There are thousands of apps in the market that are doing great and every day about a hundred new apps are added to app stores. This has influenced the total growth rate of the companies along with developers opting for app development.
This calls for major platforms addition in the market for app development including new frameworks and programming languages. Out of these platforms some are highly popular in the market. So, it can be extremely difficult to choose the best out of all including React Native and Xamarin.
Xamarin and React Native are the key frameworks that are used for mobile app development. These two cross-platform are extremely popular due to their exciting features and relevance in the market. However, it is not easy to choose one out of Xamarin and React Native since they have their own sets of advantages and disadvantages.
To get a better understanding of both, here are the major points that can help you to get an insight into both the frameworks.
#1 Market Share
There is a wide difference in the market share of React Native and Xamarin that makes developers go for the specific domain. React Native is considered as the right tool for websites and apps due to the extensive features. Many brand names are related to it such as Skype, Facebook, Tesla, and so on.
Whereas Xamarin developers are hired due to the popularity of app in terms of technology. In more than 6 years only, Xamarin has managed to cover up around 15,000 companies due to its support to the testing ecosystem, code reuse, and debugging products.
There is no winner in terms of market share since both platforms have considerably equal shares.
#2 Compilation
It is done differently in Xamarin and React Native frameworks. For iOS apps, it is not ideal to use the JIT - Just In Time Compilation that requires JavaScript code interpretation. Even JavaScriptCore is used when internal levels are achieved in the development process. This is followed by android app developers as well but JIT won't be a wrong approach for it.
Xamarin is mainly about the Ahead of Time (AOT) or JIT that can be done with C# language. However, iOS doesn't support JIT compilation but AOT is supported due to Xamarin for the application. There are a few points that lag in Xamarin but AOT works amazingly well in terms of food. JIT works well for Android but AOT can also be configured easily.
#3 Framework
The overall development works differently with the framework included in the list such as react can be used for one-way data flow. The marginal ways can be productive for companies. In addition to this, there have been a few updates in JS web development that has increased its productivity.
Whereas Xamarin is a different platform that is used for the development of Web Forms and ASP.NET MVC apps. Thie platform can work well with MVVM apps and allow companies to get desired results.
#4 Community
There is a different way in which react native developers works in. However, community support and younger tools are extremely helpful in production time. But the knowledge in this domain is not much that makes it a disadvantage for the owners.
Xamarin is a great platform with a vast community of developers that help in the development phase. The blogs, Stack Overflow, and community support are drastically large in Xamarin that makes it a winner for developers.
#5 Availability
When it comes to cross-platform app development then React Native is free of cost that offers a large number of tools and techniques to the developers. Whereas Xamarin works differently as compared to the enterprise level application since it works on the free versions that are not used the majority of times
Bonus: Development Environment
This has a huge role in the development phase that uses IDE to make sure that the framework is comfortable for the developers. Expo is generally used when it comes to React Native to develop and debug the app. Even hot reloading is used in React Native that makes it ideal due to no code requirements after code modifications.
Xamarin works differently in terms of codes since Mac and Windows can have the same codebase. It just requires to mention the platform that one is focusing upon since a few features of apps can vary. Due to these reasons, Xamarin is a great platform since there is no involvement of the Expo in it.
Xamarin and React Native are great in their own ways but there is no correct way to differentiate them. It completely depends upon the requirement that will help in determining the best platform for app development. This will help in making sure that topmost app quality is maintained with a good framework.
