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Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?

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Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?

#101

Post by TechBro8615 »

Interesting timing, since I've just started experimenting with this. I'm a Web/TypeScript developer who wants to create a mobile application which doesn't do too much fancy stuff, but will rely on some esoteric WebView logic (think injected scripts) and possibly a Rust module. I've been reading up on Flutter and React Native, and am currently in the process of the Flutter "Hello World" tutorial. So far I've been really impressed with the docs, but I'm literally on hour two of this experiment.

I'll probably try React native too, but I've been using React for six years and frankly I'm sick of it - I wanted a change of pace, and I feel like React Native is a bit of a crutch for web developers. Sure you can keep using TypeScript and CSS and everything in a WebView, but you end up with a janky application that buckles under the weight of all its abstraction layers. And it seems like a lot of effort just to avoid learning something new.

What I absolutely do not want to do is code the same thing twice, once for Android and once for iOS. So far it seems like Flutter or React Native are the best options. This blog post [0] convinced me to experiment with Flutter first.

[0] https://stackoverflow.blog/2022/10/31/comparing-frameworks-f...

Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?

#103

Post by jconley »

matthewwolfe wrote: post #83
jconley wrote: post #32

React Native. TypeScript. NestJS backend, NextJS frontend. The ability to easily share code across the full stack is underrated. Of course you need someone that thinks at that high level building it.

Finally I have a relevant blog post! Reflecting on Code Sharing React and React Native https://matthewwolfe.github.io/blog/code-sharing-react-and-r...

Yeah this is my experience as well. You can share a ton of code if you think about it up front. But the UI is not worth it. So different.

Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?

#104

Post by winrid »

Grimburger wrote: post #97
winrid wrote: post #5

Nothing beats native. 2nd best is what you know. I'm using egui right now for quickly putting together a native cross platform tool. For a startup, again I'd pick what you know. RN and Flutter will provide similar experiences for most apps. Flutter will perform better with charts etc.

I'm a massive egui fan but I don't think you properly compare an immediate mode framework to the retained mode behemoths of Flutter or React Native. Mobile is ruled out. Some very basic things people take for granted like flex layouts are also incredibly hard to do right. They have different use cases. That said, I love egui and have built a bunch of in-house tooling with it, such a joy to work with and uses barely a…

Actually I wouldn't call Flutter and React retained mode. They're basically fancy immediate mode. That's why React is so productive.

Flutter looks to be the same. Even google's docs say (paraphrasing) "isn't doing the layout every frame slow? No, because the runtime is optimized".

Not suggesting using egui btw, just off handed mention. :)

Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?

#106

Post by petabytes »

brigadier132 wrote: post #29

Gonna say something controversial, the future of mobile apps is going to be webviews. It's already the case for desktop. iPhones are getting cpus that are close to desktop CPUs from 5 years ago and they can run 3d games.

Ive written a few android apps in webview, and I don't want to do it ever again. For small apps maybe, but large scale apps in JavaScript is a nightmare to maintain.

Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?

#107

Post by bartaxyz »

itake wrote: post #13
joshuawright11 wrote: post #6

Purely curious; why not start natively with iOS or Droid (depending on which one your target audience uses more)? You'd have the easiest native API access and fewer headaches. Once you hit PMF & have proven the idea, add the second platform. Is there a benefit to launching on both platforms out of the gate? Unless perhaps there are specific React web assets you'd like to reuse to get up and running faster via React n…

> Purely curious; why not start natively with iOS or Droid (depending on which one your target audience uses more)? For me, React is just easier to use than natively supporting iOS or Droid. No new languages or skills to learn. I also found for social/marketplace apps, Droid users are the supply and iOS is the demand. Can't have one without the other.

With Swift UI & Jetpack Compose, I found it really easy to make a jump from React to either platform. The mental model is pretty similar to React in both. Sure, Android is still a lot of boilerplate (in my opinion), but Kotlin & Swift are also relatively easy to get into, especially if you happen to have some OOP experience.

Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?

#108

Post by bartaxyz »

jconley wrote: post #32

React Native. TypeScript. NestJS backend, NextJS frontend. The ability to easily share code across the full stack is underrated. Of course you need someone that thinks at that high level building it.

On the opposite, I find that sharing code across full stack is becoming overrated. The reason I'm saying this is because that often leads to some very messy dependencies, and maintaining that codebase can become really difficult if you're not very careful.

Additionally, I found that in some teams, people would use some backend code on the frontend, resulting in some security vulnerabilities (server-side logic running on FE instead of BE). Instead, now that we have backend (Go) & frontend (TS) teams at my work, both teams consider the best practices for each environment with more focus. You could say that the same people do that with the same stack, but in my experience, if you allow people to put more focus on the one component they're building, they'll just build it better than when they have a plethora of other dependencies to consider.

The main problem could be talent, as if you have specialised people, you always have to hire for both of these positions (or train your people in either direction internally). But I honestly never experienced a shortage of people. It's more of a problem if you have a shortage of money, at which point, you should just use whatever you can build with the quickest to keep your business afloat.

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