Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

React Native Desktop VS React Native UI Kitten

Compare React Native Desktop VS React Native UI Kitten and see what are their differences

React Native Desktop logo React Native Desktop

Build OS X desktop apps using React Native

React Native UI Kitten logo React Native UI Kitten

Customizable and reusable react-native component kit
  • React Native Desktop Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-30
  • React Native UI Kitten Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-12

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.

React Native UI Kitten features and specs

  • Customizable Theme
    React Native UI Kitten offers a customizable theme that allows developers to easily adjust the design according to their app's branding needs. This flexibility is facilitated through default themes and the ability to create custom themes that can be applied across the application.
  • Consistency
    With a comprehensive set of UI components, UI Kitten helps maintain design consistency across different parts of the application, ensuring a unified look and feel.
  • Cross-Platform Support
    The library supports both iOS and Android platforms, enabling developers to create apps that work seamlessly across mobile operating systems with a single code base.
  • Community and Documentation
    UI Kitten has an active community and well-documented resources which provide developers support and guidance, facilitating smoother development processes and faster issue resolution.

Possible disadvantages of React Native UI Kitten

  • Size
    Inclusion of a comprehensive UI library can increase the application's bundle size, which might be a concern for performance-conscious developers aiming to keep their apps lightweight.
  • Learning Curve
    Though UI Kitten is relatively intuitive, new developers may face a learning curve to fully utilize its features and customize themes appropriately.
  • Limited Customization Beyond Theme
    While UI Kitten offers robust theming options, further customization of individual components may be limited compared to building components from scratch, potentially requiring additional custom development.
  • Dependency on Eva Design System
    UI Kitten is deeply integrated with the Eva Design System, which might limit flexibility for developers who wish to use or integrate with different design systems.

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.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to React Native Desktop and React Native UI Kitten)
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Development Tools
63 63%
37% 37
React Native
0 0%
100% 100
Design Tools
77 77%
23% 23

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, React Native UI Kitten seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 12 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.

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.

React Native UI Kitten mentions (12)

  • React Native styling options/libraries
    Https://akveo.github.io/react-native-ui-kitten/ is a good alternative, I especially like their demo app, I can just refer a client to that and ask them what screens they like. Source: over 2 years ago
  • 7 Popular React Native UI Component Libraries You Should Know
    React Native UI Kitten is a React Native implementation of the Eva Design system. It offers a set of general-purpose UI components styled in the same way to take care of visual appearance. There are a lot of standalone components available as well. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Form Validation in React (Native) using Formik
    UI Kitten: UI Kitten is a React Native framework for creating stunning cross-platform mobile applications. It is based on Eva Design System and provides a set of general purpose UI components styled in a similar way. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Building a React Native Filter - Part 1
    In the application we built for the client we had two modal instances, the filtering modal (that used the native modal) and an alert modal (where we used UI Kitten's modal). We like the native modal because it offer's us the possibility of deciding how it transitions and it's easier to set it up fullscreen. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
  • Top React Native UI Component Libraries
    Image source: https://akveo.github.io/react-native-ui-kitten/ React Native UI Kitten – a React Native implementation of the Eva Design system. It offers a set of about 20 general-purpose components styled in the same way to take care of visual appearance. There are a lot of standalone components available as well. The library is based on Eva Design System, containing a set of general-purpose UI components styled... - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

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

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

NativeBase - Experience the awesomeness of React Native without the pain

Deco IDE - Best IDE for building React Native apps

React Native Paper by Callstack - Material Design for React Native (Android & iOS)

React Boilerplate - Offline-first, highly scalable foundation for your next app

Ignite CLI - React Native toolchain with boilerplates, plugins, and more