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Add to SafariWhen comparing Kotlin vs React Native, the Slant community recommends React Native for most people. In the question“What are the best tools for making a cross-platform application?” React Native is ranked 10th while Kotlin is ranked 16th. The most important reason people chose React Native is:
React Native allows you to create native apps by generating native views with JavaScript instead of using a web wrapper.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Great tooling support
Since Kotlin is made by Jetbrains (the developers of IntelliJ IDEA) so it stands to reason that the IntelliJ support for Kotlin is also great. Besides that, Kotlin also works well with existing Java tools such as Eclipse, Maven, Gradle, Android Studio, etc...
Pro Easy adoption for existing Java programmers
Kotlin runs on the JVM and Java interoperability has been one of the main objectives since the language was born. It runs everywhere Java does; web servers, mobile devices (Android), and desktop applications. It also works with all the major tools in the Java ecosystem like Eclipse, IntelliJ, Maven, Ant, Gradle, Spring Boot, etc.
All of this makes adoption extremely easy even for existing Java projects. On top of this there's also ensured Type safety and less boilerplate code needed.
Pro Easy to learn if you have prior programming experience
Kotlin's syntax is extremely easy to understand. The language can be picked up in a few hours just by reading the language reference.
Pro No runtime overhead
The standard library is relatively small and tight. It mostly consists of focused extensions of the Java standard library and as such adds no additional runtime overhead to existing Java projects.
Pro Officially supported for Android development
Starting with version 3.0 of Android Studio, Kotlin support will be built-in. This means that it's now easier than ever to use Kotlin for existing Android projects or even start writing Android apps only with Kotlin from scratch.
This also means that Kotlin and Kotlin plugins for Android Studio will be fully supported in the future and their likelihood of being abandoned is quite small since Google is fully embracing the language for their Android ecosystem (alongside Java and C++).
Pro Low-risk adoption for existing Java codebases
Since it has such a good interoperability with Java, Java libraries, and Java tools. It can be adopted for an existing Java codebase at little to no cost. The codebase can be converted from Java to Kotlin little by little without ever disrupting the functionality of the application itself.
Pro Does not impose a particular philosophy of programming
It's not overly OOP like Java and it does not enforce strict functional paradigms either.
Pro Is built to solve industrial problems
Kotlin has been designed and built by developers who have an industrial background and not an academic one. As such, it tries to solve issues mostly found in industrial settings. For example, the Kotlin type system helps developers avoid null pointer exceptions. Reasearch languages usually do not have null at all, but APIs and large codebases usually need null.
Pro Allows you to develop native apps
React Native allows you to create native apps by generating native views with JavaScript instead of using a web wrapper.
Pro Large, supportive community
Despite being such a young framework (early 2015), the support for React Native grew quickly. There is a forum, active tag on Stackoverflow and many other ways to get help from the community.
Pro Backed by Facebook
Facebook writes their mobile apps in React Native so the code base gets pretty thoroughly used in some highly demanding scenarios.
Pro More predictable control of the state
The one way data flow, makes it more predictable and easy to control.
Cons
Con May be hard for programmers already used to imperative style to learn functional programming from Kotlin
Since Kotlin does not enforce any particular paradigms and is not purely functional, it can be pretty easy to fall back to imperative programming habits if a programmer comes from an imperative background.
Con The need for Java interoperability has forced some limitations
The need to make Kotlin interoperable with Java has caused some unintuitive limitations to the language design.
Con If core team doesn't use a certain feature, it's not developed
Whenever there's functionality you need that they don't use in their apps, it's not going to get developed by them, even if it's obvious it should be in the core. They always say to either submit a PR or create a separate module.
Con Steep learning curve
React Native is not the most beginner-friendly framework for creating mobile apps with JavaScript. It requires that the developer know React, which is known to have a steep learning curve.
Con Many existing JS libraries are not usable on React Native; not exactly a 1-to-1 experience to writing React either
Example: Library that provides a full calendar with agenda view.
In the end it's much easier to develop in actual JavaScript with a solution such as Ionic, especially if your app needs to work well on the desktop.
Con React native only supports react which is getting old
React native is only based on react which is getting old. An old tech developer can't take much breaking changes so it gets more patchs. There is a limit, and react is too verbose and complex. better alternatives available today.
