React Native: An Affordable Cross-Platform for Mobile App Development?
The number of smartphone users is soaring at incessant speed, the app business is facing numerous challenges. According to reports by Statista, the number of smartphone users worldwide now stands at 2.71 billion, and the same for tablet users stands at 1.23 billion. According to another report by Statista, this number is destined to reach a whopping 2.87 billion by 2020. Naturally, mobile apps across all niches will experience an all-time high demand. This is why a cross-platform approach with faster development is automatically getting priority.
React Native, the cross-platform development library from Facebook offers all the ease, cost and time advantage that suits modern app development scenario. Let us explain why app developers prefer to React Native for their cross-platform development needs.
When it comes to coding accurately for precise outcomes, developers always need to put their best abilities and efforts. Naturally, this laborious task of coding for separate platforms becomes really challenging for app developers. This is where React Native brings developers a sigh of relief by allowing reusing the same code for multiple OS platforms. Besides helping developers to cut short their efforts and time, this also positively impacts the development cost.
Less Demand for Expertise
The single codebase for multiple platforms requires only one language, and this further simplifies several things for the developers. First of all, developers need expertise with fewer programming languages to get the work done. In effect, this helps the development company in managing teams and developers.
Easy Maintenance
Thanks to the single codebase, maintaining the apps becomes much easier. In terms of detecting errors and bugs or in respect of giving the performance a boost with changes or for making value additions with new features, the single codebase helps to maintain both apps with a single effort.
Unmatched UX and UI
Unmatched UX and UI is another key strength of apps built using React Native. As a cross-platform app development framework React Native allows maintaining a consistent look and feels across apps on both iOS and Android. This compatibility of multiple devices and OS platforms is a key benefit of the React Native framework.
Low-network Performance
Apps built using React Native are capable of maintaining excellent performance even in poor network conditions. React Native allows saving data offline as the API is stored locally on the mobile device. Naturally, even in poor network conditions, the data can easily be accessed locally.
Key Ways React Native Ensures Low-Cost App Development
Among all the benefits of React Native for app developers, the advantage of low-cost development particularly stands apart. React Native in multiple ways made cross-platform development more affordable for startups and aspiring small businesses. Let us explain the key ways to React Native lowers the cost of app development.
Thanks to React Native, the developers can build native components and reuse them for both app versions on iOS and Android versions. Each of the platform-sensitive elements pertaining to iOS and Android can be reused. Moreover, the same code can also be utilized for both mobile apps and the web view for desktop users. As a vast majority of the codebase can be reused, this significantly lowers the cost of development.
· Smooth Debugging
Another major way React Native helps lowering the development cost is through smooth debugging. This framework allowing app developers to debug the apps through Google Chrome DevTools actually makes concurrent debugging possible when the app development process is still going on.
This incredibly simple and effective tool packed with React Native allows developers to use debugging just when they need it. For cross-platform developers, this obviously results in saving a lot of time and cost of development as well.
· Less Operational and Maintenance Cost
Another major advantage of using React Native is that it simplifies programming tasks for each platform integrating all development tasks. Since single codebase is used to build multiple OS versions and desktop web views, managing the project becomes much hassle-free. With just one cross-platform development team involved for the whole project, the operation and project management can do away with platform-specific segregated efforts. This drastically lowers down the operational cost in the short and long run.
Moreover, updates and versioning of the app for multiple platforms become more comfortable as the users have access to one toolset, codebase and resources. At the same time, developers can do away with different compatibility requirements for different platforms. In the long run, this helps to minimize the maintenance cost to a great extent.
· A Single and Robust UI/UX Solution
UI/UX is crucial to the success of any app as it makes the first impression and plays the primary role in engaging users as well as converting business. On the other hand, when building apps for iOS and Android developers also need to take into consideration the discreet and platform-specific UI/UX elements. This is why for low budget cross-platform development delivering highly native UI/UX remains a challenge.
This is where the React Native benefits of delivering highly native user experience for both iOS and Android while maintaining the reusability of the code and other cross-platform advantages looms large. When using React Native, the developers don’t need to sacrifice the discreet look and feel of the UI/UX for each separate platform. This compatibility with different devices and OS standard helps developers doing away with the expensive native UI/UX development.
· Affordable Way to Market
Finally, cross-platform mobile apps actually save a substantial portion of the app marketing budget for the developers. In comparison to the native apps, cross-platform apps are easier to make a presence in the respective app marketplaces of the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. On the other hand, this also helps developers to reach out to a wider audience with an expanded user base.
Conclusion
React Native completely transformed cross-platform app development with its unique advantages. In spite of allowing developers to build apps for multiple platforms with single effort and budget, it doesn’t compromise with the native look, feel and user experience of the different platforms.
