Evaluation Targeting React Native in Comparison to Native Mobile Development
The app industry today is ruled by two giants, namely Android and iOS. For companies and developers, it is essential to deliver their product to the majority of users, thus adapting to both platforms. The platforms involve their own way of developing applications and only barely resembles each other. A problem that the industry faces resides here, having to hire staff with knowledge in either Android or iOS, or both, to build two separate applications that in turn require parallel upkeep. Cross platform frameworks that could bridge this gap have come and gone, not succeeding in creating applications with the same visual or functional standard as the native frameworks deliver. Facebook has announced a new framework named React Native that promises to deliver a fully native experience with the use of only one code base. This thesis revolves around an evaluation of this framework, focusing on the development side, system performance and the user experience that React Native delivers. We found that the users, when testing both a React Native application in comparison with native application separately, did not notice any difference, but when the applications were placed side by side all participants could distinguish the two systems. The overall quality of React Native encompasses more than development time and implementation, and we found a more situational recommendation to be adequate, thus addressing all underlying issues. The end result shows that React Native applications are currently not as good as native applications regarding the user experience nor performance, but it demonstrates the capabilities of cross platform reducing the existing gap between them. We anticipate our thesis to be a starting point for developers, deciding if they should select a native or cross platform implementation.