Guidelines for Evaluating Mobile Application Frameworks : A Comparison of React Native and Ionic

Abstract: Mobile application development has become an important part of modern software development. Developers today are faced with the challenge of selecting correct frameworks to use. This thesis analyses the comparison of two JavaScript frameworks, React Native and Ionic and the guidelines on how to choose a framework based on four chosen criteria. These criteria are performance, available extensions, community support and development ability. The thesis tackles the problem of the lack of concrete guidelines for software professionals to evaluate and compare mobile application frameworks. The purpose of this thesis is to create a version of guidelines to evaluate and compare two mobile application frameworks. This version is being built upon the researcher’s study of React Native and Ionic. The goal for this thesis is that this version of guidelines could provide a basis for a software community, both researchers and practitioners, to extend the guidelines to cover more frameworks. This research aims to provide readers with a thorough grasp of the advantages and disadvantages of each framework by carefully assessing their benefits and drawbacks, enabling them to choose between React Native and Ionic in a strategic manner. A qualitative research method with support of quantitative data is used to evaluate the results. Through the process of gathering quantitative data, a comparative approach is also evaluated, comparing React Native and Ionic. When examining these two frameworks, the finding is that both are excellent choices for application development, but the optimal framework depends on the specific criteria used, as each criterion may favor one framework over the other. The findings for this thesis reveal that React Native outperforms Ionic in all of the four criteria. Through the process of evaluating each of the four criteria, the GE-MAF guidelines were formulated.