI experience:

React Native comes with ready-to-use UI libraries. They are quite useful to developers for a smooth UI experience. The sharing of UI libraries like Expo, Shoutem, native base, and some others significantly save time otherwise spent on building them from scratch. The saving of time results in more emphasis on innovations.

Platform-specific code:

One of the greatest key features of React Native that makes it popular is its ability to produce platform-specific code. This kind of code is useful to build websites and apps. When you use the React Native

When you use React Native for building an app, this framework automatically recognizes the platform on which it runs. Consequently, it produces the appropriate code for the relevant platform.

Easy learning curve:

The easy learning curve and easy usability make sure even a front-end web developer can build an app through React Native. Because the majority of the code available in React Native is Javascript, for a front-end developer, it becomes simpler to quickly create an app. Moreover, a front-end developer can easily grasp the technology. With the knowledge of platform APIs, Javascript, a few native UI elements, and some platform-specific design patterns, it becomes easy to create apps. Besides, non-programmers can also easily create apps without excess effort.

Cons of Reactjs:

Poor documentation
More time for learning
Covers only the UI Layers of the app
Overhead expenses and time
Long data hierarchy

Cons of React Native:

Absence of native libraries
Absence of security robustness
Needs more time to initialize
The loosely held abstraction layer
Needs plenty of native workarounds
Patenting & License issues

Differences between Reactjs and React Native:

Reactjs can be illustrated as a base derivative of the React DOM, extensively used for the web platform. On the other hand, React Native is a base derivative on its own. This implies that the workflow and syntax stay the same whereas components changes.
Reactjs uses virtual DOM for rendering browser code whereas React Native uses native APIs for rendering the components in mobile.
Reactjs is a JavaScript library that allows the programmer to build a high-performance and engaging UI Layer. On the other hand, React Native is a complete framework for creating cross-platform apps whether it is Android, iOS, or web.
For creating a dynamic, high-performance, and responsive UO for web interfaces, Reactjs is a good option. But if you want to employ native feeling to mobile apps then React Native is a better alternative.
The apps created using Reactjs implement HTML in UI whereas React Native makes use of JSX for rendering UI (it is essentially JavaScript).
For creating styling, Reactjs uses CSS whereas React Native uses a stylesheet.
If we need to build a performance-centric, dynamic, robust along responsive UI for web interfaces, then Reactjs is the best choice while if we need to give mobile apps a truly native behavior then React Native is the best option to choose from.