How to Improve React Native App Performance

React Native has a large following, from Fortune 500 companies to new startups. Developers can create excellent mobile UI using React Native for mobile apps on IOS and Android. So how is React native doing in the face of its other giant competitors? Recent Stack Overflow trends show React native has outpaced its two leading competitors - Xamarin and Cordova. It’s now going head-to-head with React Native vs. flutter.

More than 34 thousand apps use React Native, with more than 42 billion downloads, according to appbrain. Its superior development environment and thriving community have played a significant role in its meteoric rise. With everything going great for React Native, does it even have a flip side? Yes, it does. It’s the snag in React Native app performance!

One of the most critical characteristics of mobile apps is speed. Most users will delete a slow app and move on to the next one if it is too slow. Your app's performance, particularly in speed, will improve if you hire react native developers from our team at Clarion Technologies who can identify latency issues and understand the whole picture.

What is the Main Reason for the Decline in React Native App Performance?

The more code is on the JavaScript side of the bridge, the slower your app will run. A single-thread programming language like JavaScript limits performance as it can complete a single task simultaneously. You can check the framerate of your JavaScript and UI system threads to see where your app's performance bottlenecks are.

It also depends on your code, so steer clear of anything that can block the thread, such as synchronous network calls or endless loops. Watch out for FlatLists because they are the main culprit of React-native performance problems.

Here you can understand what things you should consider building a React Native app.

How Can You Speed up React Native App Performance?

• Check out Memory Leakage

Memory leakage, a React Native performance challenge, occurs because of needless processes operating in an application’s background. Because there is less memory available, memory leaks have the effect of lowering computer performance. In the worst-case scenario, too much of the available memory allocated causes the system or device to malfunction entirely or partially, the program to crash, or the system to slow down significantly.

• Work on the Animations

The JavaScript thread controls animations. Imagine scene transition; the new scene moves from the right to leave, starting offscreen. For each frame during this transition, the JavaScript thread must send a new x-offset to the main thread. If the JavaScript thread gets locked, it cannot do this, so no update occurs on that frame, and the animation stutters.

One solution is to offload JavaScript-based animations to the main thread.

• Improve App’s launch time

To improve the app’s launch time is to take care of Object. Finalize element. Finalizers run on a single thread, so every other object has to wait until all finalizers have passed through before they can be garbage collected. This creates enormous dependencies, leading to slow app launch time.

• Navigation Can Cause Hindrance

The program’s functionality revolves around navigation, so you should put much effort into enhancing it and enhancing the interaction between JavaScript and Native elements. As a result, you can use these navigational features. React Navigation, Navigator, Navigator iOS, and Navigation Experiment.

• Multi-threading Adds to the Problem

React Native does not support multithreading. Other items must wait until the initial element in React Native has finished rendering before continuing. For instance, implementing live chat capability alongside a live video broadcast involves performance issues. Use main threads to operate the business logic of your application, respond to user inputs, and keep track of the state for React Native performance tests.

Comparing App Performance React Native vs. Flutter vs. Xamarin vs. Ionic

Performance

• React Native - Needs Improvement
• Flutter - Better than React Native
• Xamarin - Xamarin, it is possible to achieve performance similar to native apps.
• Ionic - Does not offer performance similar to native apps

Examples of Companies Using React Native while Maintaining Good App Performance

Instagram remains the best example as it transitioned to Reactive Native in 2016. Digital photographs and short films are now Instagram's primary modes of operation. Today, they can deliver features more quickly and efficiently while maintaining both iOS and Android app versions.

• Flipkart moved more quickly with React Native while maintaining high app performance. The team's initial objective was to use React Native to develop infinite list displays on search pages.
• The huge codebase with significant business logic at Coinbase was quickly migrated. Additionally, Coinbase addressed its scaling issues and improved platform-agnostic app performance.
• LendMN addressed issues fast, enhanced app performance, and expedited the app approval procedure with React Native.
• Pinterest created a "crash test" using a straightforward screen. After implementing the screen on iOS in about ten days, it "moved" to Android in just two. They achieved time-effectiveness without sacrificing performance.
• Walmart decided to use React Native to rewrite their native mobile app. Even though they had many animations, React Native-based apps performed on par with native apps.

Benefits of Improving React Native App Performance

React Native developers can reduce app launch load time which users can/will “feel” in the final product. According to the survey conducted by Dimensional Research, user satisfaction with an app is directly correlated to the app’s performance.

React Native in cross-platform smartphone development far outnumbers Flutter because of its new, improved architecture. React native’s new rendering system fabric improves performance for navigation, lists, gesture handling, etc.

Removing the obsolete components in React Native (i.e., AsyncStorage, WebView) from the core and turning it into community-managed repositories has helped React Native to improve performance and flexibility.

Smooth communication between JS and Native code and the new underlying structure all bubble up your app performance.

Conclusion:

Performance is only one aspect of an app. There are many other reasons to choose a solution over the other, like UI, code reusability, community support, front-end support, languages, etc. Select the framework that works best for you and is easier or more fun to play with.

Build scalable react native apps with our team of developers from Clarion Technologies.