Why are React Native and ReactJS not the same?

React native

React Native is a framework for building native applications using JavaScript. React Native compiles to native app components, which makes it possible for you to build native mobile applications. In ReactJS, React is the base abstraction of React DOM for the web platform, while with React Native, React is still the base abstraction of React Native. So the syntax and workflow remain similar, but the components are different.

ReactJS

ReactJS is a JavaScript library that combines the speed of JavaScript and uses a new way of rendering web pages, making them highly dynamic and responsive to user input. The product significantly changed the Facebook approach to development. After the library was released, it became extremely popular due to its revolutionary approach to programming user interfaces, setting the long-going competition between React and Angular, another popular web development tool. And to get your work done you need to choose ReactJS web development company wisely for your projects.

React vs React Native — What’s Different?

We know that React is designed for web applications, while React Native is suited for cross-platform mobile development. But what are the other key React and React Native differences?

Virtual DOM & DOM Refreshes

In web pages and apps, the Domain Object Model (DOM) is an important element for ordering and displaying elements. How libraries and frameworks handle the DOM goes a great way to influence how they are ultimately used.

ReactJS is famous for using a Virtual DOM that uses a partial refresh. which has proven to be typically faster than a full alternative. Since the Virtual DOM is faster, leading to quicker rebuilding, it also results in faster, better performance.

It’s worth noting that it uses its predecessor, React DOM, for base abstraction.

React Native, on the other hand, needs to use native API when rendering UI components. On top of this, it uses React for its abstraction but, as we just covered, React uses React DOM, so there’s more work involved.

A Brief Story Behind The Library

Before developing ReactJS, or just React as it’s nowadays mostly referred to, Facebook was confronted with a major user experience task — building a dynamic UI with high performance. For instance, the engineers wanted to make news feed updates happen simultaneously with people using chat.

To achieve that, Facebook had to optimize the development process itself and Jordan Walke decided to do it with JavaScript. He proposed putting XHP, the Facebook markup syntax, into the JS coordinate system. The idea seemed impossible, but in 2011 his team released the ReactJS library based on JavaScript and XHP symbiosis. Then Facebook realized that ReactJS was working faster than any other implementation of its kind. In 2013, Facebook released React as an open-source JavaScript tool.

Two years later, the same group of engineers released React Native, a hybrid mobile app development framework for iOS and Android. The tool was based on the very same principles as ReactJS and shortly was accepted by the engineering community and companies that adhere to the mobile-first strategy.

How does React Native work? React Native combines native application development with JavaScript UI development. While computationally heavy features can be implemented with native modules for iOS and Android, the rest of the code can be written with JavaScript and shared across platforms. Unlike PhoneGap and Cordova cross-platform tools, React Native doesn’t use WebView, a mobile engine that wraps code. Instead, it provides access to native mobile controllers which allows for achieving a native look and feel to apps.

Inference

React is a framework for building applications using JavaScript. React Native is an entire platform allowing you to build native, cross-platform mobile apps, and React.js is a JavaScript library you use for constructing a high-performing UI layer. React.js is the heart of React Native, and it embodies all React’s principles and syntax, so the learning curve is easy. The platform is what gave rise to their technical differences. Like the browser code in React is rendered through Virtual DOM while React Native uses Native APIs to render components on mobile. React uses HTML and with React Native, you need to familiarize yourself with React Native syntax. React Native doesn’t use CSS either. This means you’ll have to use the animated API which comes with React Native to animate different components of your application.

Bottom line, React is ideal for building dynamic, high-performing, responsive UI for your web interfaces, while React Native is meant to give your mobile apps a truly native feel.

We are a react native app development company, with a team of enthusiasts aiming to deliver exceptional results according to clients’ needs and working round the clock to understand the client’s needs.