With growing technology, mobile app development platforms are also rising rapidly. Nowadays developers are moving more towards building hybrid or native mobile apps. As we all are walking in the 21st century where everyone is becoming addicted to making use of SmartPhones. That’s why the need for mobile app development has become very high. There are millions of apps available in the App Store but it’s totally up to you to make your app shine among all other apps. In today’s time, developers are getting so much exposure to new technology and trends. That’s why it has become a complex task for developers to choose a particular platform for developing mobile apps that will satisfy user demands.

The choice of app development platforms matters a lot to make your mobile application more efficient, unique, feature-rich and attractive. The comparison of platforms is always a cumbersome task but if you want to rule the app world with your app then it’s important to focus on each and every single factor. The choice of mobile app development platform will decide the popularity of your mobile app. Are you really aiming to grow your business by developing a mobile app? If the answer is yes, then we are describing some strong points that will help you decide which platform is best for cross-platform mobile app development.

If we talk about Ionic and React Native, then both have some pros and cons. Going further in the deep discussion of these platforms, let’s see the full comparison of these two cross-platform mobile app development frameworks.

Ionic Framework: Ionic is considered as the most famous open-source, cross-platform framework which is based on HTML5 language. The main use of Ionic lies in building hybrid mobile apps that can run on multiple platforms with full ease. The involvement of HTML5 language makes this framework more attractive and intuitive to craft feature-rich mobile apps. The Ionic framework works with HTML5 that needs PhoneGap and Cordova to develop efficient apps. The Ionic framework has a huge capacity for developing mobile apps for all major App stores having a single code base for mobile web. The Ionic community has full capability to build apps that feel like home when running on any device.

Pros of using Ionic Platform

• Simple to adopt and learn using pre-defined components
• Clear and transparent documentation
• Similar code is used for crafting apps for different platforms like iOS, Android, Web Desktop, Windows Phone and more.
• Write the whole code only one time and run it anywhere
• Apache Cordova is used for accessing the hardware functionality of the phone
• Easy and fast testing process on web browser avoiding the use of heavy emulator loading
• The bulk of StackOverflow questions with the best support from the community
• Ionic is platform independent to work with any technology
• It helps to develop default mobile application UI functionalities
• For iOS, it works on iOS’s UIWebView and for Android, it works on Android’s WebView
• Supported by Google and made on Angular 2

React Native Framework

React Native is usually a JavaScript Library that is utilized to build the user interface (UI). The whole management of React Native is done by the skilled and proficient React Native developers from their community and from the leading company Facebook and Instagram. React Native allows developers to reuse the existing code for any iOS or Android App development cause. Two years after the release of Ionic, React Native was launched in the market. It is totally dependent on React and JavaScript library for developing intuitive user interfaces. Web developers are very much aware of the use of it as they had worked with React for the web development and know all the benefits and features. React Native is such a platform that allows native as well as cross-platform mobile app development.

Pros of using React Native Platform

• Simplest documentation process as compared with Ionic
• Similar code which can be used for Android, iOS and more
• It is coded in JSX which adds XML syntax into JavaScript
• Pre-made native components for the learning curve
• Learn one-time and write anywhere
• It has a high-performance capability
• Testing is performed by using the emulator or any real device
• It has strong GitHub stars with a huge community support
• Supported by Facebook and made using React
• It has a strong community support that enhances the whole learning and development process
• React Native has a good speed to deliver apps instantly
• If any issue occur with Native React app then it gets solved immediately
• It’s an independent platform and hence the code is developed which is used for both platform i.e. Android and iOS

As we had seen all the advantages of Ionic and React Native Platform, now it’s time to decide which one is better for mobile app development.

Ionic versus React Native

• Ionic uses web technologies for improving portability whereas React Native uses functional UI
• The code language used by Ionic is Typescript and React Native uses JSX
• Ionic has easy ways of learning like pre-developed and pre-styled components on the other hand React Native can be learned once and written on any platform
• Ionic provides code re-usability for Android, iOS, Web Apps, Desktop apps whereas React Native provide code re-usability for Android, iOS and Windows Phone applications
• The performance of code in Ionic can be seen in Web View and React Native has no such Web-view
• In Ionic, testing can be done on any browser but React Native uses emulators and real mobile devices
• In Ionic for accessing the hardware of the phone Apache Cordova is used and React Native is self-capable to access the hardware of the phone
• Both Ionic and React Native has strong community support
• Documentation in Ionic is very easy, transparent and proper whereas React Native has the very basic documentation process

Conclusion:

From the above-detailed information about Ionic and React Native platform, it has been clear that both platforms have its advantages and features which are used for cross-platform mobile app development. But the whole discussion was done to find out the best platform for hybrid app development. Now, after getting so much deeper in these platforms, it is evaluated that React Native is the preferable platform as compared to the Ionic. The reason involved in the whole choice of platform states that React Native has the ability to deliver speedy apps and has full potential to use JavaScript for adding huge functionalities and features.

Also, the mobile apps which are developed using React Native are always supported by the latest operating system (OS) platform which makes them the first choice for the mobile app development need. It is purely up to you to pick one mobile app development platform that will help your business to grow worldwide by developing an intuitive and attractive cross-platform mobile app. Just make sure that you are choosing the right platform as per your business needs. Because you have to keep all points in your mind like from budget to testing, each and every single point is responsible for the success of mobile app in the market.