React Native App Development: Advantages and Disadvantages

Among the most sought-after open-source frameworks, React Native has carved quite a niche in the market and fairly so. Now as more and more companies turn to Facebook offering to create their own apps, it has become important to take a deep dive into this development tool. We have put together a handy list of React Native’s key pros and cons to help you better understand what this framework is all about.

Let us start with React Native’s advantages:
1. Unified codebase: React Native is based on the idea of using one codebase for two apps for different platforms. What this means is that this framework facilitates sharing of the apps’ logic layer between Android and iOS. This eliminates the need to hire two teams.
2. On tap components: React Native comes loaded with ready-to-use components which help developers with generic code blocks, thus saving a whole lot of time and accelerating the development process.
3. Hermes engine: An open-source JavaScript engine aimed at enhancing the performance of React Native apps while also empowering them with optimal speed, the Hermes engine is used to improve any given app’s start-up time, cut down memory usage, and reduce download size among other things.
Now, a quick look at the framework’s disadvantages as well:
1. Performance concerns: Native apps have a clear edge over React Native apps. This disparity in the apps’ performance is due to the fact that the bridge or the shadow thread between the JavaScript and UI thread causes ‘traffic jams’. This is why the app’s performance takes such a blow, especially with apps that involve touchscreen interactions, animations, etc.
2. Issues with upgrades: Switching from one React Native iteration to the next is among the most complicated endeavors when it comes to this framework. While the process is effort-intensive and takes up a lot of time, it is still advisable to upgrade your React Native app to the latest version.
3. Lack of integrated support for native components: While some may hail React Native as a tool for developing two mobile apps at once with just JavaScript, the truth is that this framework is not quite all that in this context. React Native actually does not include in-built support for every single functionality one may need in their app. So how does one offer advanced features in their React Native app? You could possibly create them from scratch with help from developers in native languages.
There is absolutely no denying that React Native remains a leading choice for development tools for creating a custom app that must be able to run on both Android and iOS. In fact, if you are looking to build a rather basic app with a rudimentary interface and such for, say, simply communicating with the API, present reports, document transactions, etc., React Native would still be a great choice. To cut a long story short, React Native continues to fare as a top-notch choice in a variety of scenarios; however, if you truly wish to leverage its potential, it is a good idea to be as aware of its flaws as one should be of its benefits. With that being said, provided you hire a reliable company for React Native mobile app development services, you will be able to develop an ace app based on this framework.