React Native vs Xamarin: Which is the best Cross Platform App Development in 2022?

The ever-growing popularity of cross-platform apps has been giving numerous businesses a tough time choosing between React native app development and Xamarin app development.

React Native Vs Xamarin, choosing the right cross platform app development technology can have a significant impact on how your team will develop and deploy mobile apps.

React Native

Born in 2015 during the internal hackathon at Facebook , the framework brings the React approach to the mobile app development world. A popular JavaScript-based mobile app framework, React Native enables the development of natively-rendered mobile apps for iOS and Android.

What Are the Advantages of React Native?

• Intuitive

• Community-Driven

• Cross-Platform

• Live and hot reload

• Code Reusability

• Third-party plugins

What Apps Use React Native?

Here is a list of apps that rely on React Native:

• Uber Eats

• Airbnb

• Discord

• Instagram

• Skype

• Pinterest

• Facebook

• Walmart

• Wix

• Xamarin

Founded in 2011, Xamarin is an open-source C#-based framework. It allows the development of modern and performant applications for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone with .NET.

What Apps Use Xamarin?

Below is a list of apps that use Xamarin:

• Storyo

• OLO

• FreshDirect

• The World Bank

• Insightly

• CA Mobile

• Skulls of the Shogun

• Captio

• Vanderlande

• MRW

What Are the Advantages of Xamarin?

• Cross-Platform

• One technology stack

• Shared code

• Native performance

• Efficient

• Maintainable

• Comprehensive

To help you make a better choice, our experts have compared both the frameworks based on different factors. Without further ado, let’s get started.

React Native vs Xamarin

#1. Availability

React Native

An open-source JavaScript-based framework, React Native is available for both iOS and Android platforms.

Xamarin

On the other hand, Xamarin comes with a free ‘starter’ package but it is the most limited of all the packages. It is followed by other paid packages (subscription-based) like Indie, Business and Enterprise.

Winner- React Native

#2. Ready-to-use Components

React Native

The framework offers a wide range of components for networking, testing, type checking and many more with appropriate documentation. This enables developers to easily utilize these components.

Xamarin

The Xamarin component store offers a diverse range of components and it is definitely better than its React Native counterpart but the documentation part has scope for improvement.

Winner- It’s a tie

#3. Technology Stack

React Native 

Based on JavaScript, the framework utilizes the most popular programming language. Thus, enabling developers with hands-on experience in JavaScript to kick-start mobile app development leveraging React Native. Besides, this also provides businesses a huge pool of skilled developers to choose from without experiencing any talent shortage.

Xamarin

Xamarin is an open source cross-platform framework for developing Android and iOS apps using .NET and C#. With Microsoft’s acquisition of Xamarin, businesses have access to a robust mobile application development solution. Together Xamarin, Visual Studio and Azure enable rapid cross-platform app development, testing and deployment.

Winner- Let’s call it a draw

#4. Popularity

React Native

As perStackOverflow Developer Survey Results 2019, React Native emerged to be the 6th most popular framework with 10.5% of the total votes. With a share of 62.5% votes, it also ranked to be the 8th most loved cross-platform application development framework.

Xamarin

In stark contrast to React Native, Xamarin fares poorly in the aforementioned survey. It emerged to be the 5th most dreaded programming language with  51.7% votes. Besides, with 6.5% of votes, it was the 10th most popular cross-platform application development framework. Lagging behind React Native by 4 ranks.

Winner- React Native

#5. Cost

React Native

Being an open-source and community-driven platform, businesses and developers can use the framework and all its related documents and libraries for free. 

Xamarin

Xamarin is an open-source platform and comes with a free starter package for enterprise users  but using other advanced packages including Visual Studio comes at a cost.

Winner- React Native

Choosing between React Native or Xamarin framework depends on factors like specific project requirements, functionalities and features in the desired mobile app. Are you in search of top-class cross platform app development services?

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