In the world of app development, React Native: the open source programming language utilizing JavaScript has hailed a big spot. Hybrid app frameworks have taken major steps to bridge the massive gap between the performance of native apps and the ease of its development. Facebook’s React Native is on the leading edge of this technology but every coin has two sides. While everyone is busy justifying the good deeds of React lets see so as to why you should not REACT!
1. Complex User Interfaces
You will probably not like to go for React Native if your application’s user interface promises a lot of interactions. Though JavaScript caters to building fast and smooth apps yet the most established platforms native to iOS and Android Java, Objective C and Swift are always a better option especially for the apps that are pretty much calculation intensive. For example, the apps which are used by messaging needs a lot of background processing and a fairly high degree of customization.
2. Third-party Components
Though React Native has native modules for Android and iOS the number of third-party modules still remains confined. And neither can we be sure that the community built modules will be supported in the next releases for certain. So this continues to be a disadvantage as React Native is unable to provide a wide range of possible features that might interest the developers to incorporate in their apps.
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3. Lack of Smooth Navigation
Another issue that lays with React Native is that it does not entirely support all the native features that are available in Android and iOS. So a developer still might need to stick to the native code if he doesn’t have the time to wait for Facebook to render special support for the features required. Especially when it comes to navigation, React Native still lacks navigation components that suffice for a seamless UX. There is no ideal solution for screen transition. React Native severely lacks supporting the native look and feel of the Android and iOS apps.
4. SDK Update Lags and Documentation Issues
React Native often lags behind when Android or iOS updates their SDKs. React Native works pretty fast however they do not have the ability to update every part of the API at one go. This is the reason why it takes too long for full synchronization between the new SDKs and React Native.
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As far as Documentations issues are concerned it is a place where React Native lacks desperately. The community is pretty young hence it lacks proper documentation especially for its integration with available additional tools.
5. Gaming and Animations
React Native is not good at animations. So if your app revolves around a lot of visual effects i.e animations, shades and filters do not approach React Native. Even in the case of heavy computing React Native does not prove to be a good choice it is not efficient enough.
As far as Game development/OpenGL is concerned again React Native is not the right option. React native is not suitable and recommended for FPS sensitive apps.
6. Apps With Longer Maintenance Time Period
If you are planning to develop an app which has a longer maintenance time period then probably you would not want to opt for React Native. In case of React Native, you need to get prepared for constantly keeping a check if there has been any new update or any fresh features have been added. Though it is not much of a disadvantage yet you need to work upon your commitment level to be able to keep your code updated.
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While wrapping up I would like to say though we have discussed the flaws yet React Native manages to stand tall as a programming language. In fact it is right there at the top competing with the best, if not excelling above them all the time. It’s still a young community however with excellent teams backing it up. There is a reason why we all here are fans of React!
References: netguru, quora, arielelkin, kaysharbor, altexsoft
Rachit Agarwal
