1. It Simply Pays Off
The sooner your mobile app reaches the market and a wide audience, the sooner it starts generating revenue. Therefore, it’s that simple, and this is the main reason our clients opt for hybrid apps. But why do we use React Native?
2. Cross-Platform Compatibility
As of Q1 2024, Android and iOS together hold 99.27% of the global mobile operating system market share. If you’re targeting this market, you must consider both platforms. React Native allows you to develop a single app that works seamlessly on both.
3. Fast App Development Process
Got an idea you want to test as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)?
No problem!
Unlike native development (directly on Android or iOS), React Native supports hot reloading and fast refresh, enabling developers to see changes in real time without rebuilding the entire app. This feature significantly boosts the speed and efficiency of development—a true game-changer that has made this technology extremely popular.
4. Future Development and Maintenance
A common scenario: your app hits the market and succeeds, and now you want to expand its reach. Consequently, this usually means launching it on another platform (Android or iOS) while continuing to develop the existing one. In turn, this requires hiring and maintaining two separate development teams and ensuring smooth communication between them to maintain consistency. Therefore, you’ll have to spend more money to achieve the same results, plus bear double the maintenance and testing costs.
How does React Native solve this problem? You write one codebase that works for both iOS and Android. Thinking about a web app based on your existing mobile app? We can build it in React and reuse 70% of the existing code. A single developer can create and maintain these three apps (Android, iOS, web) using one programming language—but more on that in the next point.
5. Javascript – React + React-Native
Both React Native and React (web) use the world’s most popular programming language—JavaScript (with a 63.61%1 global market share among developers). This means you won’t have any trouble finding a developer who can manage and maintain your project for years.
You don’t need to hire separate teams for Android, iOS, and web. A single codebase can handle UI components, business logic, typing, and testing, significantly speeding up development and reducing project costs.
6. Easy Integration
Another advantage of hybrid app development is that developers don’t need to search for specialized SDKs, APIs, and other tools for each platform separately. For the most part, hybrid apps can be built using the same, shared SDKs and APIs.
Additionally, React Native allows for quick customization based on the operating system and its version. You decide which components are identical across platforms—this flexibility is not a limitation.
7. Community Support
Since Facebook released React Native in 2015, it has been continuously supported and developed. In 2018, React Native’s GitHub repository became the second most popular open-source project2 worldwide. Its immense popularity ensures regular updates and support for both older and newer versions of Android and iOS, as well as a wealth of libraries to use. This is an ideal environment for innovative projects to thrive!
8. Superior UI/UX and Performance Compared to PWA, Close to Native
Someone might ask: Why develop a mobile app when I can create a web app that looks good in a mobile browser? This is known as a PWA (Progressive Web App).
While convenient, PWAs have limitations in terms of smooth performance, device functionality (like camera and Bluetooth), user experience, and building relationships through personalization or push notifications. You can learn more about this here.
How does React Native compare to native apps?
React Native uses native components for the interface, and recently, both displayed components and animations run on the native UI thread, making the app’s speed and size comparable to native apps. Differences are noticeable only in highly complex (and poorly written) apps that require many background operations.
9. No Limitations
If something can’t be done in React Native, what then?
Just kidding!
We roll up our sleeves and write a native module, which we then integrate into the existing React Native app. Developers still have access to native app files in Android and iOS folders. Native code written in Objective C or Java works well for innovative implementations, utilizing Turbo Native Modules for this purpose.
10. Affordable, Fast, and High-Quality
These are the standard client requirements, and contrary to popular belief, they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. React Native is the only technology that allows us to meet all three conditions in 98% of cases.
