Hybrid apps have gained immense popularity in the past few years thanks to increasing focus of enterprises on building high-performance cross-platform apps with native look and feel. Offering native quality performance through cross-platform apps have been the most important reason behind the popularity of hybrid mobile app development approach.
Hybrid mobile apps particularly gained momentum thanks to an array of sophisticated libraries, tools and rich frameworks. Many of these tools and frameworks are capable to deliver robust native performance and sophisticated native feel while helping to build cross-platform apps. ReactJS is one of these effective libraries that has been widely used for building hybrid apps.
Before we go on explaining the helpful tips for building hybrid apps using ReactJS framework, let us have a look at the various development frameworks that we can utilize for this purpose.
Different framework options to build hybrid apps
Here are the most popular and widely acclaimed frameworks and libraries for hybrid app development.
Xamarin
This Microsoft framework is built for robust cross-platform implementations involving the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and Common Language Specifications referred to as the Microsoft.NET. Xamarin allows developers to use the same code for building robust cross-platform apps that work on Android, Windows, iOS and MacOS seamlessly. The library is equipped to deliver aesthetics and features typical to native platforms.
React Native
React Native is another popular cross-platform app development framework focused on providing native look and feel with app versions for separate platforms. Reusability of the code while strictly offering native functionalities and making help available from a robust online community, are few important aspects that made React Native popular.
Ionic
Ionic has emerged as a leading cross-platform development framework thanks to its expanding features, a lot of predefined elements and the support from a large community of developers.
PhoneGap
This tool has been popular for years because of the exceptional ease with which anyone with web development knowledge can build applications in a jiffy. Just with some knowledge about HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, a developer can build an app with PhoneGap for native platforms.
Mobile Angular UI
Mobile Angular UI is a sophisticated open-source framework that incorporated Bootstrap with the Angular framework for delivering unmatched native mobile user experiences. It also offers an array of rich UI components ranging from switches, scrollable areas, navbars to overlays.
Sencha Touch
Sencha Touch is another robust cross-platform mobile hybrid app development framework that basically combines the power of HTML5 and JavaScript. When it comes to enterprise app development, Sensa Touch often cuts the deal beating many other frameworks because of its HTML5 based visual app builder.
Why ReactJS Stands Out From The Rest?
React JS has emerged as a popular app development framework thanks to its simplicity. While Angular is robust and richly featured, React offers the same with least complex coding. Most importantly, ReactJS allows developers to reuse the code for faster development.
Here we explain the key reasons why ReactJS stands out from all of the comparable frameworks and libraries.
Easy Development of Dynamic Web Apps
When you need to use the complex code for a dynamic and feature-rich web app, doing the same with clumsy HTML code lines becomes a lot complex. ReactJS by using JSX solves this problem with easy syntax accommodating HTML quotes and HTML tag syntax for rendering particular components of features.
Reusable Components
If you have built an app with ReactJS for Android, you can reuse many of the coded components when building the same app for Windows or iOS. This obviously helps a mobile app development company to save a lot of time, effort and development cost.
Easy Learning Curve
For a new developer, it is much easier to learn the intricacies of ReactJS for a cross-platform development project. You can also hire Reactjs developers with less experience and allow him to earn and build the app with other developers. This helps a development company lot of cost for talent acquisition.
Optimum Performance And Speed
Document Object Model or DOM as a cross-platform API helps developers a lot but it often slows down the app performance to a great extent. ReactJS by utilizing virtual DOM and by hosting the data in memory prevents performance slow-down.
Serving Both Client And Server-Side Rendering
ReactJS as a JavaScript framework allows the developers to use the same code for both client-side and the server-side rendering. This helps speed up the app performance besides minimizing complexities in the development process.
SEO Friendly Framework
While many developers complain about the lack of SEO friendliness of the JavaScript frameworks, ReactJS helps to build user interfaces that can easily be navigated through search engines.
A Rich JavaScript Library
ReactJS is a rich JavaScript library as well. It provides developers with all that they need to build robust and performance-savvy apps. It allows using your own patterns, templates and development approaches of your choice.
React Developer Tools
ReactJS comes with a rich set of tools that helps developers to deal with a wide variety of tasks across multiple cross-platform development projects.
Robust Community Support
ReactJS as a Facebook supported development library that quickly gained popularity all over the globe enjoys unmatched community support. The developers can seek support to all sorts of queries from the throbbing developer community of React.
Integrated Testing Mechanism
Lastly, React JS comes with integrated testing tools to help developers test and debug the code of their ReactJS apps easily by using native tools.
Important Tips to Build Sophisticated ReactJS Apps
There are some best and industry-acclaimed practices for using ReactJS effectively to build sophisticated hybrid apps. Let us explain here briefly some of these useful and effective tips for ReactJS app development.
- Read the official documentation minutely: The ultimate resource for all information about ReactJS framework is its official document. To build expertise and to get knowledgeable about the knick-knacks of the framework, read this document minutely.
- Use smaller components: Smaller components are always easier to code and give your app more modularity. This is why it is advisable to keep your components smaller in size.
- Make use of Redux.js: Redux.js as a predictable container of the states offers great ease in putting together the state and logic of an application. This makes the task of developers a lot easier.
- Shallow Rendering: We all know how tricky and cumbersome the testing process becomes at times. Developers can really do away with this complexity by using shallow rendering when writing the unit tests for ReactJS apps.
- Stateless Components: Components having several states become the most challenging aspects of React development. Besides difficulties in testing and readability, they are harder to track as well. This is why it is advisable to keep components stateless or with a minimum state.
Conclusion
When you decide to go for a great cross-platform hybrid app development framework, ReactJS obviously comes as one of the leading choices. For startups and small businesses trying to build their first hybrid app, the framework offers a lot of positive boosts in terms of cost, ease of development and performance.
If you are looking for some ReactJS app development services for your latest mobile app project, let us showcase our exceptional portfolio and track records to you. Let us hear your requirements first. Just drop us a message and we will get back to you at the earliest.
