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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Cross Platform Mobile Development
  5. Elm vs React Native

Elm vs React Native

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

React Native
React Native
Stacks34.4K
Followers29.5K
Votes1.2K
GitHub Stars124.4K
Forks24.9K
Elm
Elm
Stacks758
Followers744
Votes319

Elm vs React Native: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this comparison, we will explore the key differences between Elm and React Native.

  1. Language and Framework: Elm is a functional programming language that compiles to JavaScript and has a strong emphasis on immutability and purity. React Native, on the other hand, is a framework that allows developers to build mobile applications using JavaScript and React. The key difference lies in the fact that Elm is a language while React Native is a framework built on top of JavaScript.

  2. Type Safety: Elm is known for its strong type system, which helps catch errors during compile time rather than runtime. This ensures a higher level of code reliability and reduces the chances of encountering bugs. React Native, on the other hand, relies on PropTypes or TypeScript for type safety but does not offer the same level of compile-time guarantees as Elm.

  3. State Management: Elm follows a strict unidirectional data flow architecture, where all updates are centralized and propagated through the application using message passing. React Native, on the other hand, provides more flexibility in terms of state management, allowing developers to choose from various solutions like Redux, MobX, or Context API.

  4. Developer Experience: Elm is known for its minimalistic and beginner-friendly syntax, which makes it easier for developers to write and understand code. React Native, being a JavaScript-based framework, inherits the complexities and challenges associated with working in a dynamically-typed language, which can sometimes lead to maintenance issues and debugging difficulties.

  5. Performance: Elm's immutable data structures and virtual DOM optimization techniques contribute to better performance and faster rendering of UI components. React Native, while efficient in its own right, may face performance bottlenecks due to its reliance on JavaScript bridge for communication between native and JavaScript threads.

  6. Community and Ecosystem: Elm has a smaller but tightly-knit community that highly values functional programming principles and code purity. React Native, being backed by Facebook, has a larger and more diverse community with extensive libraries, tools, and resources available for developers to leverage.

In Summary, Elm stands out for its functional programming paradigm, strong type system, and predictable architecture, while React Native offers a more familiar JavaScript-based development experience with a broader community and ecosystem.

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Advice on React Native, Elm

Nick
Nick

CTO at Pickio

Jun 2, 2020

Decided

We built the first version of our app with RN and it turned out a mess in a while. A lot of bugs along with poor performance out of the box for a fairly large app. Many things, that native platform has, cannot be done with existing solutions for RN. For instance, large titles on iOS are not fully implemented in any of existing navigations libraries. Also there's painfully slow JSON bridge and many other small, yet annoying things. On the other hand Flutter became a really powerful and easy-to-use tool. A bit of a learning curve, of course, because of Dart, but it worth learning. Flutter offers TONS of built-in features, no JSON-bridge, AOT compilation for iOS.

491k views491k
Comments
Andrea
Andrea

May 26, 2020

Needs adviceonVue.jsVue.jsVue NativeVue NativeReactReact

I'm a huge fan of Vue.js and I'm pretty comfortable with it. I need to build a mobile app for my company and I was now wondering whether I could make use of VueJS with Vue Native instead of switching to React. I know Vue Native builds on top of RN. My question is whether I'd have as much freedom with Vue Native over RN and whether you feel like Vue Native is "production ready" or not. Not sure of which shortcomings I may find using Vue Native... Thanks a lot!!!

336k views336k
Comments
Furqan
Furqan

Jul 16, 2020

Needs adviceonReact NativeReact Native

Hello guys, I am new here. So, if I posted without specific guidelines, please ignore.

Basically, I am an iOS developer and developing native apps for the last three years. Recently, I started learning React Native to develop apps for both platforms. If anyone out there knows any useful resources that will become a better react native developer.

@{#newbie}|topic:null|

325k views325k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

React Native
React Native
Elm
Elm

React Native enables you to build world-class application experiences on native platforms using a consistent developer experience based on JavaScript and React. The focus of React Native is on developer efficiency across all the platforms you care about - learn once, write anywhere. Facebook uses React Native in multiple production apps and will continue investing in React Native.

Writing HTML apps is super easy with elm-lang/html. Not only does it render extremely fast, it also quietly guides you towards well-architected code.

Native iOS Components;Asynchronous Execution;Touch Handling;Flexbox and Styling; Polyfills
No Runtime Exceptions; Fearless refactoring; Understand anyone's code; Fast and friendly feedback; Enforced Semantic Versioning; Small Assets
Statistics
GitHub Stars
124.4K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
24.9K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
34.4K
Stacks
758
Followers
29.5K
Followers
744
Votes
1.2K
Votes
319
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 214
    Learn once write everywhere
  • 174
    Cross platform
  • 169
    Javascript
  • 122
    Native ios components
  • 69
    Built by facebook
Cons
  • 23
    Javascript
  • 19
    Built by facebook
  • 12
    Cant use CSS
  • 4
    30 FPS Limit
  • 2
    Slow
Pros
  • 45
    Code stays clean
  • 44
    Great type system
  • 40
    No Runtime Exceptions
  • 33
    Fun
  • 28
    Easy to understand
Cons
  • 3
    No typeclasses -> repitition (i.e. map has 130versions)
  • 2
    JS interop can not be async
  • 2
    JS interoperability a bit more involved
  • 1
    No JSX/Template
  • 1
    No communication with users

What are some alternatives to React Native, Elm?

Ionic

Ionic

Free and open source, Ionic offers a library of mobile and desktop-optimized HTML, CSS and JS components for building highly interactive apps. Use with Angular, React, Vue, or plain JavaScript.

Meteor

Meteor

A Meteor application is a mix of JavaScript that runs inside a client web browser, JavaScript that runs on the Meteor server inside a Node.js container, and all the supporting HTML fragments, CSS rules, and static assets.

Flutter

Flutter

Flutter is a mobile app SDK to help developers and designers build modern mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Bower

Bower

Bower is a package manager for the web. It offers a generic, unopinionated solution to the problem of front-end package management, while exposing the package dependency model via an API that can be consumed by a more opinionated build stack. There are no system wide dependencies, no dependencies are shared between different apps, and the dependency tree is flat.

Xamarin

Xamarin

Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

NativeScript

NativeScript

NativeScript enables developers to build native apps for iOS, Android and Windows Universal while sharing the application code across the platforms. When building the application UI, developers use our libraries, which abstract the differences between the native platforms.

Apache Cordova

Apache Cordova

Apache Cordova is a set of device APIs that allow a mobile app developer to access native device function such as the camera or accelerometer from JavaScript. Combined with a UI framework such as jQuery Mobile or Dojo Mobile or Sencha Touch, this allows a smartphone app to be developed with just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Julia

Julia

Julia is a high-level, high-performance dynamic programming language for technical computing, with syntax that is familiar to users of other technical computing environments. It provides a sophisticated compiler, distributed parallel execution, numerical accuracy, and an extensive mathematical function library.

Framework7

Framework7

It is a free and open source mobile HTML framework to develop hybrid mobile apps or web apps with iOS native look and feel. All you need to make it work is a simple HTML layout and attached framework's CSS and JS files.

Qt

Qt

Qt, a leading cross-platform application and UI framework. With Qt, you can develop applications once and deploy to leading desktop, embedded & mobile targets.

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