React Native is one such technology. It was initially introduced by Facebook in 2015 and is used to develop applications for Android, iOS, tvOS, Web, Windows, Android TV, and macOS. It is one of the most multi-faceted technologies of all time. It provides developers with all the necessary tools to develop native-like user interfaces for applications. This quality of technology makes it very dependable, and along with other native platform abilities, it gives tough competition to technologies such as Flutter.
Is React Native a solution?
React Native is a powerful native app development technology. It has everything you need to develop applications for different operating systems. It helps in reducing the development cost and is perfect for building complex user interfaces.
Using the technology, developers can build applications for multiple operating systems and for devices of different screen sizes. It makes cross-platform app development easy. Unsurprisingly, the technology dominates the enterprise app development market and has penetrated well into other segments, expected to expand shortly.
With businesses adopting an omnichannel approach in their business game plan, we can expect the use of technology to grow massively. Accelerated the development speed, reduced developer efforts, and cost of development; this is only a fraction of what the technology has to offer. To start with, here are some large companies that use React Native; take a look.
Enterprises that use React Native
React Native is a native version of React. It was initially used by Facebook to develop its feed page. Later looking at its immense success, more businesses adopted it. It combines the native features to React and allows you to use JavaScript libraries to develop unbelievably beautiful user interfaces.
It is dynamic, modular and allows you to develop scalable applications easily. It gives you an opportunity to use a single code for building applications for different platforms, or you can choose to develop a whole new application from scratch.
It renders the UI using actual native views, and you don't have to face the challenges that you once faced during WebView rendering. The apps that use the technology are:
- Walmart
- Walmart
- Bloomberg
- Wix
- com
- Townske
- SoundCloud Pulse
- Gyroscope
And the list grows each day. More companies are choosingreact native services to get the best result.
Where does React Native stand in the mobile app development landscape?
Mobile app development has become a part of our life. By the year 2023, the industry is going to expand to a 935.2-Billion-dollar market. This is one reason why businesses are moving to mobile applications.
Not only is this a big opportunity for businesses, but also for the technologies. Different technologies are competing to provide businesses all that they need to develop highly scalable, high-performing, feature-rich applications.
React Native has started a whole new league of development technologies that offer new possibilities of hybrid app development services. It gives you added benefits, and cross and hybrid app development are no longer seen as anything less than native applications. You can achieve native-like capabilities in the application.
- React Native in a Nutshell
React Native is an open-source platform that has made a huge difference in mobile app development services. It is a very competitive technology and has outshined the old trusted technologies due to its many advantages. It is a top cross-platform app development technology according to 42% of developers all around the world. It is a flexible technology with the necessary features to develop scalable cross-platform mobile applications.
- Features
React Native comes from a trusted name such as Facebook. Facebook provides support for it, and it provides a wide range of widgets and tools for developing iOS and Android application development. Using the widgets and tools, developers can reduce the development time to 40-90%. Combined with code reusability, it helps reduce the turn-around time and cost of development.
Cost of building React Native Application
React Native is one of the perfect solutions for Startups as it opens a whole new paradigm for them. It allows enterprises to build budgetapplications for multiple platforms and offers a native-like experience. It is thus perfect for low-budget, highly ambitious projects.
One of the biggest factors to consider while estimating a mobile app development cost, start by finding the complexity in the project. A too complex application is going to take a lot of time and effort for a hybrid app development company. It is because the user experience becomes a huge challenge. Of course, the qualities of React Native helps, but still, it is going to take more time than what it took to build a less complex react native application.
Hourly charges for React Native App Development usually start from $15 to $25 per hour in India. It varies as per the skills, experience, and location. Geographically, developers in India cost you 3times less than the developers in the US and UK. Also, react Native gives a huge benefit of code reusability, which reduces the development cost even further, as it speeds the development work.
Meanwhile, this gives you a general idea about the mobile app development cost. It is necessary to weigh all the factors that influence the cost of react native app development.
Factors that influence the cost of react native app development
Assuming you would be outsourcing the development work to a reliable react native app development company, here are a few factors that will help you estimate the cost of the final product.
- A ballpark figure
Unfortunately, ever since the increased popularity of React Native, a lot of companies have tried to leverage the opportunity. But the quality is questionable. You may come across ads claiming a feature-rich, high-quality React Native application in $5000 to $7000. But don't fall for it.
The cost of development cannot be predetermined without knowing the app complexity, choice of operating platforms, design, and features. As per the process, you must start from consultation and send out your project details to the mobile app development company. They would give you the right quote, with a breakdown of the time it would take, the number of developers it would require, and the cost per hour of the developers. Depending on this, react native app development services cost would range somewhat between $10,000 to $50,000 or more.
- List of Factors that influence React Native App development cost.
Let's look at all the factors that make all the difference between the cost of mobile application development services.
- App Development Process
Depending on your project specifications, a mobile app development company would choose the right process to get it done within the timeline while maintaining the quality. There are some predefined processes, and they have evolved with time. They work as ground rules of building application. Depending on the process, every stage of the development process is going to cost you.
- Discovery, analysis, and planning
the first stage is basically all about understanding the project requirement and planning. It is Discovery, Analysis, and Strategy Planning. It helps developers evaluate the business idea and do competitive analysis. It involves understanding industry trends and the common practices that will help them reach the target audience. Once they have all the information, they create a roadmap. The stage would cost you around $5000.
- Wireframing and Prototyping
Wireframing is roughly designing the application. It means creating a rough presentation of the app screens with clickable elements that will help you understand the functionality of the app to some level.
Wireframing can take up to 50 hours. It starts with creating a user flow on the app. It defines the entire user journey, including lo-fi sketches and detailed visual presentation.
- Designing and development
Once the prototype is approved, the development work begins. Wireframe serves as a guide to the development of the application. The major part of the application is UI creation and implementation. Since React Native development services give you a huge benefit in UI development and reducing development time, frontend development is going to be fairly easy. This phase would cost you 50-70% of the entire development cost.
- Testing, Launching, and Post Launch Maintenance
App testing is one of the most important parts of app development services. It helps you make the app experience bug-free and ensure smoother functioning after the launch. You will have to hire a tester from the development company.
- App Functionality and Complexity
This is one of the biggest factors that influence the cost of app development. And it is going to be very difficult to evaluate. It requires a lot of technical knowledge and understanding.
The easy way to do it is by knowing the time a particular functionality or feature is going to take. Cost can be another way to determine the complexity of the app development.
If you are thinking about including too many features in an app, it is going to take more time. The features will ultimately increase the development cost. The complexity and newness of the features have to be evaluated.
Depending on these factors, the development work may last for a week or six months' time to get completed.
Useful Tip
If you are a startup and you want to have an application really fast and on a low budget, you may want to consider MVP. Minimum Viable Products are applications that have minimum features and basic functionality that can be used for beta testing or raising crowdfunding.
This will allow you to get started with the work and start basic business operations. In the meantime, developers will get the time to develop the complex features of the application.
Below we are mentioning the elements of development that will define the complexity of the application.
- Deployment and Architecture Model
Once the application is ready, it is ready to get deployed. When it comes to backend development, mobile app development companies can go with custom development or BaaS. They both are efficient, and there are other methods too.
In case you go with custom development, you need to code your own architecture, while BaaS has everything you need already set in the backend. But customization also gives you an opportunity to offer a fresh experience to your users.
- Third-party integration
Businesses work on scalability, and not always it is going to coming from building software and applications from scratch. You can increase the app capabilities using third-party integration. Third-party integrations bring out the needed functionality in the application without having developers to code it. It is very easy to integrate, and safe too. React Native has a bit complicated third-party integration process, but it is doable might just take a bit more time.
- Other features
In-app purchases option in the application, admin panel development, integration of a legacy system is going to increase the complexity of the application.
In general, the more feature-rich an application is, the more complex the application development process would be. Depending on the type of application you are building, and what is your business model, you have to get picky about the features that you put in an app. You can start by getting an app with all the necessary features, and later with updates, release new functionality to the app.
- Add-ons
React native is one of the best technologies of all time. And it allows you to develop feature-rich and visually stunning mobile applications. The biggest benefit of using the application is that it helps you stay focused on your customers.
You can use the quality to make the experience more engaging for your users. Features such as adding social media channels, social logins, animation, and other custom add-ons become fairly easy.
But that would influence your development cost. So, you have to be very picky of the features or add-ons you choose for your application. It all depends on your target audience, what your competitors are doing and what your business plan is.
- UX and UI
React Native is all about the user interface. And it makes a lot of difference in the way users perceive cross-platform applications. A mobile app design includes the user interface the user experience both.
They are two different entities that cohesively count in for the mobile app development experience. Meanwhile,the user interface is about the components;the user experience is about the functionality of these components.
As mobile app development design is a very important part of your application. You would not want to compromise on it. It is necessary that the experience is smooth, hassle-free, and user-friendly. All the animation, transitions, and other factors you add into the application to make it more dynamic are going to influence the cost of the development and the time taken.
Useful Tip
One of the biggest reasons React Native is so much preferred by developers is that it has all the UI component libraries you would need to improve the experience on the app. It has Native Base, React Native Element, Vector icons, React Native Maps, etc. Using these components, you can build a visually stunning application without having to code them from scratch.
- Distribution of the app
There are a number of distribution channels you can use for deploying your application. Every channel has its own price point. And it all depends on what you choose. Google Play Store, Apple App Store are two of the most popular app distribution channels. But there are other profitable avenues too. You have to match their app standards and adhere to the policies to publish your application on these channels.
Meanwhile,you would have to pay the charges for publishing your application; the other advantages of React native allowyou to keep development costs at bay. A cross-platform app development framework like react-native reduces your development cost significantly, and you can use it to publish it on multiple platforms.
- App development team
Hiring an app developer would mean you have two choices; you can outsource the project to a reliable development company, or you would hire an entire app development team.
Hiring, however, is much costlier than outsourcing the development work. Outsourcing is an affordable option; you don't have to worry about all the resources you would need for the work to get started. And then there is always a chance that the developers or designers would leave your project mid-way, delaying the development work. It would also mean reduced work as you will not have to stay with the team, screening and managing the team.
One of the other benefits of outsourcing React Native App Development team is they offer you a flexible hiring model. You can choose to hire resources part-time, full-time, or on an hourly basis, depending on the need of the project and the complexity.
Since react Native is one of the best development technologies, and it uses JavaScript, you can hire good developers if you follow the process right.
- Team Size and Location of Development
A mobile app development process is not just about codes. You need designers, backend developers, project managers, frontend developers, app testers, and UI & UX designers.
The cost per hour differs based on the location you choose to hire. India has one of the largest developer pools. You can easily find a developer or designer easier in India without having to worry about the quality of development.
- Maintenance and Support
Lastly, mobile app development cost doesn't end even with the final deployment of the app. To up-keep the experience on your application, you need to regularly maintain the application. It would help you keep the experience bug-free and secure.
While estimating the cost of development, you must not forget to include maintenance cost. It takes fewer resources to maintain the application, and since React native allows you to use a single codebase for an app for different platforms, it would not largely impact the cost of development.
Read the blog- How Do You Make Your App Stand Out? Native App Vs Hybrid App
Important Tips to help you save the cost of mobile app development
React is a top-rated mobile app development technology. It is powering thousands of applications, such as Uber Eats, Tesla, Walmart, etc., and the number is growing as we talk. Businesses don't have to have a too expensive budget to have an app built on React Native. You can use it to develop an app for different platforms.
Aiming at reducing the development, it is perfect for hybrid app development services. It is a flexible and efficient solution to your needs. Facebook has integrated it with JS library that works as a core for building engaging user interfaces for the application.
You can make customizations to it, or you can choose the available libraries to add functionality to the application to give it a native-like experience.
Moreover, React Native is very easy; it doesn't take much time to learn, and it has a huge developer community to resolve the issues that come during the development process. It is simple, efficient, and can be used for multiple operating systems.
Apart from using the JavaScript framework, React Native allows developers to use various other advantages to write code for different applications. Here are a few ones you should know about:
- JavaScript
JavaScript is a very common programming language, and developers have been using it for quite some time. Since developers are so much well-versed with the programming language, it becomes easier for them to create great applications. 90% of mobile app developers use the language.
- Implement Updates
It is not required to download an application for upgrading it. This makes react-native time-efficient to allow easy implementation of the upgrades.
- Cross-platform and code reusability
Of all the advantages of React Native, if you are going for an omnichannel approach, you must truly give React Native a chance. It has many benefits over the conventional technologies; one givesa native-like app experience.
- Hot Reload
Hot reload saves a lot of time during project development. It helps in instant changes and seeing them instantly on the application. This improves the productivity of the development team highly.
Wrapping Up
I hope you enjoyed the blog and found it informational. React Native is one of the most trusted technologies of all time is going to help you in developing small-budget applications which are no less than high-end applications. If you are considering cross-platform app development,React is one technology that you would not want to miss out on.
