Unleashing the Power of React Native: Building Cross-Platform Mobile Apps with Ease

Introduction to React Native? Complex Guide for 2023

For several years now, React Native has been a hot topic in the mobile development world. No wonder -  it took the tech world by storm by offering a way to develop mobile apps for both iOS and Android simultaneously.

React Native - one framework to rule them all

React Native has been successfully adopted by hundreds of businesses worldwide, including Uber, Microsoft, and Facebook, and is used across a whole range of industries.

However, before you decide to go all-in with React Native, it's crucial that you understand how it works, and decide if it's the best fit for your project.

What are its top advantages and biggest drawbacks? How it is different from other across-development platforms? And last bit not least - what do your developers need to be aware of before they embark on the React Native journey?

In the following article, we'll answer these and other questions - all so you can make an educated choice and see if React Native is ideal for your business.

Before Going Further, Have a Quick Rundown of all React Native Topics:

1. What is React Native?
2. What is cross-platform development?
3. How does React Native work?
4. Examples of apps built with React Native
5. React Native: Risks and Drawbacks
6. Alternatives for React Native
7. Advantages and Disadvantages of React Native
8. React Native vs. Flutter

1. What is React Native?

React Native (also known as RN) is a popular JavaScript-based mobile app framework that allows you to build natively-rendered mobile apps for iOS and Android. The framework lets you create an application for various platforms by using the same codebase.

React Native was first released by Facebook as an open-source project in 2015. In just a couple of years, it became one of the top solutions used for mobile development. React Native development is used to power some of the world's leading mobile apps, including Instagram, Facebook, and Skype. We discuss these and other examples of React Native-powered apps further in this post.

There are several reasons behind React Native's global success.

Firstly, by using React Native, companies can create code just once and use it to power both their iOS and Android apps. This translates to huge time and resource savings.

Secondly, React Native was built based on React - a JavaScript library, which was already hugely popular when the mobile framework was released. We discuss the differences between React and React Native in detail further in this section.

Thirdly, the framework empowered frontend developers, who could previously only work with web-based technologies, to create robust, production-ready apps for mobile platforms.

Interestingly, as with many revolutionary inventions, React Native was developed as a response to..a big technological mistake.

The History of React Native

The history of React Native dates back to 2013 when Facebook was working on improving its mobile app development process. At that time, Facebook's mobile app was built using HTML5, which resulted in performance issues and a less than optimal user experience. To address these challenges, a team of Facebook engineers led by Jordan Walke began experimenting a with a new approach to mobile app development.

1. Inception and Initial Release (2013-2015): The concept of React Native originated from the development of React, a JavaScript library for building user interfaces on the web. Jordan Walke, a software engineer at Facebook, create React in 2011 to address the challenges of developing complex and interactive user interfaces.

In 2013, the idea of using React component-based architecture for mobile add development took sharp. Facebook wanted a way to build mobile apps that offered the same performance as native applications but with the productivity and reusability benefits of React. Thus, React Native was born.

The first internal version of React Native was introduced in 2013, and it was initially used only within Facebook for their mobile app development. During this place, the framework was refined and iterated upon, as it was being tested and improved based on Facebook's real-world app requirements.

2. Open-Sourcing (2015): React Native made its public debut on March 26, 2015, when Facebook open-sourced the project during the React.js Conf event. By open-sourcing React Native, Facebook invited the developer community to contribute, provide feedback, and expand the framework's capabilities.

This move marked a significant turning point for React Native, as it allowed developers outside of Facebook to explore the potential of the framework and build their own cross-platform mobile applications.

3. Rapid Growth and Community Adoption (2015-2017): After being open-sources, React Native experienced rapid growth and widespread adoption withing the developer community. Developers were excited about the prospect of building cross-platform mobile apps with a single codebase and Reacts familiar component-based approach.

During this period, React Native evolved quickly with regular updates and improvements from Facebook and contributions from the community. The growing community also led to the development of numerous third-party libraries and tools, enriching the ecosystem of React Native.

4. Stabilization and Maturity (2018-2020): As React Native matured, it became a stable and reliable framework for mobile app development. Many companies, startups, and induvial developers started using React Native for their projects, appreciating its productivity gains and the ability to reach a broader audience with cross-platform apps.

Facebook continued to invest in React Native and addressed performance issues, added new features, and improved developer tooling. The framework's community also played a significant role in shaping its growth and development during this period.

5. Present and Beyond (2021 and beyond): As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, React Native was still actively maintained and widely used for mobile app development. The framework continued to evolve with efforts focused  on performance optimization, developer experience, and new feature development.

React Native's success and popularity led to other big companies, such as Instagram, Airbnb, and Walmart, adopting the framework for their mobile app development needs. Additionally, React Native expanded its support for other platforms, including Windows and macOS, further showcasing its versatility and potential.

React vs. React Native

In the most simple terms, React Native isn't a 'newer' version of React, although React Native does use it.

React (also known as ReactJS) is a JavaScript library used for building the frontend of a website. Similarly to react Native, it was also developed by the Facebook engineering team.

Meanwhile, React Native - Which is powered by React - lets developers use a set of UI components to quickly compile and launch iOS and Android apps.

Both React and React Native use a mixture of JavaScript and a special markup language, JSX. However, the syntax used to render elements in JSX components differs between React and React Native applications. Additionally, React uses some HTML and CSS, whereas React Native allows the use of native mobile user interface elements.

Here's an example of code from a Stack Overflow discussion:

“React JSX renders HTML-like components like <h1>, <p>, etc. [Meanwhile] react-native renders native app view components like <View> , <Text>, <Image>, <Scroll View>, so you can't directly reuse your UI component code unless you rework/replace all the elements.”

Hence, while the two frameworks are related to one another, they're used for different purposes. Knowledge of React won't enough for iOS and Android mobile app development.

Before we proceed to analyze the advantages and disadvantages of React Native, let's firs take a look at what cross-platform development is all about.

2. What is cross-platform development?

Cross-platform development is the practice of building software that is compatible with more than one type of hardware platform. A cross-platform application can run on Microsoft Windows, Linus, and macOS, or just two of them. A good example of a cross-platform application is a web browser or Adobe Flash that performs the same, irrespective of the computer or mobile device you run it on.

Cross-platform is considered the holy grail of software development - you can build your codebase once and then run it on any platform, as opposed to software built natively for a specific platform. Developers are able to use the tools they're proficient in, like JavaScript or C#, to build platforms they're foreign to. Software owners are also keen on it as product development, in terms or time to market and costs, is cut on half. What are some of the characteristics of cross-platform development?

Wider Audience

You don't have to decide which audience to target, i.e., iOS or Android users, as cross-platform software runs on both, which gives you access to a wider user base.

Platform consistency

There are some navigation ad design differences between iOS and Android, which - in cross-platform development - are dealt with by default, thanks to the shared codebase. This helps with creating a consistent app brand identity on both platforms with less effort than if built on two separate native apps.

Reusable code

This is one of the greatest advantages of cross-platform-development - you can build just one codebase for both Android and iOS at the same time. Native app development requires writing code separately and frequently needs two different software developers to perform the job - one of iOS and one for Android.

Quicker development

Since only one codebase is required to handle iOS and Android, and everything is in one place, product development is much quicker. Cross-platform applications are built as single projects, even though they support different devices, and a large amount of code can be reused between multiple platforms.

Reduced costs

Building cross-platform applications can be 30% cheaper than building native apps, all thanks to the ability to reuse code and faster development, which directly impacts the cost.

What you've read so far might lead you to think that cross-platform development is flawless - it's not, it has some disadvantage. Let us get into them tight now.

Required more expertise to ensure high performance

It is a common myth that cross-platform apps perform worse than their native counterparts. For instance, both Flutter and React Native aim to run at 60 frames per second. In most cases, cross-platform applications can perform to the same standard as native apps provided that the developers have enough skill and expertise.

Harder code design

Since cross-platform apps must be responsive to various devices and platforms, it makes coding more complex. This results in more work for developers who have to include exceptions for different devices and platforms to account for the differences - especially when it comes to more complex features.

Long feature release time

With every new feature release for Android or iOS, it takes a while to update both apps to support the new feature. Native apps are provided with the updates quicker.

While we're on cross-platform development, it's worth having a quick look at some of the most cross-platform frameworks.

• React Native - developed and presented to the world by Facebook in 2015, it works just like React, but allows you to build apps for both mobile and desktop. The beauty of it is that you can code in JavaScript whiteout having to master any specific coding languages a platforms might require like Java, Swift, or Objective-C. React Native is focused on building a great user experience for mobile devices, which makes it a suitable option for apps that require high responsiveness and intuitive use.
• Flutter - released in 2017 by Google, it can be used beyond cross-platform mobile development. Flutter is perfect for experimenting with new features and fixing small bugs thanks to its fast refresh feature. It lets developers instantly verify the changes made by the most current updates without the need to restart the app after editing the source code.
• Xamarin - developed by Microsoft, this free and open-source solution allows 75-90% of the code to be shared between different systems. it's written in C#, which requires developers to know the language - although it's more stable, it's also harder to pick up than JavaScript. Interestingly, Microsoft has itself made a turn towards RN in recent years. As of 2019, there were 38 Microsoft-developed iOS and Android apps that leveraged React Native.

3. How does React Native Work?

React Native works by leveraging JavaScript and React to create native mobile applications for iOS and Android platforms. The framework's architecture and design enable developers to write a single codebase that can render native components on both platforms, resulting in a cross-platform app with native-like performance and user experience. Here's a high-level overview of how React Native works:

1. JavaScript Code Execution:

• React Native applications are primarily written in JavaScript, a popular programming language known for its versatility and ease of use. JavaScript code executes within the context of a JavaScript engine on the mobile device.

2. Virtual DOM (Document Object Model):

• React Native uses Reacts Virtual DOM concept. The Virtual DOM is a lightweight representation of the actual UI, which allows React Native to efficiency track changes and updates to the UI.

3. Component-Based Architecture:

• React Native follows a component-based architecture, where UI elements are represented as reusable components. Components are written in JavaScript and define the structure and behavior of the user interface.

4. Native Bridge:

• The "bridge" is a crucial part of React Native's architecture. It acts as a communication channel that connects the JavaScript code to the native code on the device. This bridge allows React Native t interact with native modules and components.

5. Platform-Specific Components:

• React Native includes a set of built-in components that correspond to native UI elements on iOS and Android platforms. For example, it has "View" for a basic container, "Text" for displaying text, "Image" for displaying images, an more. These components are mapped to their native counterparts during runtime.

6. Runtime Rendering:

• When the React Native app runs, JavaScript code is executed, and React Native components are rendered in the Virtual DOM. The components interact with the native bridge to display native UI components on the device.

7. Native Module Integration:

• For certain functionalities or platform-specific features, React Native allows developers to access native modules written in Java (for Android) or Swift/Objective-C (for iOS). Native modules provide a way to bridge the gap between the JavaScript world and native functionality. Developers can create custom native modules to access device features that are not available through React Native's built-in components.

8. Hot Reloading:

• React Native offers a powerful features called "Hot Reloading," which allows developers to see real-time changes to the app's UI without having to restart the app or recompile the entire codebase. This accelerates the development process and enhances productivity.

9. Package and Metro Bundler:

• The JavaScript code is bundled and optimized by a toll called 
  Metro Bundler" (formerly known as the React Native Packager). The bundler packages the JavaScript code, including dependencies and assets, into a format that can be read and executed by the JavaScript engine on the device.

10. Deployment:

• Once the app is ready for deployment, the bundled JavaScript code is bundled along with the native code to create the final installation package (APK for Android or IPA for iOS). The app can then be distributed through app stores or other distribution channels.

4. Examples of apps built with React Native

Now that you know what React Native is and how it works, it's time to have a look at the products built with it. Here is our selection of popular React Native apps.

1. Facebook and Facebook Ads Manager : Facebook, the company that created React Native, uses the framework for its own apps. Both the main Facebook app and the Facebook Ads Manager app are built using React Native, showcasing the capabilities of the framework.

2. Instagram : Instagram, a social media platform owned by Facebook, also uses React Native for its mobile app. This demonstrates the ability of React Native to handle large and complex apps with millions of users.

3. Skype : Microsoft's popular communication app, Skype, utilizes React Native for its mobile version. This cross-platform approach allows users on both iOS and Android to have a consistent experience.

4. Walmart : Walmart, the multidimensional retail corporation, employees React Native for some parts of its mobile app. This helps Walmart offer a unified experience to customers on different platforms.

5. Uber Eats : The food delivery service Uber Eats uses React Native to power its mobile app. This allows them to efficiently manage both iOS and Android development while maintaining a seamless user experience.

6. Discord : Discord, a popular communication platform for gamers, uses React Native for its mobile app. The framework enables them to deliver real-time chat and voice features efficiently across platforms.

7. Bloomberg : The Bloomberg mobile app, which provides financial news and market data, uses React Native for its user interface, demonstrating the versatility of the framework for information-intensive apps.

 

8. SoundCloud Pulse : SoundCloud Pulse, an app for creators on the SoundCloud platform, it built with React Native. It allows musicians and artists to manage their tracks, view statistics, and interact with their audience.

9. Tesla : Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer, uses React Native in some parts of its mobile app. The framework helps them deliver features related to vehicle control and monitoring.

10. Townske : Townske, a travel app that provides curated city guides, utilizes React Native for its mobile app. It showcases how React Native can be used for visually appealing and content-heavy applications.

5. React Native : Risk and Drawbacks

Here are the top four potential drawbacks you need to be aware of before you decide on developing a React Native app.

Lack of some custom modules

While React Native has been around for several years now, some custom modules either leave room for improvement or are entirely missing. This means that you might need to run these separate codebases (for React Native, iOS, and Android) instead of just one. That begin said, it's not a common occurrence. Unless you're developing your app from scratch or trying to hack an existing one, you likely won't come across these issues.

Compatibility and debugging issues

While it may come as a surprise - after all, React Native is used by top tech players - it's still in beta phase. Your developers might come across various issues with package compatibility or debugging tools. If your developers aren't proficient in React Native, this might negatively impact your development as they spend time on lengthy troubleshooting.

Scalability

Most of the time, React Native will work very well for you even if your app eventually grows into a highly-sophisticated, complex solution. After all, companies like Facebook and Skype have found much success with the framework and have been using it consistently for many years. That being said, some companies have decided to back out from using React Native.

Airbnb, for instance, decided to use the framework for its mobile app back when the company was just an emerging startup. Over time, however, React Native proved to be unfit for the company's growth plans, and Airbnb resorted to developing two separate native apps. With the current advancements in RN, and with the right software architecture choice, scalability issues can easily be prevented.

Native developer's help needed

Remember the "bridging" feature we mentioned earlier in this post? As it showed, React Native bridges JavaScript with native mobile code. This means that if you put a development in charge, they will have a hard time incorporating native code into the RN codebase. As a result, you'll need some assistance from Android or iOS native mobile developers, to guide them through the process.

One way of tackling this is by engaging a software consultancy to give you a helping hand with the native iOS and Android elements.

6. Alternatives for React Native

If you're considering alternatives to React Native for cross-platform mobile app development, several other frameworks offer similar capabilities and approaches. Each alternative has its unique strengths and weaknesses, so it's essential to evaluate them based on your project requirements and tram expertise. Here are some popular alternatives:

1. Flutter : Developed by Google, Flutter is an open-source UI software development kit (SDK) for building natively compiled applications for mobile web, and desktop from a single codebase. Flutter uses the Dart programming language and features a fast and expressive UI framework that allows developers to create visually stunning and high-performance apps. Flutter offers a hot reload feature similar to React Native, making it easy to iterate quickly during development.

2. Xamarin : Created by Microsoft, Xamarin is a cross-platform mobile app development framework that allows developers to use C# and .NET to build native applications for iOS, Android, and Windows. Xamarin provides a rich set of libraries, tools, and controls for developing robust mobile apps. It offers the ability to share significant portions of code across platforms while allowing developers to access platforms-specific APIs when needed.

3. Ionic : Built on top of Apache Cordova and Angular, Ionic is a popular open-source framework for building hybrid mobile apps. Ionic uses web technologies (HTML, CSS, and JavaScript) to create cross-platform applications. While it's a hybrid app framework like Cordova, Ionic focuses on providing a native-like user experience by using native UI elements where possible. It also supports progressive web apps (PWAs) and desktop applications.

4. NativeScript : Developed by Progress Software, NativeScript enables developers to build cross-platform mobile apps using JavaScript, TypeScript, or Angular. With NativeScript, you can access native APIs directly and use native UI components, offering a more native feel compared to hybrid frameworks. NativeScript also supports hot module replacement for quicker development iterations.

5. Vue Native : If you're already familiar with the Vue.js JavaScript framework, Vue Native provides an option to build cross-platform mobile apps using Vue.js syntax and components. It leverages React Native under the hood, so developers can take advantage of React Native's vast ecosystem while utilizing Vue.js's simplicity and flexibility.

6. SwiftUI (for iOS) and Jetpack Compose (for Android) : If your project targets specific platforms, SwiftUI (for iOS) and Jetpack Compose (for Android) are modern declarative UI frameworks provided by Apple and Google, respectively. These frameworks enable developers to build native user interfaces using Swift (for iOS) and Kotlin (for Android) in a more streamlined and reactive manner.

7. Advantages and Disadvantages of React Native

React Native, as a popular cross-platform mobile app development framework, offers various advantages and disadvantages. Understanding these can help you make an informed decision when choosing React Native for your app development project.

Advantages of React Native:

1. Accelerated development

Cross-platform apps requires less time to develop in React Native than in native technologies. That's because RN provides numerous ready-to-use components which can accelerate the process. The framework is based on JavaScript and gives access to the largest package ecosystem in the world. As an example, we built the very same app with both React Native and Swift. The latter took as much as 33% more time to build and still was working solely on iOS!

2. Using JavaScript 

JavaScript is the world's most widely used programming language, and 68% of developers write in it. As a result, people who know JavaScript can easily use React Native since the framework uses JavaScript for code writing. This advantage of RN allows developers to build mobile applications using only JavaScript, so they don't need to learn a new language and development tools will be almost the same.

3. Ease of UI Design

The React Native framework makes laying out User Interfaces a breeze. Developers simply use CSS-like language to create each UI view, just as they would if they developed the view in a native app environment. The framework will ensure that the app renders properly on any phone or mobile device.

4. Live Reload Feature

React Native eliminates the long recompiling process of other development platforms by offering a feature called Live Reload. This allows developers to see the results of their coding immediately and make quick changes with the click of a button.

5. Code Reusability

Developers can easily integrate 90% of the native framework and reuse the code for nay platform. This feature not only saves time but also helps to cut down the cost of building two apps. The cool thing is that you can use the web app code (written in React) for a mobile app.

6. Large Developer Community

React Native is an open-source platform that allows developer to contribute their knowledge to the framework's development, freely accessible to all. If a developer experiences a problem, they can turn to the community for support. As of November 2022, there were over 120,000 active questions on the React Native tag on Stack Overflow, some with several dozen comments.

7. Quick Fixes (OTA Updates)

Over-the-air updates are another benefit that comes with React Native app development. They allow you to introduce quick fixes or deliver new, small features directly to users. In such instances, you can deploy them without awaiting for third-party approval (e.g. App Store or Google Play). OTA updates are automatically downloaded on the user's device during the startup screen. The downsides? These updates work solely with JavaScript bundles. Also, more notable changes still have to be examined by digital distribution services before the launch.

8. Ready-made solutions and a vibrant library

React Native has a myriad of ready-made solutions that help in enhancing the mobile app development process. As for instance, the framework has a testing library that enables the developers to write bug-free code. Flawless coding helps in enhancing the credibility of the end product.

Some of the most versatile testing tools are:

• Chai
• Mocha
• Jest
• Enzyme

In addition to testing, if the developers wish to see successful type checking, there are tools for that as well. Tools such as Prototype, Flow, ESLint, and Axios are used for type checking.

Disadvantages of React Native

1. Compatibility and debugging issues

What might be surprising is that even thought top tech players, such as Microsoft or Meta, have used React Native for years, it's still in beta. While the framework is constantly updated, it hasn't reached the 1.0 version yet. As a result, developers might come across various issues with package compatibility or debugging packages, there is a risk that some packages you might be interested in are no longer maintained or compatible with your project.

2. Hard to determine user interface

If your mobile app requires features such as multiple screen transitions, animations and interactions then choosing React Native for your app development might not be the right choice for you. Mobile apps with complex gestures are not built using React Native.

Although there is a solutions to this problem. React Native has a gestures responder system. It will run the entire lifecycle of all the gestures in the mobile applications. But when it comes to complex ones, the developers will still face some difficulties. This is because iOS and Android apps have a unified API which are quite different from each other.

3. Lack of custom modules

As of now, react Native still some components and others can be still underdeveloped. Thus, you might have to build your solution from scratch or try to hack an existing one. Then, instead of only one codebase, you could end up with three: one for RN and native codebase for Android and iOS. This may result in differences in the behavior and appearance of an app on various platforms. Fortunately, those situations don't come about often and chances of encountering such problems are pretty low.

4. The framework is immature

The are may new advanced and updates that the framework experiences on a rapid pace. Every new release or update has so many significant chances that they may end up taking a toll on the developers. Since the updates happen at a faster pace, developers do not get adequate time to adjust to the changes and even before they do, they have to deal with another one.

There are instances where the developers cannot write codes only for React Native because they are required to write additional codes for components that are incompatible.

React Native is in every sense faster and newer. But in quest to be quick, the frameworks tends to lose its credibility and becomes too immature for Android and iOS apps. Moreover, the flexibility of the React mobile applications are below par as compared to Native apps.

5. Android Iterations Can Be Buggy

While React Native does not require separate development for iOS and Android, it's not flawless. Once the iterations are split out, the Android and iOS versions an often run differently than its counterpart.

These issues are easily surmounted, but you may want to build the appropriate testing time into your development schedule to endure you app is ready for its Android launch. This is an important consideration when weighing the pros of using React Native and React Native disadvantages.

6. React Native forces extra consideration

App developers using React Native have to pay more attention to the performance and write comprehensive code from the get-go. They should avoid unnecessary renders, as these can significantly slow down more complex parts of the app. In comparison, writing codes in e.g. Swift development gives devs more breathing space for fixing errors.

8. React Native vs. Flutter

React Native and Flutter - two cross-platform frameworks developed by well-known tech giants; Facebook and Google. Both are one the list of the most loved formworks, with Flutter being more favored by developers than React Native.

You might think that since Flutter is the preferred option for programmers, it might also be the best option for building your app. Before jumping to any conclusions, let's see how theses two frameworks compare.

1. Language and Development Environment:

• React Native : React Native uses JavaScript and React for app development, which is familiar to many web developers.
• Flutter : Flutter uses the Dart programming language, which may require developers to learn a new language, but it has a straightforward and clean syntax.

2. UI Components and Customization:

• React Native : React Native relies on native UI components of the respective platforms, providing a more native look and feel. Customization is sometimes limited by the native platforms capabilities.
• Flutter : Flutter uses a custom widget library, offering a wide range of highly customizable and expressive widgets. This allows developers to create visually stunning and unique user interfaces.

3. Performance:

• React Native : While React Native aims for native-like performance, it may introduce some performance overhead due to the JavaScript-to-native bridge.
• Flutter : Flutter's "Skia" engine directly renders UI components, bypassing a JavaScript bridge. This architecture results in excellent performance and smooth animations.

4. Community and Ecosystem:

• React Native : React Native has a larger and more mature community, resulting in a vast ecosystem of third-party libraries, tools, and resources.
• Flutter : Flutter's community is rapidly growing, and it has an active and enthusiastic community. The ecosystem is also expanding, but it may not be as extensive as React Native's yet.

5. Hot Reloading:

• React Native : React Native offers excellent hot reloading capabilities, allowing developers to see real-time changes in the app during development.
• Flutter : Flutter's hot reload is even faster and provides a seamless development experience, making it easy to iterate quickly.

6. Leaning Curve:

• React Native : Developers familiar with JavaScript and React can quickly start with react Native, reducing the learning curve.
• Flutter : Flutter's Dart language might be new to some developers, resulting in a steeper initial learning curve. However, its simple syntax and the availability of learning resources help developers adapt.

7. Platform Support:

• React Native : React Native primarily focuses on iOS and Android platforms, but it also has some community-driven efforts for Windows and macOS.
• Flutter : Flutter official supports iOS and Android, web, and desktop platforms (Windows, macOS, and Linus), making it more versatile for multi-platforms development.

8. Integration with Native Code:

• React Native : React Native allows developers to integrate native modules written in Java (for Android) and Swift/Objective-C (for iOS) when accessing specific platform features.
• Flutter : Flutter also supports integration with native code using platform channels, allowing developers to access native APIs when necessary.

Documentation

In this category, Flutter is the definite winner. The framework comes with a toolkit that supports developers throughout the app development process. Also, Flutter's documentation is considered to be both comprehensive and neatly-organized. If your developers were to experience any difficulties using documentation, the Flutter community would surely give them a helping hand.

To make it clear, React Native also features extensive documentation and an active community. There are also plenty of tutorials for new users. However, the setup isn't as easy as in the case of Flutter. If it's your developers' first take on cross-platform development, setting up Flutter might be easier for them.