#difference between react native and react js

REACT NATIVE VS IONIC: CHOOSE THE RIGHT ONE IN 2021

The “hybrid vs native” question still lingers among programmers and coders. In 2021, the choice is between React Native and Ionic, the two biggest players in the mobile app development frameworks market. According to AppBrain,

Ionic is the most used in app development at 3% while React Native is at 1.3%.

Market share in terms of app installs show 4.05% for React Native and 0.27% for Ionic.

To understand this stat, let us look at the difference between a native app and a hybrid app.

NATIVE VS HYBRID

Native and hybrid apps differ in many ways including UX, performance, technology used, features, and associated costs.

Hybrid Mobile Apps

The underlying tech in hybrid apps are HTML, CSS, JavaScript and other web technologies. WebView is the platform that they all run on. Through native modules and plugins, they can be developed as Single Page Apps or Progressive Web Apps.

Native Mobile Apps

Platform specific UI components are needed to run native mobile apps. Java for Android and Objective-Cor Swift for iOS are used to build these apps. They cannot be reused between platforms and there are about no drawbacks to the efficiency of these apps.

Now, with a surface understanding of native and hybrid mobile apps, let us know a little bit about React Native and Ionic development.

REACT NATIVE

React Native is a JavaScript based framework. It helps create native mobile apps and is supported by a huge community of developers. The corporate backing comes from Facebook. It uses the “learn once, write everywhere” principle. Facebook, Oculus, Coinbase, Shopify, Tableau, FlipKart, Discord, NerdWallet, Skype, Bloomnerg, Tesla, and Wix among many others use the React Native framework.

IONIC

With a shared codebase between mobile, web, and desktop apps, Ionic is a hybrid development framework for web apps. Ionic is rich in features and much more capable than web apps since it uses Cordova and PhoneGap to access native features. Ionic follows the “write once, use everywhere” principle. The Ionic framework has been used by MarketWatch, Pacifica, Sworkit, Diesel,StockPlan Connect, Honeyfi, McLaren, JustWatch, mcDonald’s, Untappd, Nationwide, and Cryptochange among a plethora of others. According to Ionic, over 5 Million apps have been created using its framework.

Now let us take a quick look at how the Ionic framework and the React Native framework compares against each other and determine the best one for 2021.

IONIC VS REACT

The Tech

React uses features that are native to the UI. This is what gives it the aesthetics of a native application. The native form also allows the developers to give a seamless experience to the end user.

Ionic uses web tech. This enables it to achieve multi-platform applications. It is based on Angular JS and uses the code base in a minimal fashion. Angular enables Ionic to have a smoother process and be extremely user-friendly.

Performance

React demands the developers to make platform-specific changes to achieve the most efficient components. React Native has a much more stable framework. This makes it efficient for large scale projects with higher budgets. The framework also enhances responsiveness and detailing of the UI. On the other hand, Ionic’s hybrid approach makes it much more convenient for prototyping or facilitating an urgent requirement. Using CSS, JavaScript and HTML5 components, Ionic enables faster app development but the user might be asked to download additional plugins to enable the native features.

Coding

As discussed earlier, React uses the “learn once, write everywhere” logic. This framework will suggest suitable components that respect the native aesthetics, to the developers.

Contrary to that, Ionic can run the same code across all platforms. It adapts to the platform and learns its behavior in order to provide the native aesthetics.

Apart from these differences, React native has a community of 1752 contributors while Ionic has just 268. And in order to pinpoint the better one for 2021, we need to understand the benefits and drawbacks of both Ionic and React Native.

ADVANTAGES OF IONIC

Open source

Easy to learn

Built in components

Speed development cycle

Familiar development environment

Cordova and PhoneGap wrapping

DISADVANTAGES OF IONIC

Requires WebView

Apache Cordova required to access hardware functionality

Slight performance issues

ADVANTAGES OF REACT NATIVE

Stable and reliable for large scale projects

Android, iOS and Windows app code reusability.

Codes are not dependent on the platforms

Vast community

DISADVANTAGES OF REACT NATIVE

Require native development skills.

Lack of custom modules

Slight debugging and compatibility issues.

Now that we have laid down the facts and figures, let us conclude by determining if one is above the other.

SUMMING UP

The choice will be largely influenced by the type of project you are undertaking, the time of development, and the skills garnered by the team. According to a popularity survey by Ionic,

86% of web developers have used Ionic and 16% went for React Native.

To build PWAs, 72% preferred Ionic while 21% picked React Native.

On GitHub, Ionic has 41,000 stars and React Native has 89,100 stars.

Introduction of Ionic Framework

Ionic is a complete open-source SDK for hybrid mobile app development created by Max Lynch, Ben Sperry and Adam Bradley of Drifty Co. in 2013. Ionic is world’s most popular cross platform mobile development technology. Basically it’s hybrid mobile app development framework. Using Apache Cordova, it can be easily run on mobiles. A big advantage of using Ionic is that the code base remains the same for all mobile platforms and the UI/UX looks like a native mobile platform. The good news is: if you can manage to create websites, you already know how to build mobile apps. Ionic Framework offers the best web and native app components for building highly interactive native and progressive web apps. It is the only mobile app stack which allows developers to design apps for all app stores and the mobile web, using an unique code base. Moreover, Ionic’s Platform Continuity guarantees your app will look superb on every single device. Ionic provides tools and services for developing hybrid mobile apps using Web technologies like CSS, HTML5, and Sass. Apps can be built with these Web technologies and then distributed through native app stores to be installed on devices by leveraging Cordova.

Benefits of Ionic Framework

Platform Independent Framework- Ionic can recognize the platform specific advanced CSS proportional to the native look and feel on different mobile operating systems. It reduces the requirement for code changing as it gives the codes of mobile-optimized HTML, JS, and CSS components. Apart from this, ionic integrates into Angular JS which becomes a robust structure making code excellent as well as more manageable. This empowers the Start-up entrepreneurs to come out with newer concepts at reduced budget.

Cross-Platform Mobile App Development with Ionic- Building an application without a moment's delay is essential, and it should be compatible with all mobile devices. However, it needs extremely limited use of time, assets and efforts, and helps in giving a unified look and feel. Besides, Ionic helps with building applications quickly and with expertise, and deploys standard tools with a solitary code base.

Default User Interface- Ionic has many default CSS and JS parts that cover the vast majority of the basic things you need to make a mobile application. . Apart from regular ones like buttons and navigation it also includes form inputs, lists, cards, sliding boxes and many more. These can be easily customized by adding CSS classes to the element. The default styles are basic, smooth, and you can without a doubt redo them by adding pre-defined CSS classes to the component.

Based on AngularJS- If you’ve worked upon Ionic, and then you would likely realize that it is developed on top of the Angular JS framework. The extensions to HTML's sentence structure offered by AngularJS are extremely useful for mobile app designers. The Ionic structure utilizes AngularJS to offer a bunch of center functionalities to the designer with the goal that they can incorporate alluring components into the application.  AngularJS is an ideal approach to make program based applications, while with the assistance of the Ionic structure, versatile designers can make hybrid applications and web applications.

Utilizes Cordova Plugins- Plugins play an essential part in Ionic application development. Modules are coded in JavaScript and come appended to the application. Ionic framework application development utilizes Cordova plugins to help designers in accessing different components of the versatile framework- for example, camera, GPS, and so on. According to your business and offered administrations, mobile app developers can utilize any of these modules to build their ideal mobile application.

There are a few good reasons to go with Ionic, depending on what you would be using it for:

1. Ionic use Angular’s MV* paradigm: If you are a web developer and want to be able to compete in the mobile space Ionic is great for you. Ionic uses HTML and CSS to lay out its views, so not only will you have all of the power of CSS transitions and canvas drawing, but you will also feel at home with the DOM. If you’ve ever used Angular in production, this will be doubly true for you, because the logic layers of Ionic use Angular’s MV* paradigm.

2.Desktop support: Ionic has added a flexible grid, and split-pane type features, allowing you to build mobile-first apps with responsive desktop layouts.

3.Open Web Standards: To paraphrase one of their founders, you’re betting on the open web, rather than getting stuck learning single-platform technologies that don’t carry over. (e.g. Learning CSS and DOM layouts versus Xcode’s autolayout)

4.Progressive Web Apps: This is a big trend on Google and Ionic’s radar, and it seems like Ionic is uniquely positioned to let you build app-class web experiences that can also be published in the App Store.

5.If you are bootstrapping a start-up and want to cut development time and cost by leveraging existing skill sets, Ionic is one of the best choices. Ionic creates apps for iOS, Android and Windows. It has default CSS that changes between versions for a Native experience. And all this can be done in JavaScript which is one of the most common programming languages known by developers now because of its ubiquity on the web. There are other frameworks around now that can achieve this in different languages, but most of them are not as popular or have as much support. So unless you have a specific reason you need to use python, Ruby, C++, Java etc. stick with Ionic or React Native in JavaScript or Xamarin in C#. Those are the most mature communities for cross-platform apps.

6. If you are new to web/mobile development the skills you will learn making things with Ionic will take you a lot further than what you will get with native. JavaScript is everywhere. It is more popular than Swift, and more importantly, it can be used for a lot more things. Java is really popular as well, but in my opinion, JavaScript seems to be slowly taking over Java’s position in the web development world. Companies that were built on java will stick around for a long time, but many new ones are being built on stuff like JavaScript, Ruby, Go and the like. And yes that list will be different in a few years, but Java will not be making it back on, and JavaScript will be the longest lasting one that is around for now.

7.Ionic Community: There’s a community of over 30,000 members on the Ionic forum, an active Slack Channel, and Ionic is the 45th or so most popular/starred repo on Github.

How to Install Ionic Framework

Make sure you have an up-to-date version of Node.js installed on your machine. If you don't have Node.js installed.

Open the command prompt and verify the Node.js version by using the command node -v.

To install Cordova and Ionic, use - npm install -g cordova ionic.

Make sure to install the latest version of JDK and Android Studio IDE for Android development.

To create a new project, use - ionic start projectname template.

Inside the project folder, you can add Android/iOS platform based on your development using the command - ionic cordova platform add android.

After these code changes are done, you can generate the required .apk file with the command - ionic cordova build android.

Once the .apk file is generated successfully, you deploy the file on a real device and do the testing, or you can test it as a web application using a browser.

To run it in a browser, use - ionic serve.

To run it on a device, use - ionic Cordova run android -device.

Finally, play with Ionic!

Comparison between Ionic Framework to Others Framework like PhoneGap

Ionic Framework-

Open source

 It’s Javascript, HTML and CSS

 Cordova is an engine which runs PhoneGap

UI Components is awesome

Application type: Hybrid

Supported Platforms- Android, IOS, Windows, BlackBerry

Enable features, such as push notifications, A/B testing, analytics, Code deploys and Automated builds.

PhoneGap-

Open source

It’s Javascript, HTML and CSS

Cordova is an engine which runs Ionic

Lack of pre-built UI widgets

Application type: Native

Supported Platforms- Apple IOS , Bada,  BlackBerry, Firefox OS, Google Android, LG webOS, Micresoft Windows Phone (7 and 8), Nokia Symbian OS, Tizen (SDK 2.x) and Ubuntu Touch.

heey, hello, it’s a meme. i’m maze ( she/her ) & hailing from one of the oh so lovely coughs gmt tzs aka gmt+2. besides being trash on the daily i’m literally always listening to music aka if u ever need something new in that department .. hello, or browsing through netflix without any intent on watching smth. living that wild life ik .. DKAMS. but you’re here for my two kids aka basil & saint so here we go ! if you’d like to plot like this and i’ll slide into ur ims or look under the read more for my disc*rd ! also as a warning i unintentionally was v vain and made both muses scorpios .....

Introduction of Angular 2

Angular 2 is one of the most popular platforms which are a successor to Google Angular 1 framework. With its help, Angular JS developers can build complex applications in browsers and beyond. Angular 2 is not only the next or advanced version of Angular 1, it is fully redesigned and rewritten. Thus, the architecture of Angular 2 is completely different from Angular 1. This tutorial looks at the various aspects of Angular 2 framework which includes the basics of the framework, the setup of Angular and how to work with the various aspects of the framework. Unlike its predecessor, Angular 2 is a TypeScript-based, web application development platform that makes the switch from MVC (model-view-controller) to a components-based approach to web development.

Benefits of Angular 2

Mobile Support: Though the Ionic framework has always worked well with Angular, the platform offers better mobile support with the version 2. The 1.x version compromised heavily on user experience and application performance in general. With its built-in mobile-orientation, Angular 2.0 is more geared for cross-platform mobile application development.

Faster and Modern Browsers: Faster and modern browsers are demanded by developers today. Developers want Angular 2 stress more on browsers like IE10/11, Chrome, Firefox, Opera & Safari on the desktop and Chrome on Android, Windows Phone 8+, iOS6 & Firefox mobile. Developers believe that this would allow AngularJS codebase to be short and compact and AngularJS would support the latest and greatest features without worrying about backward compatibility and polyfills. This would simplify the AngularJS app development process.

High Performance: Angular2 uses superset of JavaScript which is highly optimized which makes the app and web to load faster. Angular2 loads quickly with component router. It helps in automatic code splitting so user only load code required to vendor the view. Many modules are removed from angular’s core, resulting in better performance means you will be able to pick and choose the part you need.

Changing World of Web: The web has changed noticeably and no doubt it will continue changing in the future as well. The current version of AngularJS cannot work with the new web components like custom elements, HTML imports; shadow DOM etc. which allow developers to create fully encapsulated custom elements. Developers anticipate with all hopes that Angular 2 must fully support all web components.

Component Based Development:  A component is an independent software unit that can be composed with the other components to create a software system. Component based web development is pretty much future of web development. Angular2 is focused on component base development. Angularjs require entire stack to be written using angular but angular2 emphasis separation of components /allow segmentation within the app to be written independently. Developers can concentrate on business logic only. These things are not just features but the requirement of any thick-client web framework.

Why to upgrade to Angular 2 ?

Angular 2 is entirely component-based and even the final application is a component of the platform. Components and directives have replaced controllers and scopes. Even the specification for directives has been simplified and will probably further improve. They are the communication channels for components and run in the browser with elements and events. Angular 2 components have their own injector so you no longer have to work with a single injector for the entire application. With an improved dependency injection model, there are more opportunities for component or object-based work.

Optimized for Mobile- Angular 2 has been carefully optimized for boasting improved memory efficiency, enhanced mobile performance, and fewer CPU cycles. It’s as clear of an indication as any that Angular 2 is going to serve as a mobile-first framework in order to encourage the mobile app development process. This version also supports sophisticated touch and gesture events across modern tablet and mobile devices.

Typescript Support- Angular 2 uses Typescript and variety of concepts common in back-end. That is why it is more back-end developer-friendly. It's worth noting that dependency injection container makes use of metadata generated by Typescript. Another important facet is IDE integration is that it makes easier to scale large projects through refactoring your whole code base at the same time. If you are interested in Typescript, the docs are a great place to begin with. Moreover, Typescript usage improves developer experience thanks to good support from text editors and IDE's. With libraries like React already using Typescript, web/mobile app developers can implement the library in their Angular 2 project seamlessly.

Modular Development- Angular 1 created a fair share of headaches when it came to loading modules or deciding between Require.js and Web Pack. Fortunately, these decisions are removed entirely from Angular 2 as the new release shies away from ineffective modules to make room for performance improvements. Angular 2 also integrates System.js, a universal dynamic modular loader, which provides an environment for loading ES6, Common, and AMD modules.

$scope Out, Components in- Angular 2 gets rid of controllers and $scope. You may wonder how you’re going to stitch your homepage together! Well, don’t worry too much − Angular 2 introduces Components as an easier way to build complex web apps and pages. Angular 2 utilizes directives (DOMs) and components (templates). In simple terms, you can build individual component classes that act as isolated parts of your pages. Components then are highly functional and customizable directives that can be configured to build and specify classes, selectors, and views for companion templates. Angular 2 components make it possible to write code that won’t interfere with other pieces of code within the component itself.

Native Mobile Development- The best part about Angular 2 is “it’s more framework-oriented”. This means the code you write for mobile/tablet devices will need to be converted using a framework like Ionic or Native Script. One single skillset and code base can be used to scale and build large architectures of code and with the integration of a framework (like, you guessed it, NativeScript or Ionic); you get a plethora of room to be flexible with the way your native applications function.

Code Syntax Changes- One more notable feature of Angular 2 is that it adds more than a few bells and whistles to the syntax usage. This comprises (but is not limited to) improving data-binding with properties inputs, changing the way routing works, changing an appearance of directives syntax, and, finally, improving the way local variables that are being used widely. One more notable feature of Angular 2 is that it adds more than a few bells and whistles to the syntax usage. This comprises improving data-binding with properties inputs, changing the way routing works, changing an appearance of directives syntax, and, finally, improving the way local variables that are being used widely.

Comparison between Angular 1 and Angular 2

Angular 1

In order to create service use provider, factory, service, constant and value

In order to automatically detection changed use $scope, $watch, $scope,  $apply, $timeout.

Syntax event for example ng-click

Syntax properties for example ng-hid, ng-checked

It use Filter

Angular 2

In order to create service use only class

In order to automatically detection changed use Zone.js.

Syntax event for example (click) or (dbl-click)

Syntax properties for example [class: hidden] [checked]

It use pipe

How to migrate Angular 1 to Angular 2

It is a very simple and easy task to upgrade Angular 1 to Angular 2, but this has to be done only if the applications demand it. In this article, I will suggest a number of ways which could be taken into consideration in order to migrate existing applications from Angular 1.x to 2. Therefore, depending on the organizational need, the appropriate migration approach should be used.

Upgrading to Angular 2 is quite an easy step to take, but one that should be made carefully. There are two major ways to feel the taste of Angular 2 in your project. Which you use depends on whatever requirements your project has. The angular team have provided two paths to this:

ngForward

ngForward is not a real upgrade framework for Angular 2 but instead we can use it to create Angular 1 apps that look like Angular 2.

If you still feel uncomfortable upgrading your existing application to Angular 2, you can fall to ngForward to feel the taste and sweetness of the good tidings Angular 2 brings but still remain in your comfort zone.

You can either re-write your angular app gradually to look as if it was written in Angular 2 or add features in an Angular 2 manner leaving the existing project untouched. Another benefit that comes with this is that it prepares you and your team for the future even when you choose to hold onto the past for a little bit longer. I will guide you through a basic setup to use ngForward but in order to be on track, have a look at the Quick Start for Angular 2.

If you took time to review the Quick Start as I suggested, you won't be lost with the configuration. SystemJS is used to load the Angular application after it has been bootstrapped as we will soon see. Finally in our app.ts, we can code like its Angular 2.

ngUpgrade

Writing an Angular 1.x app that looks like Angular 2 is not good enough. We need the real stuff. The challenge then becomes that with a large existing Angular 1.x project, it becomes really difficult to re-write our entire app to Angular 2, and even using ngForward would not be ideal. This is where ngUpgrade comes to our aid. ngUpgrade is the real stuff.

Unlike ngForward, ngUpgrade was covered clearly in the Angular 2 docs. If you fall in the category of developers that will take this path, then spare few minutes and digest this.