I`m observing a slow but steady drop in startups hiring native iOS and Android engineers. React Native is starting to be good enough for the first version for many startups with React engineers. And Flutter and other cross-platform approaches are also cheaper & "good enough".
This also will bring a new opportunity. Startups becoming successful and needing to write new native apps to compete at a higher level.
React Native is garbage. I would never work with it
When BMW or Mercedes make a car do you think they are satisfied with "good enough"? For the best UX there is no substitute for native.
hybrid technologies are very good to start an mvp . I work with flutter and react native
There are less and less reasons not to use a cross-platform framework like React Native. Only very specific platform use-cases require native. But Native engs have an advantage if they learn cross-platform: they know how things like building and profiling work under the hood
Then investors should treat this as technical debt.
Another downside is the risk of google sunsetting flutter like so many other things
Im really not an expert on this, but Im really happy to hear it. As a Product persoen I saw that all companies aim to have native apps - even when UX or performance does not require that. And it slows them down significantly from various perspectives.
I was paying attention until you mentioned a cryptocurrency firm. They arent doing economics.
Interesting takes here Can anyone recommend some top-notch RN courses/masterclasses ? Not talking about udemy and such. Something more advanced and pro.
Seeing very good use of Flutter for POC/v1 at the moment. Very quick to get started, even in BigCorp settings
Been like that for a while in Australia!
It`s more than the language. Flutter is based on observer where React is not. Two ways of thinking which can be harder than learning Dart which is syntactically similar to TypeScript.
Also this: We just moved everything over to RN. We have around ten teams who need to simultaneously contribute to the app at this point, and it was just a giant logistical nightmare to have them hire for two native platforms AND web in every team.
Whilst thats an understandable conclusion to reach for most startups, its a real shame. Full native apps written in Obj C / Swift (at least on iOS where I am familiar) are superior to React Native IMHO
The two technologies are going in different directions for a reason And as you said if you really want performance, especially on low-end devices and esp on Android, it`s a lot of work with cross-platform. It`s also a lot of work on native FWIW :) And for companies with tens of millions of users it can become important (eg Uber!)
And let`s consider how VC funding is much more tight than before: both for startups, and for scaleups. I predict even less willingness for many startups & scaleups - ones not profitable - to go full native. If RN works for Coinbase, Flutter for Google, it will work for many.
I guess it makes sense. As a startup, you should always go as fast as possible and at least to me, it appears that Flutter and co have such a vibrant ecosystem by now that it allows you to be fast. You even get wins like reusing certain components if it`s all the same tech.
what about Dart? Looks like it can give a tough competition to native react? But if I am not wrong native iOS and Android App performs better than Flutter & React native?
Another data source is talking with experienced iOS and Android engineers looking for their next gig. Startups rarely have interest - a major change from eg ~5 years ago. Their best bet is either big companies with lots of native investment or scaleups investing in native..
I only have observations from both talking with lots of startup founders who are shipping mobile apps, and running my job board. RN and Flutter make v1 of mobile *so* much cheaper & faster: it`s a natural and pragmatic choice for most startups. I feel this trend has been growing fast over a few years now. The only startups that build native apps are gaming, AR, etc because they need more handle on device resources. Most startups with "regular" apps use hybrid like React Native. It`s much cheaper and still good enough.
I don`t want to start a war here but RN is the only framework that gives you the best of both worlds. You can use Native where it makes sense and React for everything else, seamlessly. So, in fact, RN is legitimately "good enough" for whatever stage of your startup.
Yes, I can see ease and logic with that, however I feel if any startup is limited to mobile only and they start new, Flutter is the go to option. It addresses lots of pain points that are involved with React-native development.
Between both platforms (iOS and Android) which is cheaper & sustainable to run in the longtern?
A lot of startups (like us) have a mobile app as a complementary product offering. Specially in these situations RN provides a quick, reasonably scalable way to bring products to market.
We would not be able to build what we build with a non native app, but I also understand that you dont always need pure native.
Startups may be hiring more of cross-platform devs recently, but mostly for their MVP. I also see a future where cross-platform will more than suffice.
It is the best way to kick off your product. Eventually, you will need specialists in both iOS and Android. But the app is built on a solid foundation.
React Native once learnt applied everywhere. Maybe one engineer can do the Mobile Part rather than one for ios and one for android
My experience with Android development is somewhat outdated, but the experience with Flutter is *so* much nicer that I always wonder when I hear a new startup is is doing native mobile.
having this debate right now relative to high fps experiences we have in the roadmap
This is good news on two levels: the technology is leveling up, but also the engineering teams are mature enough to ship a good enough solution. That`s hard for me to spend time on something that I think I may outgrow, but really I should do it anyway.
That was a bet i took. But the native ecosystem nicer for the dev
A lot of companies are choosing Flutter because it`s not only good enough but also because it makes it easier to have the same design across platforms. So they save on development and design time.
Only startups? Everybody is doing RN/flutter/xamarin these days, if the installed app is larger than 50 mb that`s a guarantee. This is so sad IMHO.
For startups trying to find a product-market fit on a limited budget, a good enough app, like you said, is the right way to go.
I totally agree drop in Android and IOS dev is for real but we can see hype around web dev because of the fact that making the product across platforms ready like somebody ed-tech wanna stream their service in smart TV therefore multi-platform ready dev is promoted,
I would see Flutter as a much obvious choice than React-native.
Working for a service company I can observe that startups are choosing React and then finds out that for more complicated cases code tree for iOS and Android branches furiously and project is 3-4 times longer than originally estimated, and number of developers doubles anyway...
I feel this is also a factor of how mature the startup is. If theyre at a stage where figuring out the MVP and rapid iteration is key, Flutter or RN are pretty good choices. As they grow however, I feel theyll start needing native platform talent more and more.
You think you could provide some visuals and / or numbers?
Don`t ignore .Net MAUI for C devs or Capacitor + PWA. Times are indeed changing/strange/exciting in mobile development.
