Xamarin vs React Native: the complete guide
Tips for selecting the ideal cross-platform mobile development framework for your project
We all know the benefits of building a cross-platform app over a native one. By using a cross-platform framework, we have a “2 for the price of 1” situation: developers are able to reuse code for both systems, iOS, and Android, which minimizes the project’s duration, expenses and time to market. However, there are several options for cross-platform frameworks. Have you already decided which one is the best for your product?
Two of the most popular cross-platform mobile development frameworks nowadays are Xamarin and React Native. They’ve become more known especially because of the buzzing communities of developers built around them. In order to discuss their differences and consider which technology is the best for different contexts, we gathered two developers from UruIT who are part of these communities.
Rodrigo is a Xamarin dev, while Andrea has experience working with React Native. In this post, we list the most important aspects of a mobile software development project and what you can expect from React Native and Xamarin, based on our devs’ experience. The main conclusion that we can already tell you: there is no “best technology,” only different characteristics that can better fit one project over another. Find out which suits yours!
Let’s get into our Xamarin vs React Native comparison!
Getting ready to develop: Xamarin vs React Native
Learning curve
As Rodrigo had previous experience with CSharp and XAML, his shift to Xamarin wasn’t difficult. If your dev team works with the same foundations or has any experience with .NET, it’ll be quick and easy to learn Xamarin.
In order to learn React Native, if your dev team has experience with any JavaScript technology, they are ready to go. The transition can be even smoother for those who
However, Andrea warns that any app in React Native will require several complementary libraries to be developed. She explains that there’s no combination of libraries that will work for every project or every developer. This means that React Native devs are used to learning and digging into new libraries constantly.