A significant portion of our lives now revolves around mobile applications. As well as more advanced, functional, and well-liked programs. Although iOS only has a market share of 27.83 percent and Android retains a share of 71.45 percent, The number of apps available in the app store as of March 2022 is over 3.9 million, compared to 2.59 million on Google Play.
Due to their propensity for higher salaries and more great in-app purchases, iOS is the platform on which businesses choose to create their applications. It is understandable why companies initially decided to develop iOS apps, as revenue is one of the main objectives of app development. Swift is typically the first topic to come up when discussing the creation of iOS apps.
The programming language Swift provides the ability to develop native iOS solutions. React Native, a well-known JavaScript framework for creating cross-platform mobile apps is also discussed. We’ll examine Swift and React Native in more detail for iOS development in this post, as well as their benefits and drawbacks, key features, and practical applications. To learn more about it, let’s compare React with Swift.
What is Swift?
The programming language Swift creates programs for several platforms, including iOS and macOS. To replace Objective-C, Apple introduced Swift in 2014. Swift, which has the support of Apple, is quickly becoming one of the critical languages used for iOS programming. Developing an application in Swift that can operate across several platforms is called cross-platform development. Tools like Xamarin, React Native, and Flutter may be used to do this. Both iOS and Android support app deployment. Swift has 59.7K forks and 60K stars on GitHub. You must hire iOS developers with demonstrated proficiency in the Swift programming language is essential if you want to construct a speedy, reliable, and scalable application.
Now that we are familiar with it let’s examine the advantages and disadvantages of the swift programming language.
Benefits of using Swift
- Scalability
- Performance improvement
- No memory footprint at all
- Automatically managing memory
- Simple to learn
- Support across platforms
- Free software
- A rapid development
Limitations of using Swift
- Smaller community
- Incompatibility problems
- Limited skill pool
- Comparatively fresh language
Popular apps built with Swift
- Airbnb
- Test Center
- Lyft
- Slideshare
- American Airlines
- Uber
- Cred
- Asana
What is React Native?
The JavaScript framework ReactNative is used. With the help of this framework, which Meta created and supports, developers may create cross-platform mobile applications that can share up to 70% of their code between platforms like iOS and Android. Prosperous technical assistance is available for React native. Cross-platform programming is faster and less expensive because of features like code sharing. On GitHub, React Native has 22.2K forks and 104K stars. It is a good idea to hire react native developer if you’re aiming to create a complicated, widely used product. React Native is recommended if you intend to develop a desktop and a web application.
Benefits of using React Native
- Hot reloading
- Modular Architecture
- Cost-Effective
- Rich library support
- Native-Like Feel
Limitations of using React Native
- Not suitable for resource-intensive apps
- Fairly New
- Security Concerns
- It depends on the Native Language
- Licensing Issues
Popular apps built with Swift
- Walmart
- Bloomberg
- SoundCloud
- Wix
Swift vs. React Native: Comparision
When creating a sturdy application, you must keep several things in mind. Now let’s compare React Native with Swift.
Performance
Performance between Swift and React Native should be compared first. Swift applications typically perform better than frameworks in comparison. React Native provides a for integrating native scripts into apps since developing graphical effects with the framework is cumbersome. The developer may produce a variety of assets and tools using this method to manage development chores. Apps made with frameworks typically perform worse than those made with Swift. Unlike React Native applications, Swift Apps run incredibly well despite having a relatively high processing power.
UI/UX
The UI parts of React Native mimic native programs. Since React Native is in charge of native components, app components also need to be updated every time a platform updates its OS. The entire program UI will crash if there is a fatal problem. The material design components must be accessed through third-party libraries if developers want to employ a consistent user interface across all devices and OS versions. The alternative is Swift, which Apple Inc. created for native platform development. For this reason, it logically uses UX concepts and effortlessly incorporates iOS UI designs. The UI elements must all be improved independently, and work on Switch must begin from scratch.
Speed of coding
The pace of the coding should also be taken into account in this. On the one side, quick is concise, easy to grasp, and more minor mistake-prone than objective C. The language adopted the heritage of Objective C, reducing complexity and removing constraints. Swift is the quickest way to build iOS applications from scratch.
JavaScript’s React Native framework makes it simple to create complex mobile applications. Learning React Native is simple, and a wide range of third-party help is available.
Stability
Despite being driven by one of the most well-known programming languages, React Native. However, it does not result in real react native apps. It makes use of the internal libraries and APIs. As a result, inserting a go-between between the code and platform is necessary. Swift, on the other hand, creates native apps that make use of every platform feature. When dealing with resource-intensive applications, Swift performs better. Swift is, therefore, a superior choice when it comes to exploiting the platform.
Learning Curve
The well-known programming language JavaScript is used by react Native. As a result, a programmer who is comfortable with Javascript may start making React Native apps immediately. Swift, however, has a learning curve, even though it is pretty simple to master.
Time-to-market
As react native is based on JavaScript, it leverages the power of creating simple yet powerful web applications. It is easy to learn and has various resources available for developers. With all these features, development with react Native becomes more accessible and faster. However, swift developers have limited resources and have to start most of their projects from scratch. Swift is fast since it is derived from objective-C. The ease of development makes it a preferred choice for iOS app development.
When to use React Native?
- When creating cross-platform apps.
- Make an application that meets your needs and is affordable.
- When Live and Hot Reloading are required for your application
- Develop applications that need to be finished quickly.
When to use Swift?
- Develop programs with complex user interfaces and memory management issues.
- The development of software for a single platform (ios).
- Build software that utilizes native ios APIs and capabilities.
- Develop apps that will require maintenance and upgrades in the future.
- Create financial apps that have high memory management and security requirements.
Conclusion
Both Swift and React Native are great platforms for building mobile applications. The final deciding factor, nevertheless, is your company’s needs. Some situations in which Swift and React are helpful are described above. In choosing the proper framework, your project’s requirements are crucial.
