Hybrid App Development: Comparison among React Native, Ionic and Flutter

I am a web developer and performed this research in May 2021 for my organization. We currently have separate Android, iOS, and web teams. We thought to create a new platform that can be served as a separate website and can be embedded into the current website and native apps. We were not trying to build and launch a separate App. So below R&D is done keeping that thing in mind. I thought it should be shared with the community so here it is.

I have compared them from a web developer's point of view and provided medals(Gold, Silver, Bronze) which is purely based on my understanding and my scenario, it can be different for you.

So get ready for React Native vs Ionic vs Flutter 🎆

Sections:

• Comparison
• Medal Tally
• Cheat sheet
• Conclusion
• Articles
• How to Contribute to this

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Comparison

We will be comparing all the three options React Native, Ionic and Flutter on the basis of below parameters:

• Language
• Learning Curve
• Initial Release
• Powered By
• Community
• Github Issues Opened
• Performance
• Popularity
• Framework Nature
• Coding Architecture
• Supported Platform
• Pricing
• Integration
• Build size
• Testing
• Code Reusability
• UI Components
• StackOverflow Questions Trend
• Udemy Trends
• Developer Availability
• Last 2 years' Share in Hybrid Frameworks used
• Poll
• OTA(Over the air) Update
• SEO

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Language

Ionic and React Native uses JS which matches with the tech stack used by a web developer usually. Dart is by google and it has C language-like syntax which is not similar to JS. So we might need devs who can learn Dart if we go for Flutter. Ionic can be written in Vanilla JS as well.

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Learning Curve

Time required to learn (for Web Developers):

Flutter and Dart are new so it might take more time to learn.

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Initial Release

Flutter is relatively new but gaining popularity rapidly.

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Powered By

All are Open Source so community support is there, but React-Native and Flutter have the upper hand here.

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Community

React and Ionic has old and strong communities. Flutter is relatively new, however, it has made its space and attracted developers to learn Dart.

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Github Issues Opened

Flutter is new and attracted more developers recently but still, 9.9K+ is a high number of issues opened.

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Performance

As far as I understood in terms of performance of these frameworks while interacting with the Native OS as an App:

Communication via Bridge and Plugins takes more time, though React is working on resolving Bridge Jam situations. Flutter works via direct platform channels so it's faster. Flutter team states that Flutter Web is for Web Apps not for static or minimal sites. So for small web apps, Flutter gets -ve there.

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Popularity

In this section we'll be seeing some of the top products using these frameworks:

React Native is more popular than the other two as many tech giants are using it in their production environment. Ionic is very popular among web and mobile app developers due to its easy learning curve. Flutter has just entered the market but has grown in popularity in very little time.

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Framework Nature

App and Web have different UI structures, so choosing "first platform" may help to decide the framework. If you want your product to be a website first then Ionic is +ve there else -ve.

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Coding Architecture

All have their qualities, but due to hot reloading, development and Unit testing are faster on React-Native and Flutter.

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Supported Platform

Web support on React is by open-source package, on Flutter it's new and Native support on Ionic is via plugins. So a trade-off to choose from.

RNW example source. Flipkart Lite Source

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Pricing

All are Open Source.

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Integration

Hereby Integration I mean how easily can a hybrid sub-app be integrated into an already built mobile app (Android/iOS).

So for all the options, if there are multiple Hybrid Apps available then they need to be merged first. Merge time depends on, how merge-friendly the separate apps are written. So Merging guidelines will be needed to make integration smooth.

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Build size

Here I created the "Hello World!" app by using these frameworks and the below calculation is the size of the build for the android app. (Not a Mac User so can't create the iOS app)

For small apps, Ionic size is smaller but for bigger apps, it gets worse due to separate HTML+CSS+JS files. For bigger apps, Flutter works best. (Source)

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Testing

For big applications, component or widget level testing is helpful. React-Native and Flutter have many Testing Frameworks available, while Ionic has normal web-based testing.

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Code Reusability

As Ionic uses HTML+CSS+JS for all platforms, It has most of the code reusable, In React-Native components can be reused, but when we add web support then only the components without native functionality can be reused. Same for Flutter.

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UI Components

Flutter Web Pages in Canvas can lead to bad SEO and compatibility issue on very old browsers. React Native provides a Native feel and can be styled with external libraries.

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StackOverflow Questions Trend

Here we can see the number of questions on StackOverflow for the tags of these Hybrid Frameworks. This indirectly shows how much developers are working on the particular framework actively.

React Native seems consistently popular among developers while Ionic seems losing its fame. However, Flutter is gaining a lot of attraction. (Source)

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Udemy Trends

Udemy is one of the most popular learning platforms with a high number of students and teachers. Below stats tells about the active status of students and teachers on these frameworks:

So Dart and Flutter are gaining popularity with enough resources available. (Source)

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Developer Availability

This is the number of people available in India and globally as per Linkedin Search via my account.

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Last 2 years' Share in Hybrid Frameworks used

Flutter's share is increasing sharply while for Ionic it's decreasing in the same trend. (Source: Statista)

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Poll

I conducted a poll on LinkedIn for the same, but with a short description of my need, it didn't get that many responses but this sample response seems to verify my above research:

Total Votes: 95

Public Voting:

Technical group Voting:

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OTA(Over the air) Update

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SEO

I know, I'm not that good at this point but still mentionable.

SEO can be achieved like other SPA frameworks but not as simple as a PHP website.

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Medal Tally

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Cheat sheet

You can find the cheat sheet of this article here. This has just the medals awarded for each attribute and the final medal tally and score.

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Conclusion

As a developer, for my use case, I found React Native better so I went for that and created a sample React Native App: Harry Potter Dictionary with web support. Now my organization is working on replacing some modules in android with React Native sub-apps.

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Articles

For this research, I've read some articles, which can be found here. You can also have a look at them.

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How to Contribute to this

You can simply create your valuable pull request to this Github repo with an optional issue having the detail of the changes, I'll merge them and modify this article as well.

You can start a discussion as well to discuss with other community members.