Xamarin vs React Native: Tips to Choose Right Platform

As mobile app development continues to be a highly popular concept in today’s digital world, companies often find themselves debating the Xamarin vs React Native choice. After all, both of them are high-quality tools for cross-platform development. So, if you too have been wracking your brain over this choice, well, here is a quick comparison guide to help you make an informed choice.
1. Cost: Though both React Native and Xamarin can be used for free, there is a caveat with Xamarin: it is a free offering only for select entities, including small scale companies, individuals, etc. A bigger business would need to buy the Visual Studio Enterprise annual edition which gets a hefty price tag. React Native is totally free, by the way.
2. Performance: First things first: admittedly, Xamarin and React Native appear to be equals in the performance department, at least at the first glance. However, closer analysis reveals that Xamarin has an edge over React Native in this context, even if marginally so, since the former offers a user interface (UI) to help developers avail native tools. Also, Xamarin is able to run the code fastest on Android.
3. Just in Time: A key functionality of cross-platform app development, Just in Time facilitates compilation of the code during runtime. FYI, iOS does not permit the use of this particular functionality. Anyway, Xamarin is able to tend to the iOS-JIT issue with help from Ahead of Time (AOT) code compilation which also helps cut down the time it takes for the app to boot and also boosts the app’s performance. React Native lacks a little in this department, necessitating developers working on iOS apps to first make changes, when required, to the Android code and then execute it for iOS. As you can see this is a rather lengthy process.
4. App architecture: The app architecture forms the basis of the structures, patterns, etc. in the code, hence architecture too is a critical consideration. In this regard Xamarin fares quite well, thanks to its support for a variety of architecture patterns, such as Async, Model - View - Controller (MVC), Singleton, Model - View - View - Model (MVVM), etc. React Native too brings plenty to the table in this regard: it enables developers to easily work with new JavaScript updates, one-way data flow, etc. It must also be noted that with React Native’ architecture, the JavaScriptCore organises the code for runtime in iOS app development. With Android app development, however, the JavaScriptCore bundles all the code within the app.
There you have it ladies and gentlemen, some of the most important differences between Xamarin and React Native. Of course, despite their evident differences, Xamarin does appear to have a little bit of an edge over React Native. Nonetheless, the two find their own sets of takers based on factors that are important for their business and their development project. While this Xamarin vs React Native debate is aimed to help you decide which is the ‘right’ platform for app development, the fact remains that the right choice is highly subjective. So, when you finally set out to decide between these two, keep the aforementioned discussion in mind and then compare the pros and cons of Xamarin and React Native in order to decide which platform is the right one for your company and your business’ app development requirements.