React Native Development - Frequently Asking Questions

If you still not sure about choosing React Native as the framework for your mobile application, don’t worry! We’ve got you covered.

Our team selected the most common questions about using React Native in a project and gave the answers to them. Webspaceteam hopes that this short guide will help you make things much clearer.

1. What is React Native?

React Native is a framework that uses JavaScript language for building native mobile applications. It means that you can use one codebase to build an application for multiple platforms: for iOS and Android, for example.

With React Native you can reduce the overall cost of your project and shorten the development time. Another big advantage is that it requires just one team to work with React Native for development instead of two separate teams for Android and iOS.

2. What is the importance of React Native?

One of the most important things about React Native is that you can use the same codebase for two platforms: iOS and Android.

React Native Developers use one framework for multiple platforms. Also, it’s a fast-growing framework - few years ago nobody knew that it would be possible to use React Native without touching any native code.

3. How much code-reuse is there with React Native?

At the beginning of developing with React Native, we can reuse around 75-80% of code. But now that number has bumped up to about 90%. It happens because of iOS and Android third party libraries that have solutions for edge-cases. Interesting that we also see more reusability between React for web and React Native. With proposed solutions, the gap keeps shrinking.

4. Does React Native save money?

If you are looking to develop an application for iOS and Android platforms, the answer will be YES! But if you are planning to release an application for only one platform, then probably React Native will not be the best option. It’s a rare example when React Native would cost more. But for the present day, it’s very popular to develop one application for two platforms at once.

5. Will React Native make your app look and run the same way on iOS and Android?

First of all, we should remember that React Native is only a way of accessing the native components in two different platforms: iOS and Android. But those platforms offer different sets of features and React Native can’t be responsible to make these environments equal.

Of course, we can make applications on both platforms look the same, but we shouldn't. We should remember about platform guidelines when it comes to user interface and with React Native update the UI to the given needs of the platform.

6. Should you choose React Native development or native approach (iOS and Android)?

React Native is a great option for most apps that rely heavily on the user interface. With little effort, we can get the UI to work on both iOS and Android, and, the most important thing, we can share the business logic.

On top of that, React Native uses flexbox for layout, which works the same way on iOS, Android and Web. This means that we can transfer our experience from the Web instead of learning new engines.

On the other hand, a native app is much better when we consider using all the features that a platform (iOS and Android) offers, including such modules as video and audio processing or multithreading. As long as React Native focuses on the User Interface only, it can be less advisable for applications with many native features.

7. What are the key advantages of using React Native over native?

The biggest advantage of React Native is you only have to build your app once, in JavaScript language. Traditional development for iOS and Android apps requires two versions being produced from scratch, but React Native allows using one codebase. This saves time on developing and makes maintenance leaner as your developers don’t have to do the same job twice.

On top of that, React Native uses flexbox for layout, which works the same way on iOS, Android and Web. This means that we can transfer our experience from the Web instead of learning new engines.

Beyond speeding up development is the availability of an open-source library of prebuilt components. So, you don’t have to spend time writing code to add additional features to your app. It's very likely that someone who has already shared that functionality with the community. It follows that skilled developers can get a basic React Native app up and running in just a couple of hours using prebuilt components.

Conclusion

If you are looking to cut costs and speed up development time without compromising on quality or productivity, React Native is just exactly what you need. This approach allows writing a regular React-based app with native controls, as a result, is smooth performance and native user experience.

You can resettle to React Native from Java/Kotlin or Swift/Objective-C by adding more functionality through native modules. This makes React Native a perfect fit for projects where owners want to improve an app they already have without building a new one from scratch.