Choosing one of the best Mobile App development frameworks is a perplexing job for any organization. And, technology is a major thinking point, if you are planning to develop a robust and fulfilling Mobile product stack. Xamarin and React Native are two prominent development frameworks to consider in the first place. Both are effective & powerful platforms to develop high-performing & interactive mobile applications. However, here’s the quick evaluation of both frameworks by analyzing the key aspects.
Below are some key advantages that Xamarin offers.
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Offers Native Binding
For the native binding, Xamarin Forms is always better as it provides access to all the hardware capabilities. There are those moments where we may need to access a library that is outside the .NET world. Luckily, Xamarin provides us a way to wrap that code in C#, introducing Binding Libraries!
So now, we can consume Java libraries and Objective-C libraries in our world of C#. React Native does not provide every feature readily available. You’ll need to create the binding library if not available.
Responsive UI even under high app usage
When app usage is high for a responsive UI, Xamarin Forms performs better than React Native. Using Xamarin development framework, heavy processing can be pushed on the background thread easily making sure the UI thread is free. While with React, heavy processing is delegated to native implementation wherein we need to write code in Swift/Obj-C or Java, making it much strenuous.Common development Framework
With Xamarin.Forms mobile app development framework, one can achieve up to 90% code reusability by code sharing across popular Mobile OS platforms like Android/iOS/Windows (UWP). This is achieved using common technology stack (C#, Dotnet framework & native libraries). On the other hand, React Native mobile development framework is based on JavaScript libraries specifically optimized to use Native APIs across Android & iOS.
The majority of the React Native APIs are cross-platform and seamlessly support code sharing. However, Average code sharing/reusability between different Mobile OSs is 80%-85%, which will reduce if more platform-specific code is required to achieve better platform performance.
CPU Intensive operations (Sorting, JSON operations & Arithmetic operations)
When it comes to supporting CPU operations, Xamarin Forms is of course better. React Native is not as supportive as Xamarin forms as you’ll need to write native code for these operations.Device Memory usage
Xamarin Forms is good for managing huge data objects in CPU intensive operations. But they support simple UI and not complex UI. React Native though supports complex UI but it relies on memory management techniques for optimum performance. Hence, you need to analyze what’s your priority.Support for New OS (UWP, Wearables, TV, etc)
Xamarin forms is better in supporting new operating systems. Also, it works better for development tools suite within platform (Testing, Profiler, etc).
Long-term platform roadmap & Enterprise Support
Xamarin does have a long-term roadmap, while React Native does not have a publicly published roadmap.64 Bit Support, Faster App development & low time-to-market
Google allows only 64-Bit Apps from 2019, Apple allows only 64 Bit Apps. So, Xamarin forms is better in this aspect too. With 90% code reusability, iOS/ Android apps can be developed in one development cycle with fewer efforts as compare to React native.