In this internet era, online users have higher expectations for the apps they use in their personal and professional lives. They desire an application that is cozy and provides quick fixes for their common problems like high app start-up time, bad navigation & scrolling.
And React Native is the ideal solution to meet the rising expectations of mobile app users. It is a flexible and comprehensive framework that provides a sleek & high-quality user experience.
Although React Native apps have fantastic development features, they are not impenetrable. It does have a few problems, which can make the performance of the React Native app slower.
Therefore, you need to implement the best practices when creating React Native applications to optimize their performance. To accomplish this, you can Hire React Native App Developers or outsource your project to a web development company.
In this blog, we will go over some best practices for optimizing React Native app performance.
React Native – Overview
On March 26, 2015, Facebook and the open-source community unveiled React Native, an open-source framework. JavaScript serves as the framework’s main building block. It is especially helpful when creating cross-platform applications with interactive user interfaces. It was created with the “learn once, use anywhere” philosophy in mind.
React Native combines the benefits of native development with the well-known JavaScript library React. Since it was first released, it has been widely embraced by organizations and developers due to its capacity to produce native apps and provide a wonderful user experience.
Why Do Businesses Need To Optimize React Native App Performance?
As demand for mobile apps grows, so does the need for businesses to optimize app performance. Because if an app is too slow or buggy, users will delete it and look for a better alternative.
React Native is the most popular framework for creating high-performance, flexible mobile apps. It meets users’ expectations for a fast and responsive mobile app experience.
However, React Native apps do not always perform optimally and can harm your business if not properly optimized.
And that’s why it is essential for businesses to optimize the performance of their React Native apps. Otherwise, they run the risk of losing customers and potential income.
3 Main Reasons Why Businesses Should Optimize the Performance of Their React Native Apps:
1. For Better User Experience
A more responsive and faster app improves the overall user experience and resolves scrolling performance issues.
2. Higher Conversions & Download Rates
A high-performing app is more likely to be downloaded and used, resulting in higher conversion rates and ROI.
3. Cost Savings On Development And Maintenance
Optimizing your app can help you save money on development and maintenance in the long run.
With this, we have come to the main topic of our discussion.
How to Improve React Native App Performance with 10 Useful Tips
How to Improve React Native App Performance
1. Navigation Issue
Although React Native provides excellent performance, it exhibits some potential problems with the app’s usability. And navigation is one of those issues. Poor navigation can make it difficult for users to move from one screen to another.
As a result, users may gradually stop using your app and turn to rival apps.
Potential Fix for Navigational Issues:
React Native offers you four viable libraries to build your mobile application’s navigation.
iOS Navigator: Developers can use it to create iOS apps with better navigation.
React Navigation: It allows users to transition between screens with ease.
Navigator: It is used for prototyping and developing small applications. It is not suitable for complex app development processes.
Navigation Experiment: It can be used to build the navigation of large-scale applications.
2. App Start-up Time
One of the significant issues while using a mobile app is the launch time. Users detest long startup times. There are several possible causes for the delayed app launch response.
If your mobile application has too many dependencies, the performance of your app may suffer. Additionally, the Object. Finalize element is to blame for the prolonged launch time of the mobile app. Because too many finalizers deplete memory, the app frequently displays out-of-memory errors.
Possible Solution for Launch Time Delay:
The default implementations of React Native can cause delays in the launch time. As a result, it is critical to optimize the app using the Object. finalize element. And to do so, simply remove unnecessary dependencies and use high-performance and fast components to get the most out of the app.
3. Memory Leakage
A memory leak occurs when your app becomes sluggish or freezes the screen as a result of insufficient RAM or pointless background processes.
Potential Fix for Memory Leakage:
To resolve React Native’s memory leakage problem, cancel all subscriptions and asynchronous tasks in the useEffect cleanup function. In this scenario, you can substitute a scrolling list for ListView by using SectionList, VirtualList, or FlatList. Through this, unnecessary background processes can be stopped.
4. Large App Size
External libraries impact the size of React Native apps. It also depends on how many files you plan to include when creating the application. If the application’s graphical content or images take up a lot of space, it may cause an app to crash due to memory overload. And this negatively affects the performance of the React Native mobile application.
Solution of the Larger App Size Issue:
We are aware that the app’s larger size causes its functionality to lag. To make the mobile app smaller, you can add a few 3rd party apps and components. Additionally, reduce image size for performance improvement to shrink the app’s size.
5. Multi-threading Issue
Well, multithreading is not supported by native React apps. In other words, if you are developing an app that needs multiple components to run concurrently, react native apps won’t be helpful to you because they can only run one service at a time.
Tips for React Native Performance in this Situation:
You can write your own extension code to handle multithreading in React Native to solve the multithreading problem. Make sure you write your own code with a strong emphasis on system design and maintainability.
The extension code enables you to create a link between native and React Native components. Swift, Objective C, and Java can be used to generate these extension codes.
6. Rendering Issue
Your app needs certain features, but if you add any extra features, you might render unnecessary content. Excessive rendering may result in frame drops and screen lags. To put it another way, you will notice the UI occasionally goes blank if you scroll through your app too quickly.
Rendering issues may pose two challenges to the performance of a react native app.
Uncontrolled vs. Controlled Components:
Sometimes the user types more quickly than the device can handle. It may slow down UI responses and cause data to flicker. Here, the problem lies with the operation’s order.
Solution: To fix the issue, remove the value prop entirely from TextInput. It will each fix the data flow from the native side to the JS side separately. As a result, synchronization problems will be resolved.
Global State:
Slow rendering may be the result of a poor global state management design. Especially when a TextInput or CheckBox’s state determines how the entire application is rendered.
Solution: The performance can be improved by handling state management with specialized libraries like Redux or Overmind.js.
Furthermore, developers can optimize the applications on a single-component level by using Pure Components and memo wrappers for function components. It will take some time. But once done, your app will no longer need to re-render and perform better.
7. Image Size Problem
The image size can cause severe problems due to memory consumption. However, you can resolve this issue and improve app performance by following the below-mentioned steps.
Solutions for the image size issues:
1. Image size reduction can reduce memory consumption
Reducing the size of images can improve app performance because it takes up less space on the device. Moreover, using large images increases loading time.
2. Save loading time by converting images to WebP format
You can cut the image loading time by up to 28% by using the WebP format. Furthermore, it can reduce the CodePush bundle size by 66%, along with the Android and iOS binary sizes. Developers can use this method to make navigator transitions fluid, and enhance the performance of react native apps.
3. Local Image Caching
Apps that use image caching can save images offline to reduce loading times. However, at the moment, this feature is only accessible to iPhones.
8. Adding Maps to React Native Applications
if your app needs the map feature for any reason, it might cause the react native application to run slowly. However, you can improve the performance of React Native apps by taking a few specific steps.
Solution for improving react native app performance:
There are two steps you should take to enhance the performance of a react native app while integrating the map feature:
- First, eliminate Console.log to prevent it from storing any information in XCode.
- And second, turn off the auto-update of geographic locations.
9. React Native Apps with Library Errors
React Native Firebase libraries can occasionally result in errors like “FirebaseCore.h not found” or “Firebase.h not found.” It might be because your library was corrupted or improperly installed.
React Native Performance Enhancement Solution:
The solution is straightforward. All you have to do is reinstall and relink your library. However, be sure to relink it manually rather than automatically.
10. Error In The App Registry
Some inexperienced developers may encounter this simple error as a result of a minor oversight. It will display pop-ups such as “Your App is not registered.” The issue could be in the core process of developing the app.
Solution for React Native App performance enhancement:
You can easily resolve the issue by changing the application’s name in its app.json file.
Let’s look at how native react apps work in the next section.
How Do Native React Apps Work?
Well, if you’re new to the world of app development, you may want to learn about the components that enable react native apps to work. Before we move on to discuss react native performance advice, let’s talk about them.
React Native Apps operate primarily through three threads:
1. UI Thread or The Main Thread
The Main Thread is responsible for the UI. In other words, the user’s actions and the components they see are controlled by the main thread.
2. JavaScript Thread
This thread executes JavaScript code in a separate JavaScript engine after each action performed on the app. It determines how an action on the user interface will act.
3. The Shadow Tree Thread
This thread computes the JavaScript-defined layouts. Then, it sends this data to the native side of the app so that it can create a view.
Now, let’s get to know the reasons why businesses should do React Native App optimization.
Conclusion
The performance of a React Native app is crucial for the success of any mobile app development project. Businesses that fail to optimize the performance of their apps will see a decline in engagement, conversions, and revenue.
To prevent this, keep the guidelines we’ve shared in mind when developing your next React Native project, and you’ll be well on your way to providing a fast, smooth user experience that cheers your customers.
If you are still unsure about how to optimize your React Native website, you can get in touch with a reputable React Native App development company.
The developers at Windzoon are masters at integrating native functionality and features into high-quality cross-platform apps. Visit windzoon.com to leverage our premier React Native app development services and to get a quote.
Soham Trivedi is a co-founder of Windzoon Technologies and has been working as a business development manager for more than 10+ years. He is mastered in business management but his passion for writing has driven him toward the content writing field. Apart from being a business development manager, Soham Trivedi is a successful content writer and a technology lover and has been writing across various disciplines.
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