This might be derailing but I've personally had a lot of success with CapacitorJS + Nativescript, which is a Webview with hooks into native API's for anything you might need access to at a lower level. But out of the list I'd probably pick Flutter, I don't really see Google culling it anytime soon.
Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
71–80 of 109 posts
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#72Been thinking of the same question recently. Appreciate all comments sharing their experience.
For those saying to native, I completely disagree. Going native for the same app running on multiple platforms will face the following issues:
- hard to be consistent.
- hard to get the exact same design especially when using native components.
- release lags and platform specific bugs. Unless you want to block releases for one app waiting for the other app to catchup.
- support effort will double especially if you’re making screenshots and screen recordings.
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#73Flutter
Dart is a nice language.
Lots of libraries.
Easy to fill in the gaps.
Manageable to bridge native.
Great community.
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#74I would use Kotlin multiplatform and Jetpack Compose multiplatform. But mainly because I already know Kotlin. It's definitively nicer than typescript though.
Jetpack Compose Multiplatform is in alpha status on iOS and Kotlin Multiplatform still has a a beta disclaimer on it, so I don’t feel like this is a good choice at this time. Something to keep an eye on for the future certainly.
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#75What about https://dioxuslabs.com/?
It uses the Rust language for development.
"One codebase, every platform. Dioxus is a React-inspired library for Rust focused on developer experience. Build fast, beautiful, and fully-featured apps for every platform in less time."
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
But then you're in Android Studio land. Have fun when adb refuses to recognise your connected Anroid phone. I gave up and created a React web app optimised for phones.
I have little experience with mobile development; my primary target now is the desktop and I have a Google Pixel so I have not encountered such a problem. And I am using IntelliJ more than Android Studio though I had no problem with that yet either. It would be a shame if Android Studio were not the best platform for Android development.
Android development is just very janky. There’s just so many pieces that sort of work together, until they don’t. It is Kotlin compiling to Franken-Java with a thick crusty layer of compatibility libraries because OS updates are completely broken on Android. ADB and Gradle just randomly break sometimes. The emulator is slow.
I’m not surprised that people are reaching for Flutter and React Native instead.
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#77Nothing 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.
QT is also really great, depending on what your app is.
As an end user, Qt apps do not feel particularly great. There’s just a lot of weird behavior in them and they just really feel off. At least that’s how the official demos from the Qt Company feel. I’m not sure how a real production level app feels. I’m not aware of any major apps that use it.
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#78Have you considered MAUI? I was looking at the newly announced VS Code extension for .NET 8 MAUI development and that piqued my interest again in MAUI. (Also the in-progress performance metrics of the .NET 8 preview using .NET NativeAOT versus classic Mono AOT are fascinating.) The stuff I've been directly building in the last few years has just been PWA/WebView [Ionic's Capacitor], because web stack is reliable and…
The value proposition here is great...if you're living in 2016. But that framework ship has sailed. People already have years of experience deploying React (Native) targeting all those platforms and the web. Competition is great, but this new UI framework will join the same graveyard of all Microsoft's other similar attempts. JavaScript will eat the world. At least Microsoft saved us somewhat by inventing TypeScript.
You can have JavaScript in MAUI. It's just as good a WebView host as anything else can be. I've seen plenty of "Blazor in MAUI" demos. (Maybe too many, as something of a sceptic about Blazor and its dumb brand name.)
MAUI is the "new brand on the street", but it's mostly just the latest revision of Xamarin's old stuff in a fancy new package and the option to call parts of itself in .NET now "System". There are people that already have years of experience deploying Xamarin stuff that (I hear) happily transitioned over to MAUI. (Sure, there's also plenty of people that think MAUI is too different from Xamarin and somehow killed their Xamarin puppy, because people will always hate any and all backwards compatibility breaks and semver MAJOR releases.)
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Flutter's widget tree is an abomination.
Can you elaborate? I've found it a delight.
A heavily nested widget can be a little sore on the eyes. You can break up heavily nested widgets into multiple widgets though.
This is also common to JSX though so not sure what the "abominable" comment is referring to.
Re: Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
QT is also really great, depending on what your app is.
As an end user, Qt apps do not feel particularly great. There’s just a lot of weird behavior in them and they just really feel off. At least that’s how the official demos from the Qt Company feel. I’m not sure how a real production level app feels. I’m not aware of any major apps that use it.
Interesting. A lot of open source software uses it via the python bindings. What do you mean by feels? Slow? Look? Layout? Isn't it all os-native widgets?