Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

BetterDisplay VS React Native Desktop

Compare BetterDisplay VS React Native Desktop and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

BetterDisplay logo BetterDisplay

Unlock your displays on your Mac!

React Native Desktop logo React Native Desktop

Build OS X desktop apps using React Native
Not present
  • React Native Desktop Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-30

BetterDisplay features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

React Native Desktop features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Code Sharing
    React Native Desktop allows for code sharing between mobile and desktop platforms, reducing development time and effort. This promotes a unified codebase across iOS, Android, and macOS platforms.
  • React Ecosystem
    Developers can leverage the extensive ecosystem of React and React Native, including libraries, tools, and community support, thus simplifying development and benefiting from existing solutions.
  • Hot Reloading
    React Native Desktop supports hot reloading, which allows developers to see changes immediately without rebuilding the whole application. This greatly enhances development speed and productivity.
  • Native Performance
    React Native Desktop aims to deliver a performance close to native applications on macOS, allowing for smooth user experience and efficient utilization of the system's resources.

Possible disadvantages of React Native Desktop

  • Immature Project
    React Native Desktop is still a relatively young project compared to its mobile counterpart. It may lack some stability, advanced features, and support that are available in more mature frameworks.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers familiar with only web development might find it challenging to adapt to React Native's paradigms and native coding patterns required for desktop applications.
  • Limited macOS-Specific Components
    There might be fewer out-of-the-box components and libraries tailored for macOS when compared to those available for mobile, requiring more custom implementation work.
  • No Official Support
    As an open-source project, React Native Desktop doesn't have official support from Facebook or a large organization, which might lead to slower updates and a greater reliance on community contributions.

Analysis of BetterDisplay

Overall verdict

  • BetterDisplay is a highly regarded macOS utility that gives users powerful control over their displays, offering flexible resolution scaling, brightness management, and virtual screen creation that Apple doesn't provide natively. It's well-maintained, actively developed, and widely praised by the Mac community.

Why this product is good

  • Enables custom and HiDPI resolutions on external monitors that macOS normally restricts
  • Provides software brightness and dimming control for displays that lack native adjustment
  • Lets you create virtual displays useful for streaming, screen sharing, or headless Mac setups
  • Offers XDR/HDR brightness enhancements and fine-grained per-monitor settings
  • Has a generous free tier with an affordable one-time Pro upgrade rather than a subscription
  • Lightweight, actively maintained, and trusted with a strong reputation among Mac power users

Recommended for

  • Mac users with external monitors who want better resolution and scaling options
  • People who need software brightness control for monitors without hardware buttons
  • Developers and content creators needing virtual or headless displays
  • Power users who want granular control over their display setup
  • Anyone frustrated by macOS's limited native display management

Analysis of React Native Desktop

Overall verdict

  • React Native Desktop can be a good choice if you are already invested in the React Native ecosystem and are looking for a way to expand your application's reach to desktop platforms without starting from scratch. It benefits from the familiar JavaScript and React syntax, as well as a large community of developers who contribute to its growth. However, depending on the project's specific needs and the level of maturity expected, it might lack some features or optimizations available in native desktop application frameworks.

Why this product is good

  • React Native Desktop is designed to allow developers to use React Native for creating desktop applications. It leverages the existing React Native ecosystem, which means that developers familiar with React Native can transition to desktop app development more easily. By allowing code sharing between mobile and desktop platforms, it can significantly reduce the development time and effort required to maintain consistency across platforms.

Recommended for

    This framework is recommended for JavaScript developers who are already comfortable with React Native and want to leverage their existing skills to develop cross-platform applications that include desktop environments. It is suitable for projects that require rapid prototyping and consistent user experiences across mobile and desktop devices.

BetterDisplay videos

BetterDisplay Mac Tutorial: Fix Display Resolution & Refresh Rate

More videos:

  • Review - BetterDisplay Resolution Scaling Fix For Mac HiDPI mode

React Native Desktop videos

No React Native Desktop videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Category Popularity

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User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, BetterDisplay seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 4 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

BetterDisplay mentions (4)

  • Ask HN: Is anyone working at least 4 hours daily on an Apple Vision Pro?
    > it's important to use Better display to upscale the output to the XReals to high DPI I got excited for a second but then read Better Display[0] is only available for MacOS? :( [0]: https://betterdisplay.pro/. - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe โ€“ the saga continues
    For the first one (and all other screen-related bugs) you can use BetterDisplay to fix it: https://betterdisplay.pro/. - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • DeskPad โ€“ A virtual monitor for screen sharing
    Thanks for sharing this! My main issue with the windowed projectors is that you can't force them to have the proper size for the resolution of the OBS canvas which causes the result to be scaled and it has window borders. I've worked around this by having a virtual display (in my case BetterDisplay [1], but DeskPad should work as well) and use the full-screen projector instead, as an added benefit there is no... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Time to Upgrade Your Monitor
    > the 4K monitors the author recommends are not good for macOS due to them not supporting native retina scaling above 1080p Is this true even with the help of 3rd party apps? My 3840x1600 ultrawide has that problem using the native screen resolution tools but I can get it to full-res HiDPI using BetterDisplay [0]. [0] https://betterdisplay.pro/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago

React Native Desktop mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of React Native Desktop yet. Tracking of React Native Desktop recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing BetterDisplay and React Native Desktop, you can also consider the following products

MonitorControl - Control your external monitor brightness&volume on your Mac

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

DisplayBuddy - Control the real brightness of your monitors directly from your Mac - no need to touch the buttons on your Monitor.

Deco IDE - Best IDE for building React Native apps

Flux - Application Architecture for Building User Interfaces

Expo - The fastest way to build an iOS and Android app ๐Ÿ“ฑ