Swift vs React Native: Which One Is Better to Choose When Developing Your App For iOS

Swift and React Native are the most popular languages for developing iOS mobile apps. Still, the choice between those languages will impact not only the development time and app estimation cost but also the app's ability to scale in the future. Thus, let's compare Swift vs. React Native, their pros and cons, and find out which language suits your project the best.

The article covers:

• What is Swift?
• What is React Native?
• Swift vs. React Native Comparison
• Swift vs. React Native: what to choose for your project?

What is Swift?

Swift is a coding language developed for building native applications for iOS devices (iPhones, Apple computers, AppleWatch, Apple TV). Swift is open-source, distributed on Apache License, supports Cocoa Touch frameworks, and Objective-C code. Currently, Swift has 48.2K GitHub stars and 7.71K GitHub forks. This programming language is the best option for developing projects with sophisticated infrastructure, complex integrations, and native iOS features, such as in-app payment.

What is React Native?

React Native is a framework developed by Facebook for building device-agnostic mobile applications using JavaScript. Since React Native is built on JavaScript, this language enables sharing around 70% code while developing cross-platform mobile apps for iOS and Android devices, which reduce the development time and costs.
React Native has 78.3K GitHub stars and 17.5K forks on GitHub.
Thus, React Native is your language of choice if you need to create a mobile app for Android and iOS platforms.

Now that you know about Swift and React Native, let's compare the possibilities of each coding language.

React Native vs. Swift comparison

Since you want to develop an outstanding app, you need to consider the following factors since they impact the app development cost, the app performance, and further technical support of your project.

User Interface

Since Swift of a native language for building iOS apps, there would not be a single issue with integrating an app into the iOS design and applying UX design principles. At the same time, to build a mobile app on Swift, your development team should create the code from scratch and polish app design elements separately.
Being powered with JavaScript, React Native uses the internal APIs to run native elements that adjust to any screen size. Thus, all app elements will be displayed appropriately on various screens, whether it is an iPhone or iPad.

Speed of coding
Swift is the most time-saving option to build an app for the iOS platform: it makes app development easier while getting rid of drawbacks.
At the same time, if your goal is to develop an app for both iOS and Andriod platforms, and you do not want to develop two separate mobile apps, leverage React Native. Apart from being a simple-yet-powerful working horse in the mobile development world, React Native allows building an app for both iOS and Android app that will be a copy-paste process.

Community and support
To receive support during the mobile app development process, developers use Swift public forums with over 10,000 distributors.
To receive support concerning issues with React Native, developers visit React Native Community on GitHub.

Performance
Native mobile applications developed on Swift uses all device possibilities, especially graphic effects, and computational-heavy tasks.
When developers build a mobile app using React Native, they create modules to leverage internal APIs and libraries on their own. Since developers add a middle-man between the code and platform, in some cases, it may impact the app's performance.

Developer hourly rate
In 2019, the average Swift developers' hourly wage varies among different countries:

• From $80 to $300 in the U.S.
• From $50 to $200 in Western Europe
• From $25 and $150 in Eastern Europe
  At the same time, the cost of one hour of React Native Developer is the following:
• From $70 to $350 in the U.S.
• From $60 to $250 in Western Europe
• From $30 to $120 in Eastern Europe

Swift vs. React Native: what to choose for your project?

So that is the best coding language to build your iOS mobile app? The answer depends on the app type, functionality, number of users, and other factors. To give you a clue about the solution, consider the following:

• To build an app with complex user interfaces, such as a messaging app with a built-in geolocation feature, use Swift. Since building complex apps on native coding language is always the best option.

• If you want to build a mobile app for both iOS and Android platforms, use React Native to save your time and money.

• When creating an app with numerous native features, and APIs provided by iOS, such as media players or battery monitoring, leverage Swift.
  

In a nutshell, both Swift and React Native are robust solutions for mobile app development. Still, your choice will depend on your project type:

Go Swift, if you:

• Want to make an iOS-only app
• Develop a complex app which uses a large part of platform-specific code
• Want to maintain the app over a long period
• Need an app to manage things like memory footprint, or
• Your app will require a lot of interactions with the user interface

Go React Native if:

• You need to build an app for both iOS and Android platforms with a small team with limited time and resources.
• Your app will look and work the same for both Android and iOS.

By choosing the right platform for your iOS apps, you can significantly reduce app development costs, increase app productivity, and improve ongoing app support.