React & Flutter Framework are Brothers from different Fathers. Flutter and React share the goal of facilitating UI development, they have distinct characteristics and are not directly related, but the underlying concepts are so obviously identical.
Component-Based Architecture
Both Flutter and React follow a component-based architecture, where the user interface is broken down into reusable and independent components. This promotes code reusability and maintainability.
React.Components are just like Stateful Widget (https://api.flutter.dev/flutter/widgets/StatefulWidget-class.html) – a class that have
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initial state
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setState method that mutates the state
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render (equivalent of build(_) in Flutter)
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did componentDidUpdate(prevState, prevProp). Similar methods to Flutter – where the rebuild of the parent changes the value parameters passed to the child component
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componentDidMount, componentWillUnmount (hook methods for custom actions when a components are attached/detached)
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Both StatefulWidget and ReactJS Component are UI widgets that may or may not be a representation of full page.
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All the components that interact with the Back-End have (or should have) a loading flag that disables them – so no double-submit would be possible.
Both React and Flutter are client-side Frameworks meaning – without additional libraries like Firebase/Supabase/Amplify for Flutter or NextJS for React – you are limited to the Front-End.
Hot Reload
Both frameworks offer a Hot Restart feature (refresh the current UI with state reset), allowing developers to see the immediate effect of code changes without restarting the ENTIRE Application. This significantly speeds up the development and debugging process.
The default mode of reload after a change in React is Hot Restart. But, this depends on the way state is handled. If you’ve approached your Web Application as Offline First – you will feel it very much like Flutter’s Hot Reload – that changes the UI in dev mode without refreshing the state. It takes a mobile dev to start coding React to approach the Web like that.
Declarative UI
Flutter and React both utilize a declarative approach to building UI. React of course – could be described with more web elements and components, while in Flutter – everything is custom widgets. Developers describe the desired UI state, and the framework takes care of updating the actual UI to reflect that state. This can lead to more predictable and easier-to-understand code.
Cross-Platform Development
Flutter and React provide solutions for building applications that can run on multiple platforms. Flutter allows for the development of natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase, while React has options like React Native for mobile and tools like React Native Web for web applications.
Community Support
Both frameworks have large and active communities, which means ample resources, tutorials, and third-party libraries are available for developers. This community support can be valuable when facing challenges during development. You could use all the npm packages in React and could find a lot of solutions of problems in pub.dev – for Flutter.
I myself am trying to write as often as I can Flutter related blog posts here.
Open Source
Flutter and React are open-source projects, fostering transparency, collaboration, and community contributions. Developers can inspect, modify, and contribute to the source code, enhancing the frameworks over time.
In conclusion – all the comparisons, pros and cons you will read around the Internet – are just SEO/Marketing gimmicks. The tools are – if not the same – almost identical.