These days, people are looking to develop apps more rapidly with less cost and so searching which framework best fits their app idea. Selecting a framework with best features and understandable architecture is not that much easy as it seems. In 2020, Flutter is a popular framework among the developer community and it offers many pre-configured widgets and modules for native apps. Whereas, NativeScript is a JavaScript-Based framework which offers complete native-like functionality with multi-platform compatibility options. Despite the fact that NativeScript and Flutter are similar in some aspects, they are diverse in terms of system components, architecture, size, cost of development, and so on. You might wonder which framework to choose, so before choosing the best framework, you must know the comparison Flutter Vs NativeScript.
Before digging to the comparison, know the basics of flutter and NativeScript.
It is an open-source framework which functions with a language called Dart(created by google). Generally it is addressed as an enhanced UI toolkit used to build cross-platform applications with a single codebase. It provides accessibility to develop expressive and flexible UI with native performance. Also, it is supported and contributed by Google team and the entire flutter community. This framework is used to build Apps with material design, advanced OS plugins with simple logic, high performance apps with Skia rendering engine, flexible UI with high-level widgets, Reactive applications with vast data integration.
Google Ads, Alibaba, eBay, BMW, Reflectly are some of the popular apps built with Flutter framework.
It is an open-source framework to build cross-platform apps for iOS and Android using JavaScript. It transpiles programming language to another another, building native apps using Angular, Vue JS and TypeScript. Dissimilar to other frameworks that makes use of Cordova for delivering a WebView-driven application UI, NativeScript has a rendering engine that provides native performance and user experience. It can be used to build real-time apps, music or video streaming apps, geolocation apps, apps with massive server connectivity.
Airbnb Design, MDBootstrap, Portable North Pole (PNP), SAP are some of the popular apps built with Flutter framework.
Flutter-
It has a layered architecture. Flutter app’s hierarchy starts with a top-level root function or platform-specific widgets. It is followed by basic widgets which interact with rendering layers and platforms. Beyond the rendering layer exists the animation gestures that transfer API calls to the app’s foundation. It is also called Scaffold that is run by a C/C++ engine and a platform-specific embedder. If you want to separate the presentation layer from business logic, you can consider implementing Flutter BLoC. This architecture eases the development of complex applications with small and simple components.
NativeScript-
It follows the MVC or MVVM architectural pattern. And it is widely functions on Modules, CLI, and plugins. It’s structure includes various modules and each of them is responsible to enable certain features. Root module and page module together form an application module comprising CSS style code, actual business logic and XML based UI codes. Because of MVC friendliness it manages module dialogs.
Flutter is easy to learn, it just needs basic knowledge of native android or iOS development. It’s documentation is easier to understand as compared to React Native.
It provides an extensive learning as developers can switch between TypeScript, JavaScript or angular according to the need, feasibility and comfortability. Declarative coding style eases the development for experts and beginners. A thorough understanding of native performance accompanies development experience in Core Modules and design patterns.
Frankly, Flutter is not good to handle complex projects. It is a good solution to build MVP and faster prototypes when you’re destined to experiment with it and cut costs to see your thoughts in reality. You can invest more and take your thought from simple to complex.
Know the reasons to choose flutter for cross platform app development at- Why choose flutter for cross platform app development?
Complex or advanced apps with high performance work smoothly with Nativescript. Full-packaged complex app development needs additional XML and UI support. This framework follows a bundle workflow process which develops optimized and complex apps with tree-shaking mechanisms, that improves the build time. Also, the Hot Module Replacement feature replaces, updates and upgrades modules without restart of existing apps.
It offers a great UI with elements, simplified tools and customized widgets. Generational garbage collection features help to create UI frames for object codes that may be temporary. Dart allocated objects within single pointer bump avoids UI clutter, junk and shutter of animation lag during development process.
It is the best solution to build enterprise-level business apps. Also you can customize the free, professional-grade UI elements that native offers. It provides improved user experience due to its features that are supported by native functionality and native controls. NativeScript tests its libraries, templates and UI elements before implementation to achieve the desired user-interface. You can improve user experience by using methods like getFrameByld, classes like Frame, and properties like navigationContext.
Simple hello world app size was 7.5 MB. With flutter the app size is influenced by Virtual Machine of Dart and C/C++ engine. To avoid size concerts, flutter can contain all codes and assets. Split-debug-info tag reduces the code size.
Simple app built by using NativeScript is more than 12MB. Self containing multiple APKs in one package with single codebase targets different device configurations and reduces the app size. ABI mechanism of NativeScript allows device to automatically extract machine code and scan for shared library during development.
It offers extensive support for automated testing, a large number of testing features to test apps at unit, widget and integration level. Also flutter provides robust documentation to build and release Android and iOS apps on play store and app store resp.
Nativescript follows its own QA workflow which improves an app’s default testing capacities. It supports testing tools like Jasmine, Mocha and QUnit by integrating unit testing directly into default CLI. Also the Appium (external provider) can be used for functional testing.
Both app development frameworks are best to develop app with respect to its various features. From the above comparison you can select the better one for your next project. If you’re still confused to choose one, consult with solace experts. We are here to help you through consultation and development. You can hire flutter developers of Solace team for effective app development.