Native Script and React Native Comparison

Whether to develop a cross platform application as a native app or as a hybrid app is a crucial dilemma faced by application developers. Ever since the launch of React Native, developers have preferred to build applications for Android and iOS platforms for achieving a native app experience. However, some still like to build applications using Native Script and couple it with Angular to enable cross platform experience.

This article compares both the approaches for building cross platform applications and help derive a conclusion, as to which is a superior way of building more native application experience.

Application development with React Native

React Native is an application development tool launched by Facebook in March 2015. It allows developers to use the same basic JavaScript code for app development on both iOS and Android platforms. React has a tangential dependency on DOM, making it easy to substitute native components instead of HTML components and web views. With minimal external side effects, React Native also supports the UI views without the need of any extra native code. React Native focuses on dirty rendering and speed of development to expedite cross platform application development.

Angular JS 2 and Native Script App development

Native Script is the basic tool used by developers for developing the code for an application. An integrated Angular JS 2 is used for rendering the app, which is loosely coupled with a DOM. This allows for the app to be coded in a declarative style and fit for any mobile platform. Native Script app development essentially follows a more holistic approach, with lower level UI elements to make it transparent and repeatable between multiple mobile platforms. Therefore, this approach is clearly not focused on speed and performance like React Native.

Key Differences

React Native:

1. Same base code is used to build apps for multiple platforms.
2. Abstracts the business logic in order to support the different UI rendering on each platform.
3. Applications have to interpret between multiple UI paradigms as they use the same code on different platforms
4. Even though the application can be written in a platform-agnostic manner, React Native allows access to platform specific UI layer as well.
5. Speed and Performance focus of React Native allows for hybrid applications to be ready and rendered very fast.
6. Better suited for apps where the UI is complex, needs to be resource intensive, required lots of rendering and involves various custom elements.

Native Script:

1. Fundamentally follows the ‘write once, run anywhere’ approach.
2. Focuses on creating a singular development experience, irrespective of the platform.
3. Applications turn out to be more conceptually consistent due to the coupling with Angular JS 2, which has a declarative UI focus.
4. Several UI elements are kept at a lower level in order to manage the UI transparently on multiple platforms.
5. Dependence on Angular for driving the application’s architecture makes the app development slower than React Native.
6. Ideal for generic, database powered apps that don’t require complex UI elements on multiple platforms.

In conclusion, deciding which approach is better for developing a cross platform application can depend on the need and purpose of the application. The fact that Native Script and Angular JS2 are separate projects gives rise to several dependencies in the application pipeline; a problem which is not faced by React Native apps. While this motivates many developers to opt for React Native for hybrid application development, your application needs can decide your own approach.

Paragyte’s application development services allow you to explore your application development requirements and select the correct app development approach. Our Native Script and React Native specialists offer end to end, app building services for multiple platforms and help your app achieve a seamless native experience.

Whether to develop a cross platform application as a native app or as a hybrid app is a crucial dilemma faced by application developers.