NativeScript Vs React Native: What's Best for Your App Development Initiative In 2025

For JavaScript developers, the ability to create cross-platform mobile apps with JavaScript has been game-changing especially since the native vs cross-platform debate continues. Using JavaScript, developers may not only create web apps but also native apps for Android and iOS devices.

NativeScript and React Native help develop multi-platform mobile apps. But which one to choose? If your team has already created an app, the choice should depend on your tech stack. If you start with the ground up, one of them jumps out.

This article aims at helping you make an informed decision on which JavaScript mobile framework is ideal for your enterprise when developing mobile apps using React Native or NativeScript. So, without further ado, let's get into a comprehensive competitive analysis of NativeScript vs React Native.

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An Introduction to NativeScript and React Native

According to Statista, there were 218 billion downloads of mobile apps in the past year. This shows that there is a strong need for mobile apps that are trustworthy, speedy, and high-performing. React Native and NativeScript are two of the most popular frameworks for building native mobile apps. Let’s get to know them a little better shall we?

NativeScript

NativeScript is a free and open-source framework that uses CSS and JavaScript to render the user interfaces in order to give them a more native feel. With its customized tech stack, NativeScript attracts a lot of users. A JavaScript or TypeScript implementation of NativeScript can be used (basically any JavaScript-related language). Vue.js and Angular are just two of the frameworks that NativeScript may function well with. AngularJS development is possible with NativeScript. For the first time in 2017, Progress Software EAD (formerly called Telerik) helped and aided this framework to emerge. There are currently 166 people working on it on GitHub.

React Native

React Native swept the mobile app development market in 2015, and it's still going strong today. When Facebook introduced the iOS version of React Native, it was a huge success. In September, the Android version was made public on GitHub for the first time.

More than 2083 people have contributed to the React Native community, which is backed by Facebook. React Native is developed by Facebook. Developers may create native mobile apps for iOS and Android using React Native. The React Vs React Native has grown quite heated. Read on for all the deets.

NativeScript vs React Native: A Comparative Analysis

Now that we have a clear idea of what these warring technologies cover, let’s get into a comparative analysis of the two. Here we will be pitting React Native vs Native Script toe-to-toe while marking them on factors like Native APIs, Performance, Documentation, Hot Reload and Community support and stages of mobile app development. We trust that you have your seatbelts fastened because this is going to be a thrill-ride.

1. Native APIs

• APIs for React Native

React Native includes certain fundamental modules right out of the box. However, in other circumstances, you may require native capabilities for which React Native does not yet have a suitable module. To interact with Native APIs, you'll need to develop native modules.

Special bridges are needed to accomplish this, and they demand some knowledge of native development. You may, however, be able to find a pre-existing native module on GitHub or NPM, thanks to the large React Native community.

• APIs for NativeScript

NativeScript's most valuable feature is its ability to call native platform APIs. JavaScript can be used instead of Objective-C, swift or Kotlin to call platform APIs.

2. Performance of NativeScript vs React Native

Here we will discuss NativeScript vs React Native performance. As a result of the framework's single-threading method for accessing native device APIs, NativeScript programs are typically slower.

JavaScript and the app's interface run on distinct threads in React Native apps, which is different from how NativeScript works. As a result, React Native is your best bet if you want to design a mobile app that performs well. Also, for the aspect of UI, you can rely on ReactJS. It'll not only help you to enhance and craft an interactive UI, but also it is known to uplift the developer's productivity. So, if you need expert help, relying on an expert React Development company would be best.

Similar to React, React Native leverages the virtual DOM to refresh app UIs, which results in faster UI rendering.

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3. The Documentation for NativeScript vs React Native

When it comes to implementing animations, gestures, HTTP queries, and code sharing, the documentation for NativeScript is easy to follow.

Most of the time, though, developers must look outside the official documentation to figure out how things function in the NativeScript ecosystem.

An established cross-platform mobile app development framework like React Native has a greater demand for clear and detailed instructions because it is used by both novices and specialists alike.

However, despite the fact that the documentation is easy to understand, it does not go into enough detail to explain several concepts to beginners.

Detailed documents make working with the React Native docs as a novice constructing a functional React Native app much easier than it would otherwise be.

4. Hot Reload : NativeScript vs React Native

Mobile app development relies heavily on the hot reload capability, which greatly enhances the efficiency of developers.

NativeScript vs React Native approaches to hot reloading will be discussed in detail in this section.

• React Native Rapid Refresh

The team behind React Native's rapid refresh functionality disclosed it in the release notes for version 0.61. Fast refresh brought together the previous React Native versions' existing live reloading and hot reloading functionalities.

Your app's modifications will appear practically immediately if you enable rapid refresh.

• Hot Module Replacement for NativeScript

NativeScript 5.3 introduced the Hot Module Replacement (HMR) capability. Debugging in Visual Studio Code is supported, allowing developers to continue working in the debugger while the HMR feature is still active.

Complete support for SASS files also implies that when you make changes in your app, those changes will show up in your app during development; HMR works whether you add or remove a file from your NativeScript application directory.

Script updates in a Vue file are also supported, but there is a limitation when using TypeScript in Vue.

In NativeScript, debugging for Visual Studio Code is incorporated into NativeScript, but in React Native, error resilience is built into the quick refresh.

5. Community Support : NativeScript vs React Native

When deciding on a framework, it's critical to take the support of the community into account. Despite the fact that React Native has been around for a few years, NativeScript has been there for a long time. On March 26, 2015, React Native was released, while NativeScript was released in 2014.

While the one-year gap may appear to be a benefit, React Native's growth and adoption rate is far higher than NativeScript's. React Native has roughly 533k weekly downloads on npm as of the time of this publication, whereas NativeScript Vue had slightly under 7k weekly downloads.

NativeScript Angular has 208 contributors, but React Native has over 2,200 on GitHub, making it the clear winner. In addition, NativeScript has more than 3.5k developers on GitHub, while React Native has less than 720k.

Third-party libraries, and bug fixes are all impacted by the wide adoption of React Native by the developer community.

Also significant for learning about frameworks is how many resources are available, including blog posts, paid and free courses, as well as textbooks or YouTube videos.

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Conclusion

Even though React Native is getting all the attention, it doesn't mean that NativeScript isn't capable of solving the same business issues as React Native. Apps produced with NativeScript, like the ones you see here, demonstrate that it is capable of producing mobile apps that are ready for the market.

As a web developer, creating native Android and iOS apps with JavaScript is a rewarding experience. This is because JavaScript runs on web browsers.

In this piece, we've discussed what makes each framework distinct and how far they've progressed through time. A mobile app's needs, performance cost and chosen JavaScript framework, prior experience in mobile app development, and the need for Native APIs all play a role in deciding which framework to use.

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