May 2021 - VentureDive

Up until a few years ago, mobile applications were normally written in Native languages. Now, most of the market is shifting towards React Native to write their apps. Some of the big companies, like Facebook, Soundcloud, and Bloomberg, are already using this framework, and their apps are running smoothly and efficiently.

Any mobile app development begins with choosing the right tools, platforms, and frameworks that one will need to design and build it. When it comes to app development for your product, there are two paths available: Native or React Native. Choosing between the two can be overwhelming. This is why to overcome this challenge you will need to explore factors like budget constraints and the development time of each method.

The debate about React Native vs. Native apps has been long-standing. Even though it varies from project to project, let’s explore the basics of how each development approach is different and why you must choose/prefer one over the other.

Differences Between Native and React-Native Apps

React Native allows developers to write the code once but lets it run on any platform, whereas Native development requires separate coding for each platform. React Native is written in JavaScript and is known as a Hybrid framework. On the other hand, Native apps are built for either iOS or Android. These apps are built with specific programming languages for specific platforms.

Before investing your money to build your iOS and Android app or a Hybrid one, it is smart to weigh all the pros and cons. Right from the beginning, you should be aware of the possible obstacles or difficulties that might occur.

By now, you know React Native is a platform-independent framework because it gives you the freedom to build an iOS app and an Android app on the same framework while keeping the UI and UX design of the app intact. Native jumps in when you want to build custom UI components and have a unique user experience that requires external libraries.

We took the liberty to divide the main differences between the two into points.

Support of applications: Because React Native is a new technology it, unfortunately, does not have parent support. This precisely means that the Google Play store or App store may stop accepting your app at any given time. On the other hand, Native apps are built for specific platforms therefore they meet all the requirements.
Performance: This can be measured from a lot of factors e.g. animations, lags, slowdowns, and load time. Nonetheless Native runs more efficiently because it was built to run on that specific platform only. React Native is built for both platforms so it is understandable that it utilizes more battery on the device and can cause lag or slowdown.
User Experience: The UX on React Native apps is compromised as mobile screen size varies. On the other hand, Native apps have the edge to design and add built-in UX UI components however they wish to maintain a visual balance on all the screens.
Development cost and maintenance: Native requires two development teams for making and maintaining the app. React Native allows you to build the app using a single code base, which saves you cost as well as time spent in mobile app development.
Long-term app development: Although React Native is a faster and inexpensive way to launch your business app, it is not as efficient with updates. The app updates and app stores are not in sync at all times. This makes it tough to build and launch any future updates. Since Native is supported by Google and Apple, it is more coherent with updates and resolves problems as they emerge.

React Native vs. Native App Development

Native Application Development

Native app development is centered around designing mobile apps specific to a single platform, like iOS or Android. These apps are built with programming languages and tools that are specific to a particular platform. Android apps require coding in Java or Kotlin using Android Studio for the environment. IOS requires coding in Objective-C or Swift and the IDE is Xcode. Therefore, this process needs at least two developers or development teams to build two different versions of an application, simultaneously.

Native is without a doubt a time-consuming process. But there are some solid pros that Native has to offer:

Faster and more reliable
Better app design and performance
Robust language
Accessibility of APIs

The downside of opting for Native is the following:

High cost of development of two applications
Higher development time

React Native Application Development

React Native is the leading hybrid mobile development framework. With React Native, you write an iOS app exactly the way you would write a web app. That sounds very convenient, but it may also cause some issues.

By using the React Native Method you will need to write the code only once and the final product can be run on iOS and Android.

React native pros:

Single codebase
Lower development cost
Time-efficient
Reusable components
Faster debugging process
Faster prototyping
Open-Source: Most features already have a build solution
Easy maintenance

Cons attached to this process are:

Reduced number of Native elements
A limited number of Third-Party Libraries
Absence of support for All Native APIs

Our Approach to App Development

VentureDive has been at the forefront of bleeding-edge technology for both Native Android and iOS development and has a large pool of resources from both competencies. When we speak about React Native vs. Native app development, we include two different competencies that require separate sets of expertise to develop apps that deliver excellence and true business value.

Here’s a quick list of tools and technologies we use for both approaches:

iOS

Swift programming language
Viper and MVVM (architecture patterns)
iOS storyboarding
Core Data for iOS
SwiftUI (for making interfaces & screens)

Android

Kotlin programming language
MVVM, MVP & Reactive Programming with Rx Java (architecture pattern)
Constraint layout (with Android previewer)
Scoped storage for better data security
Jetpack Compose (design through code)

Why Choose Native App Development?

Here’s why you should go for Native app development:

If your app is going to be complexed
You are more inclined towards the user experience part of your app
If you want in-built features like brightness control
If you are targeting a single platform either iOS or Android

Why React Native for Mobile App Development

Here are some reasons you should opt for React Native:

Your app is minimal in terms of UI and UX
You want your app to available on all platforms with a reasonable budget
You want your app to be launched in a shorter amount of time
Your business is a start-up and has limited resources and funds

When it comes to app development, React Native has been at the center of VenD. We have delivered countless immaculate projects using React Native over the years and continue to conduct training sessions for the entire mobile development team. This helped the teams gain the necessary knowledge to quickly bootstrap and deliver a React Native application. By building upon the core knowledge and expertise of the Native platform, we are able to deliver better-performing apps in a much shorter time, be it using React Native Expo or React Native CLI applications.

Wrapping up: Should You Choose Native or React Native?

It is apparent that React Native meets all the requirements of the client while saving on cost and time. It gives you the best of both worlds, which is lower effort and efficient use of time and budget. If you are looking for rapid prototyping and MVP, React Native is the answer. However, if you have a lot of manpower and resources to spare, you can always opt for Native. Ultimately, there is no silver bullet. If you are in between answers, you can try to consult VentureDive.

Automated software testing is all the rage in the industry and for good reason. Although manual testing is still in place in many technology companies, many fast-growing organizations have adopted QA automation testing to speed up processes, redirect manual efforts and minimize the chances of error.

It is quite common for businesses to outsource the quality assurance processes of their software development cycle. It saves them time, cost, and resources.

This means, it’s essential for technology organizations like ours, that offer software quality assurance services, to adopt one of the most accurate, efficient, and reliable approaches to quality assurance, i.e. automation. In this article, I’ll talk about how the QA team at VentureDive carried out automation testing for the Muslims App. It is a community engagement app by IslamicFinder that aims to unite Muslims around the world through a single platform, offering networking, knowledge sharing, and learning.

Let’s dive in!

How did we manage before QA automation?

Muslims is a hybrid mobile application developed in React-Native. It has the same code hierarchy for both, Android and iOS platforms. This means we have the same code base for QA automation as well.

While the app was in the development phase, and new features were getting integrated into Muslims continually, we were carrying out manual quality assurance side by side. The process was consuming a lot of effort – with every issue reported, the QA team had to dig down into the apps again and again, and ensure that the overall performance of apps remains optimal. Every time an issue was reported or any new build was shared with the QA team, they had to go through all the features of the app, which made quality testing a tedious and time-consuming process.

In short, we dreaded it!

As the application got bigger and more complex with every sprint – that meant more issues popped up that needed fixing – it was no longer possible for us to test each and everything over and over again. So we decided to create and implement an efficient testing process to reduce the testing effort of the team, as well as enhance the overall quality of the apps. Enter: a hybrid automation system for mobile apps for both, iOS and Android platforms.

QA automation covers a lot of things we previously had to do manually and repeatedly. It took on the menial, and repetitive tasks for us, delivered better testing quality, with minimal chances of error, and helped deploy high-quality, bug-free apps. Our automation engineers began developing the QA automation process for hybrid apps so we can test each and every feature more thoroughly, using both manual and automated systems, and deliver a seamless product to the users.

Why did we decide to automate the Muslims app?

The thought process behind automating the Muslims app was that we wanted to reduce the overall testing time of the app on both, Android and iOS platforms. The idea was that once any new feature is developed and ready to merge, we automate its testing. Over time, this would enable us to have a full-fledged testing process in place, that would streamline quality assurance efforts, reduce time and cost spent, and deliver efficient and high-quality apps to customers within record time.

The whole QA automation team brainstormed a lot on how to automate the hybrid application for Muslims. We discussed different technology stacks and their pros and cons with the goal to increases the overall quality and performance of the app through a smooth QA automation process.

Why did we use the same codebase for Automation?

The grounds behind using the same code base for automation of Muslims app was that we are developing a hybrid framework, and a single code base would mean a lesser number of changes required in the automation framework. Whenever there is a change in the application hierarchy, the same code base would mean reduced development effort in the hybrid framework. Here’s a resource to help you understand the difference between hybrid and native applications, and which might be a better choice for your project.

We can also reuse this QA automation framework for any hybrid app developed in react-native as well as native apps to make lives easier for automation engineers. This would make managing the code base simpler, with lesser changes and easy integration of new features within the automation framework.

What technology did we use for QA automation?

Our QA automation engineers adopted WebDriverIO, a tool that allows you to automate any application written with modern web frameworks such as React, Angular, Polymer, or Vue.js, as well as, native and hybrid mobile applications for Android and iOS.

We can develop any web or mobile automation framework easily using WebDriverIO due to its exciting feature set and many valuable plugins. Its libraries are easily available and can be integrated with the framework quickly, so it saves a lot of time for automation engineers.

Many technology companies choose to go with Selenium WebDriver, another tool used for automating browser testing. We used WebDriverIO and javascript for the development of automation scripts for Muslims app with integration of unit test frameworks like mocha and chai, the assertion library, in it.

However, we chose WebDriverIO over Selenium because of a multitude of technical reasons:

WebDriverIO libraries are wrappers of selenium libraries as these are developed on top of selenium libraries – it provides faster execution than using Selenium APIs with Appium, a test automation framework.
WebDriverIO provides a runner class where we can define all the necessary prerequisites, which makes it easier to configure the execution of automation scripts. Whereas, we have to write a lot of lines of code to set up the configuration process of Selenium with Appium.
WebDriverIO has its own Appium service so it takes only a few minutes to configure Appium with it.

Using a hybrid automation framework like WebDriverIO has many advantages. For instance, a one-page object class is developed for both Android and iOS platforms so we don’t need to create a separate repository for this platform. A generic helper class package is also created to reuse the utilities within the project and we can use this framework with any project in the future if we want to develop a framework for hybrid and native apps.

Wrap up

For the QA automation of hybrid apps, you can easily develop an automation framework with WebDriverIO and Appium as it provides a lot of flexibility in developing, structuring, and maintaining the codebase. It will be up to the individual’s expertise on javascript and node.js as it requires javascript skills for a person to work on these frameworks. If you have used Selenium with Appium, it will be easier for you to use a switch on these javascript frameworks. According to my experience, if you are developing your own hybrid application, I would suggest you give WebDriverIO a shot and feel free to share your experience of working with javascript frameworks.

Month: May 2021

React Native vs. Native Apps: Which is better & why?

Differences Between Native and React-Native Apps