I have started to learn React out of curiosity and wanted to know the difference between React and React Native - though could not find a satisfactory answer using Google. React and React Native seems to have the same format. Do they have completely different syntax?
ReactJS is a JavaScript library, supporting both front-end web and being run on a server, for building user interfaces and web applications.
React Native is a mobile framework that compiles to native app components, allowing you to build native mobile applications for different platforms (iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile) in JavaScript that allows you to use ReactJS to build your components, and implements ReactJS under the hood.
Both are open sourced by Facebook.
Google can't explain this to you, as you said, but Google would be so happy if they invented React.
Here is the React project.
At Facebook, they invented React so JavaScript can manipulate the website DOM faster using the virtual DOM model.
DOM full refresh is slower compared to the React virtual-dom model, which refreshes only parts of the page (read: partial refresh).
As you may understand from this video, Facebook did not invent React because they understood immediately that the partial refresh would be faster than the conventional one. Originally they needed a way to reduce Facebook application re-build time and luckily this brought the partial DOM refresh to life.
React native is just a consequence of React. It is a platform to build native apps using JavaScript.
Prior to React native you needed to know Java for Android or Objective-C for iPhone and iPad to create native apps.
With React Native it is possible to mimic the behavior of the native app in JavaScript and at the end, you will get platform specific code as the output. You may even mix the native code with the JavaScript if you need to optimize your application further.
As Olivia Bishop said in the video, 85% of the React native code base can be shared among platforms. These would be the components applications typically use and the common logic.
15% of the code is platform specific. The platform-specific JavaScript is what gives the platform flavor ( and makes the difference in the experience ).
The cool thing is this platform specific code — is already written, so you just need to use it.
React:
React is a declarative, efficient, and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
React Native:
React Native lets you build mobile apps using only JavaScript. It uses the same design as React, letting you compose a rich mobile UI from declarative components.
With React Native, you don't build a “mobile web app”, an “HTML5 app”, or a “hybrid app”. You build a real mobile app that's indistinguishable from an app built using Objective-C or Java. React Native uses the same fundamental UI building blocks as regular iOS and Android apps. You just put those building blocks together using JavaScript and React.
React Native lets you build your app faster. Instead of recompiling, you can reload your app instantly. With hot reloading, you can even run new code while retaining your application state. Give it a try - it's a magical experience.
React Native combines smoothly with components written in Objective-C, Java, or Swift. It's simple to drop down to native code if you need to optimize a few aspects of your application. It's also easy to build part of your app in React Native, and part of your app using native code directly - that's how the Facebook app works.
So basically React is UI library for the view of your web app, using javascript and JSX, React native is an extra library on the top of React, to make native app for iOS and Android devices.
React code sample:
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom';
class Clock extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props);
this.state = {date: new Date()};
}
componentDidMount() {
this.timerID = setInterval(
() => this.tick(),
1000
);
}
componentWillUnmount() {
clearInterval(this.timerID);
}
tick() {
this.setState({
date: new Date()
});
}
render() {
return (
<div>
<h1>Hello, world!</h1>
<h2>It is {this.state.date.toLocaleTimeString()}.</h2>
</div>
);
}
}
ReactDOM.render(
<Clock />,
document.getElementById('root')
);
React Native code sample:
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { Text, View } from 'react-native';
class WhyReactNativeIsSoGreat extends Component {
render() {
return (
<View>
<Text>
If you like React on the web, you'll like React Native.
</Text>
<Text>
You just use native components like 'View' and 'Text',
instead of web components like 'div' and 'span'.
</Text>
</View>
);
}
}
For more information about React, visit the official website by facebook team:
https://facebook.github.io/react
For more information about React Native, visit React native website here:
ReactJS is a framework for building an hierarchy of UI components. Each component has state and props. Data flows from the top to low-level components via props. The state is updated in the top-level component using event handlers.
React native uses React framework for building components for mobile apps. React native provides a basic set of components for both iOS and Android platforms. Some of the components in React Native are Navigator, TabBar, Text, TextInput, View, ScrollView. These components use native iOS UIKit and Android UI components internally. React native also allows NativeModules where code written in ObjectiveC for iOS and Java for Android can be used within JavaScript.
- React-Native is a framework for developing Android & iOS applications which shares 80% - 90% of Javascript code.
While React.js is a parent Javascript library for developing web applications.
While you use tags like
<View>,<Text>very frequently in React-Native, React.js uses web html tags like<div><h1><h2>, which are only synonyms in dictionary of web/mobile developments.For React.js you need DOM for path rendering of html tags, while for mobile application: React-Native uses AppRegistry to register your app.
I hope this is an easy explanation for quick differences/similarities in React.js and React-Native.
First, the similarities: Both react & react-native (RN) were designed to allow developers to create flexible user interfaces. There are tons of benefits to these frameworks, but the most fundamental take-away is that they're made for UI-development.
React:
Facebook (who developed RN a few years after react) designed this framework to be almost like writing your JavaScript inside of your HTML/XML, which is why the tags are called "JSX" (JavaScript XML) (e.g. the familiar HTML-like tags such as <div> or <p>). A hallmark of React is the capital-letter tags which denote a custom component, such as <MyFancyNavbar />, which is also true for RN. However, where they differ is in that React uses the DOM. Since the DOM exists for HTML, React is therefore used for web development.
React Native:
RN does not use HTML, and therefore, it is not used for web development. It is used for... virtually everything else! Mobile development (both iOS & Android), smart-devices (e.g. watches, TVs), augmented reality, etc. Since RN has no DOM to interact with, instead of using the same sort of HTML tags used in React, it uses its own tags that are then compiled into other languages. For example, instead of <div> tags, RN developers will uses RN's built-in <View> tag, which will compile into other native code under the hood (e.g. android.view on Android; and UIView on iOS).
In short: they're very similar (for UI development) but used for different mediums.
We can't compare them exactly. There are differences in usecase.
( 2018 update )
ReactJS
has as main focus : Web Development
- React’s virtual DOM is faster than the conventional full refresh model, since the virtual DOM refreshes only parts of the page.
- You can reuse code components in React JS, saving you a lot of time. ( as you can in RN too )
- As Business : The rendering of your pages completely, from the server to the browser will improve the SEO of your web app.
- It improves the debugging speed making your developer’s life easier.
- You can use hybrid mobile app development, as Cordova or Ionic to built Mobile Apps too, with ReactJS, but is more efficiently building mobile apps with React Native from many points.
ReactNative
an extension of react, niched on Mobile Development.
- its main focus -> is all about Mobile User Interface.
- iOS & Android covered.
- Reusable React Native UI components & modules that allow hybrid apps to render natively.
- No need to overhaul your old app. All you have to do is add React Native UI components into your existing app’s code, without having to rewrite.
- Doesn't use HTML to render the app. Provides alternative components that work in a similar way, so it wouldn't be hard to understand them.
- Because your code doesn’t get rendered in an HTML page, this also means you won’t be able to reuse any libraries you previously used with ReactJS that renders any kind of HTML, SVG or Canvas.
- React-Native is not made from web elements and can’t be styled in the same way. Goodbye CSS Animations
Hopefully I helped you :)
React is a declarative, efficient, and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces.Your components tell React what you want to render – then React will efficiently update and render just the right components when your data changes. Here, ShoppingList is a React component class, or React component type.
A React Native app is a real mobile app. With React Native, you don't build a “mobile web app”, an “HTML5 app”, or a “hybrid app”. You build a real mobile app that's indistinguishable from an app built using Objective-C or Java. React Native uses the same fundamental UI building blocks as regular iOS and Android apps.
React Native is primarily developed in JavaScript, which means that most of the code you need to get started can be shared across platforms. React Native will render using native components. React Native apps are developed in the language required by the platform it targets, Objective-C or Swift for iOS, Java for Android, etc. The code written is not shared across platforms and their behavior varies. They have direct access to all features offered by the platform without any restriction.
React is an open-source JavaScript library developed by Facebook for building user interfaces. It's used for handling view layer for web and mobile apps. ReactJS used to create reusable UI components.It is currently one of the most popular JavaScript libraries in the it field and it has strong foundation and large community behind it.If you learn ReactJS, you need to have knowledge of JavaScript, HTML5 and CSS.
In a simple sense, React and React native follows the same design principles except in the case of designing user interface.
- React native has a separate set of tags for defining user interface for mobile, but both use JSX for defining components.
- Both systems main intention is to develop re-usable UI-components and reduce development effort by its compositions.
- If you plan & structure code properly you can use the same business logic for mobile and web
Anyway, it's an excellent library to build user interface for mobile and web.
ReactJS is a core framework, meant to build component isolated based on reactive pattern, you can think of it as the V from MVC, although I would like to state that react does brings a different feel, specially if you are less familiar with reactive concept.
ReactNative is another layer that is meant to have a set component for Android and iOS platform that are common. So the code looks basically the same as ReactJS because is ReactJS, but it load natively in mobile platforms. You can also bridge more complex and platform relative API with Java/Objective-C/Swift depending on the OS and use it within React.
React Js is a Javascript Library where you can develop and run faster web applications using React .
React Native lets you build mobile apps using only JavaScript,it is used for Mobile application development . more info here https://facebook.github.io/react-native/docs/getting-started.html
React-Native is a framework, where ReactJS is a javascript library you can use for your website.
React-native provides default core components (images, text), where React provides a bunch of components and make them work together.
React is the base abstraction of React Native and React DOM, so if your going to work with React Native you will also need React... same with the web but instead of React Native you will need React DOM.
Since React is the base abstraction the general syntax and workflow is the same but the components that you would use are very different thus you will need to learn those differences this is inline with React so called moto which is "Learn once write anywhere" because if you know React(base abstraction) you could simply learn the differences between platform without learning another programming language, syntax and workflow.
In regards to component lifecycle and all the other bells and whistles it is mostly the same.
The difference mostly is the JSX markup used. React uses one that resembles html. The other is markup that is used by react-native to display the view.
React Native is for mobile applications while React is for websites(front-end). Both are frameworks invented by Facebook. React Native is a cross platform developing framework meaning one could write almost the same code for both IOS and Android and it would work. I personally know much more about React Native so I will leave it at this.
React Js is manipulating with HTML Dom. But React native is manipulating with mobile(iOS/android) native ui component.
REACT is Javascript library to build large/small interface web application like Facebook.
REACT NATIVE is Javascript framework to develop native mobile application on Android, IOS, and Windows Phone.
Both are open sourced by Facebook.
ReactJS is a javascript library which is used to build web interfaces. You would need a bundler like webpack and try to install modules you would need to build your website.
React Native is a javascript framework and it comes with everything you need to write multi-platform apps (like iOS or Android). You would need xcode and android studio installed to build and deploy your app.
Unlike ReactJS, React-Native doesn't use HTML but similar components that you can use accross ios and android to build your app. These components use real native components to build the ios and android apps. Due to this React-Native apps feel real unlike other Hybrid development platforms. Components also increases reusability of your code as you don't need to create same user interface again on ios and android.
In simple terms ReactJS is parent library which returns something to render as per the host-environment(browser, mobile, server, desktop..etc). Apart from rendering it also provides other methods like lifecycle hooks.. etc.
In the browser, it uses another library react-dom to render DOM elements. In mobile, it uses React-Native components to render platform specific(Both IOS and Android) native UI components. SO,
react + react-dom = web developement
react + react-native = mobile developement
Here are the differences that I know about:
- They have different html tags: React Native is using for handling text and instead of in React.
- React Native is using Touchable components instead of a regular button element.
- React Native has ScrollView and FlatList components for rendering lists.
- React Native is using AsyncStorage while React is using local storage.
- In React Native routers function as a stack, while in React, we use Route components for mapping navigation.
In summary: React.js for Web Development while React-Native for Mobile App Development
React Js - React JS is front-end javascript library it's large library not a framework
- It follows the component based approach which helps in building
reusable UI components- It is used for developing complex and interactive web and mobile UI
- Even though it was open-sourced only in 2015, it has one of the largest communities supporting it.
ReactNative - React Native is an open-source mobile application framework.
reactjs uses a react-dom not the browser dom while react native uses virtual dom but the two uses the same syntax i.e if you can use reactjs then you can use react native.because most of the libraries you use in reactjs are available in react native like your react navigation and other common libraries they have in common.
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/34641582/what-is-the-difference-between-react-native-and-react