
Ask HN: Is React Native enough to justify using React over alternatives? - brightball
The discussion on Gitlab&#x27;s choice of Vue.js got me wondering about everyone&#x27;s thoughts on this. I hear a lot about front end frameworks but based on everything that I&#x27;ve read about React Native it seems that it gives me the impression that even if Vue or something else might be preferable - the potential cost&#x2F;work&#x2F;time savings of React Native would win the decision every time. Is there more to it?
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jamon51
At Infinite Red we chose React.js over our previous choice of Ember not
because it was objectively better at web, but because it lowered the context
switching when our devs would switch between mobile and web projects. We have
many devs who only handle web or only handle mobile, but for the ones who can
do both, it's well worth it.

React.js being superior/inferior to Vue.js or others isn't very relevant
unless the gap is huge, which it's not.

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thelambentonion
Having just started a project in Swift due to some limitations with 'native'
JS frameworks, I can honestly say I have _no_ idea why someone would use
anything else unless they had a burning need for code reuse with Android.[0]

The quality of the language and documentation has been superb, and I feel more
confident in my code than I did with another project written with JS bindings.

[0] I suppose the argument can be made that web-view components could be
recycled with minimal effort, but that sounds like it'd be a worse story for
end-users more often than not.

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diegoperini
I'd like to respond with a real example if you don't mind.

We developped a native app that looks pretty much Instagram. It is written in
Swift and Java due to reasons you can probably imagine.

React Native became handy when we wanted to add a payment flow that can have
native like ux, remote updates (adding new offers, disabling some options due
to sudden legal changes etc) and a shared codebase. React Native with Codepush
was the perfect choice. It had native like performance, updates without
involving app stores and most importantly ability to be maintained by our
backend Node.js developers.

Was it worth the add the huge dependancy just for it? Arguably yes. Tooling is
good, integrating it took only a day. App size didn't increase a lot. Our
backend developers had the chance to use already established in-house utility
libraries.

Our design was to implement a React hosting Activity, a Fragmentand and a
UIViewController. No issues have yet be faced and it works like a charm (users
have no idea those screen are backed a few lines of Coffeescript.

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diegoperini
Sorry for the typos. That comment was written with my mobile in a hurry. :(

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jadengore
Honestly depends on your use case.

Do you absolutely need a native-feeling mobile app? React Native (and
ultimately React) are worth your time and investment.

In Gitlab's case, Vue.js works well for them because their product is web-
first and allows them to iterate quickly.

For the most part, I consider React Native separate from React entirely. I
consider most startups to either be completely web or completely mobile, and
to let questions in the former case be answered by validating and iterating on
the product quickly with a web app.

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tones411
I put together an article a while back comparing a few different frameworks.
They all have their pros and cons. I should probably update it to add React
Native and NativeScript, but here you go for what it's worth:
[http://anthonytietjen.blogspot.com/2016/07/choosing-a-
mobile...](http://anthonytietjen.blogspot.com/2016/07/choosing-a-mobile-
development-framework.html)

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WorldMaker
There are certainly still alternatives to React Native such as Cordova and
NativeScript, among others.

Some other frameworks have bindings to React Native using it as a just the
final "renderer". CycleJS has a React Native binding, though I'm not currently
aware of how well it works yet. I'm not aware of Vue.JS bindings for React
Native, but it may be possible.

There's certainly a question of whether or not you need "native" to begin
with. Cordova doesn't always feel "native", but it is reliable and reliable
can be all some apps/dev-teams need.

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miguelrochefort
Xamarin is a great alternative.

