Difference between React Native and ReactJS

React Native

React Native is also an open-source JavaScript framework that is used for the development of a mobile application for iOS Android and Windows. It applies JavaScript for creating a cross-platform mobile app. React Native is similar to react, but instead of applying web components, it uses native components as building blocks. So, it is used for mobile platforms rather than the browser.

It is also developed by facebook in 2013 for its famous internal project Hackathon. Around March 2015, Facebook announced that React Native is open and available on GitHub.

Advantages of React Native

React Native has several benefits that are as follows:

1. Native Components: If we require native functionality, then we have to write some platform-specific code, which is not designed yet.

2. Class Performance: The code of React Native compiled into Native code, which enables it for both operating systems and functions in the same way on both the platforms.

3. Cross-platform Usage: It can work on both Android as well as iOS devices.

4. JavaScript: It is used for creating native mobile apps.

5. Improving with time: Community is always inventing the best practices.

6. Community: It has a large community which helps to find the required answers.

7. Uncertain Existence: This framework is developed by Facebook, so its presence is uncertain since it keeps all the rights to destroy the project anytime. Because the popularity of React Native rises, it is unlikely to happen.

Disadvantages of React Native

1. Hard to learn: It is hard to learn for a fresher in the app development field.

2. Takes more time in initialization: Even for hi-tech gadgets and devices, it takes a lot of time in initialization.

3. React Native is still new and immature: React Native is in its improvement stage and new for android and iOS programming languages, which has a negative impact on mobile apps.

4. Lacks the security robustness: React Native creates a gap in security robustness. For building banking and financial apps where high confidentiality requires, experts don’t recommend React Native.

ReactJS

ReactJS is also an open-source JavaScript library that is used for creating the user interface for a single-page application. According to MVC, React is the ‘V,' which stands for View. There are several components to build the ReactJS app; these components act as the heart of all of the React applications. When these components are added to other elements, then together, they will allow creating complex applications.

It is the essential front-end library that is developed by a software engineer name Jordan Walke in facebook. Facebook was the first that has developed and maintained it, and after that, used in its products like Whatsapp and Instagram. Facebook was the first that established the React in 2011, but it was presented to the public in May 2013.

Benefits of ReactJS

1. Easy to Learn and Use:

ReactJS is very easy to use and learn. It has a good supply of documentation, training resources, and tutorials. It is easy to understand for the developer having a JavaScript background who can quickly start creating the web applications in a few days. It is the V (view part) in the MVC (Model-view-controller) model and referred to as one of the JavaScript frameworks. We cannot say ReactJS is fully-featured, but it has the advantage of an open-source JavaScript user interface (UI) library, which helps for executing the task in a better manner.

2. Creating Dynamic web applications becomes easier:

For creating dynamic web applications with HTML strings were tricky because it required a complex coding, but ReactJS has solved this issue and make it easy. It requires less coding and provides more functionality. It uses the JSX (JavaScript) extension that is a particular syntax letting HTML quotes and HTML tag syntax to render particular subcomponents. It also supports machine-readable codes.

3. Reusable Components:

ReactJS web application includes multiple components, and each one has its logic and controls. These are responsible for outputting a small and reusable HTML code that can be reused. This reusable code helps to make the applications easy to develop and maintain. The virtual DOM-based mechanism is used in ReactJS for filling the data in HTML DOM. The virtual DOM is fast because it only changes the elements of individual DOM instead of reloading it every time.

4. Performance Enhancement:

The performance of ReactJS is improved because of Virtual DOM. ReactJS has great performance. Because of this feature, ReactJS becomes much better as compared to other frameworks. Behind this reason, there is a concept of managing virtual DOM. The DOM is nothing but a cross-platform and programming API that deals with HTML, XML, and XHTML. The DOM entirely exists in memory. Because of this, whenever we create a component, we did not write them directly to the DOM; instead of this, we write virtual components that turn into the DOM leads to smoother and faster performance.

5. Handy Tools Support

ReactJS is also popular because of the presence of a handy set of tools. These tools increase the understandability and make the developer's task easy. These tools have been designed as chrome and Firefox dev extension and allow for inspecting the hierarchies of the react component in the virtual DOM.

6. Known to be SEO friendly:

There is an issue in the traditional frameworks while dealing with SEO. Generally, search engines having trouble in reading heavy-JavaScript applications. ReactJS overcome this problem, which is helpful for developers for the easy navigation on various search engines. That’s why React.js apps can run on the server, and the virtual DOM will be rendering and returning to the browser as a regular page.

7. The benefit of having JavaScript library:

ReactJS offers a vibrant set of JavaScript library; that's why it is popular among most of the web developers. JavaScript library increases flexibility to the web developers to choose the way they want.

8. Scope for Code Testing

The applications of ReactJS are easy to set. It provides the scope by which the developer can quickly test and debug their codes by using native tools.

Disadvantages of ReactJS

1. High Pace development

It acts as an advantage as well as disadvantage both. It is a disadvantage because the environment continually changes so fast, most developers don't want to relearn the new ways of doing things regularly. Sometimes it is hard to adopt all these changes along with the regular updates. They are always required to be updated with their skills and learn the new way of doing things.

2. Poor Documentation

It is another common disadvantage of constantly updating technologies. There is a lack of proper documentation because of the fast updating of react technologies.

3. View Part

Only UI layers of the app get covered by ReactJS. That's why it is required to select some other technologies to get a complete set of tooling for the development of the project.

4. JSX as a barrier

ReactJS uses JSX, which is a syntax extension that allows mixing of HTML and JavaScript together. This approach is beneficial, but some development community members treat JSX as a barrier, especially the new developers. Developers argue about the learning curve complexity of JSX.

Difference Between ReactJS and React Native

S.no.	ReactJS	React Native
1	It was initially released in 2013.	It was initially released in 2015.
2	Platform Independent.	Platform dependent. It takes more effort to be executed on all platforms.
3	It is used for developing web applications.	It is used for developing mobile applications.
4	It uses a JavaScript library and CSS for animations.	It has built-in animation libraries.
5	It uses HTML tags.	It does not use HTML tags.
6	React-router is used for navigating web pages.	This provides built-in Navigator libraries for navigating the mobile applications.
7	It provides high security.	Less secure compare to ReactJS.
8	It uses code components that save a lot of time.	It can reuse React Native UI components & modules that allow hybrid apps to render natively.
9	In ReactJS, Virtual DOM renders the browser code.	It uses its API to render code for mobile applications.