React Native vs UIkIt

Overview

UIkIt

Stacks791

Followers417

Votes262

GitHub Stars18.5K

Forks2.3K

React Native

Stacks34.4K

Followers29.5K

Votes1.2K

GitHub Stars124.4K

Forks24.9K

React Native vs UIkIt: What are the differences?

Introduction to React Native and UIKit

React Native and UIKit are two popular frameworks used in app development. While both frameworks serve a similar purpose, there are several key differences between them that developers should consider when choosing which one to use for their projects.

Code Reusability: React Native allows for a high level of code reusability, as developers can write code once and deploy it on both iOS and Android platforms. On the other hand, UIKit is specific to iOS development, so the code cannot be reused for Android apps.
Performance: React Native uses a bridge to communicate with native components, which can introduce a small performance overhead compared to the UIKit framework. UIKit, being a native framework, provides direct access to device-specific features, resulting in better performance.
Development Speed: React Native offers fast development speed due to its hot reloading feature, which instantly shows code changes in the app without requiring a full rebuild. UIKit, while still providing efficient development tools, lacks this specific feature, leading to a slower development process.
Native UI Components: React Native uses pre-built UI components that can be customized to match the desired style and behavior. UIKit, being a native framework, provides complete control over the UI components, allowing developers to create highly customized interfaces.
Community and Ecosystem: React Native has a large and active community, with a vast collection of open-source libraries and tools. This makes it easier for developers to find solutions and enhance their apps with additional functionality. UIKit, being an Apple-specific framework, also has a strong community and comprehensive ecosystem but is more limited in terms of cross-platform support.
Learning Curve: React Native has a shallower learning curve compared to UIKit, especially for developers already familiar with JavaScript and web development. UIKit, being a native framework, requires knowledge of Swift or Objective-C, which can take more time to learn.

In summary, React Native offers code reusability, fast development speed, and a wide range of pre-built UI components, while UIKit provides better performance, complete UI customization, and a more focused development environment for iOS app development. The choice between the two depends on the specific requirements of the project, the target platforms, and the developer's preferences and expertise.

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Advice on UIkIt, React Native

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

Daniel

Frontend Developer at atSistemas

Jun 10, 2020

Needs adviceon

New Relic

Next.js

React

I'm building, from scratch, a webapp. It's going to be a dashboard to check on our apps in New Relic and update the Apdex from the webapp. I have just chosen Next.js as our framework because we use React already, and after going through the tutorial, I just loved the latest changes they have implemented.

But we have to decide on a CSS framework for the UI. I'm partial to Bulma because I love that it's all about CSS (and you can use SCSS from the start), that it's rather lightweight and that it doesn't come with JavaScript clutter. One of the things I hate about Bootstrap is that you depend on jQuery to use the JavaScript part. My boss loves UIkIt, but when I've used it in the past, I didn't like it.

What do you think we should use? Maybe you have another suggestion?

1.07M views1.07M

Comments

Andrea

May 26, 2020

Needs adviceon

Vue.js

Vue Native

React

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

Detailed Comparison

UIkIt	React Native
UIkit gives you a comprehensive collection of HTML, CSS, and JS components which is simple to use, easy to customize and extendable.	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.
LESS - UIkit is developed in LESS to write well-structured, extendable code which is easy to maintain.;Components - A collection of small, responsive components using consistent and conflict-free naming conventions.;Customizer - UIkit's very basic style can be extended with themes and is easy to customize to create your own look.;Responsive - With the mobile-first approach UIkit provides a consistent experience from phones and tablets to desktops.	Native iOS Components;Asynchronous Execution;Touch Handling;Flexbox and Styling; Polyfills
Statistics
GitHub Stars 18.5K	GitHub Stars 124.4K
GitHub Forks 2.3K	GitHub Forks 24.9K
Stacks 791	Stacks 34.4K
Followers 417	Followers 29.5K
Votes 262	Votes 1.2K
Pros & Cons
Pros 39 Complete GUI 29 Easy modify 27 Practical 24 Easy to learn 24 Functional	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 Some compenents not truly native

What are some alternatives to UIkIt, React Native?

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

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.

Flutter

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

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.

Foundation

Foundation is the most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world. You can quickly prototype and build sites or apps that work on any kind of device with Foundation, which includes layout constructs (like a fully responsive grid), elements and best practices.

Semantic UI

Semantic empowers designers and developers by creating a shared vocabulary for UI.

Materialize

A CSS Framework based on material design.

Material Design for Angular

Material Design is a specification for a unified system of visual, motion, and interaction design that adapts across different devices. Our goal is to deliver a lean, lightweight set of AngularJS-native UI elements that implement the material design system for use in Angular SPAs.

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.

Material-UI

Material UI is a library of React UI components that implements Google's Material Design.

Related Comparisons

React Native vs UIkIt: What are the differences?

Introduction to React Native and UIKit

Code Reusability: React Native allows for a high level of code reusability, as developers can write code once and deploy it on both iOS and Android platforms. On the other hand, UIKit is specific to iOS development, so the code cannot be reused for Android apps.
Performance: React Native uses a bridge to communicate with native components, which can introduce a small performance overhead compared to the UIKit framework. UIKit, being a native framework, provides direct access to device-specific features, resulting in better performance.
Development Speed: React Native offers fast development speed due to its hot reloading feature, which instantly shows code changes in the app without requiring a full rebuild. UIKit, while still providing efficient development tools, lacks this specific feature, leading to a slower development process.
Native UI Components: React Native uses pre-built UI components that can be customized to match the desired style and behavior. UIKit, being a native framework, provides complete control over the UI components, allowing developers to create highly customized interfaces.
Community and Ecosystem: React Native has a large and active community, with a vast collection of open-source libraries and tools. This makes it easier for developers to find solutions and enhance their apps with additional functionality. UIKit, being an Apple-specific framework, also has a strong community and comprehensive ecosystem but is more limited in terms of cross-platform support.
Learning Curve: React Native has a shallower learning curve compared to UIKit, especially for developers already familiar with JavaScript and web development. UIKit, being a native framework, requires knowledge of Swift or Objective-C, which can take more time to learn.

React Native vs UIkIt

Overview

React Native vs UIkIt: What are the differences?