Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Retrofit VS React Boilerplate

Compare Retrofit VS React Boilerplate 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.

Retrofit logo Retrofit

Retrofit is a type-safe HTTP client for Android and Java.

React Boilerplate logo React Boilerplate

Offline-first, highly scalable foundation for your next app
  • Retrofit Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-19
  • React Boilerplate Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-18

Retrofit features and specs

  • Easy to Use
    Retrofit provides a simple and intuitive API for making HTTP requests, making it easy to integrate with your Android applications.
  • Type-Safe HTTP Calls
    With Retrofit, HTTP requests are made using method calls, and responses are automatically converted to Java objects. This type safety helps reduce errors in making network calls.
  • Flexible and Extensible
    Retrofit supports a variety of converters (like Gson, Jackson, Moshi, Protobuf), adapters (like RxJava, Kotlin Coroutines), and other customizations, making it highly adaptable to various needs.
  • Annotation-Based Configuration
    Annotations like @GET, @POST, and @Query make defining APIs more declarative and concise, reducing boilerplate code.
  • Built-In Support for Pagination
    Retrofit's integration with libraries like Paging makes it straightforward to implement paginated data loading.
  • Integration with OkHttp
    Retrofit seamlessly integrates with OkHttp, which provides caching, connection pooling, and HTTP/2 support, thus enhancing performance and reliability.

Possible disadvantages of Retrofit

  • Learning Curve
    While easy to use, it has some initial learning overhead, especially for developers not familiar with annotation-based configuration and asynchronous programming.
  • Verbose Error Handling
    Error handling in Retrofit can be verbose and repetitive if not done correctly, requiring custom solutions for efficient handling of common HTTP errors.
  • Larger APK Size
    Including both Retrofit and its dependencies, such as OkHttp and various converters, can increase the size of your APK, which might be a concern for developers optimizing for smaller app sizes.
  • Complex Configuration for Advanced Use Cases
    For more complex scenarios like custom request/response logging, interceptors, and parsers, configuration can become cumbersome and less straightforward.
  • Default Lack of Built-In Caching
    While OkHttp supports caching, Retrofit does not provide built-in caching out of the box. This requires additional configuration to implement client-side caching effectively.
  • No Built-In WebSocket Support
    Retrofit is mainly designed for RESTful APIs and does not natively support WebSocket communication, requiring additional libraries for such use cases.

React Boilerplate features and specs

  • Established Structure
    React Boilerplate provides a well-organized and consistent project structure, making it easier for developers to follow best practices and maintain a scalable codebase.
  • Advanced Configuration
    The boilerplate offers a comprehensive setup with support for modern JavaScript features, including Webpack, Babel, and ESLint, reducing the need for manual configuration.
  • Redux Integration
    React Boilerplate comes with built-in support for Redux, helping manage application state efficiently and seamlessly.
  • Performance Optimization
    The boilerplate includes performance-focused tools and configurations such as code splitting, which helps in optimizing the application's performance.
  • Community and Documentation
    Being a popular project, React Boilerplate has extensive documentation and an active community, providing plenty of resources and support.
  • Testing Setup
    It includes testing frameworks like Jest and Enzyme, which facilitate writing and running tests for your React components and applications.

Possible disadvantages of React Boilerplate

  • Complex Initial Setup
    The extensive initial setup and configuration process might be daunting for beginners or developers unfamiliar with advanced React and Webpack configurations.
  • Overhead for Small Projects
    For small or simple projects, the boilerplate might feel like overkill, introducing unnecessary complexity and overhead.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its comprehensive nature and numerous built-in features, there can be a steep learning curve for developers who are new to the ecosystem.
  • Maintenance
    Keeping up with updates and changes in all included libraries and tools can be time-consuming and may require regular maintenance to ensure compatibility and security.
  • Customization Difficulties
    Altering the default configurations and structures to fit unique needs can sometimes be challenging and may require in-depth knowledge of the underlying tools.

Retrofit videos

Sep.30 Patch Analysis and Yuudachi Retrofit Review

More videos:

  • Review - Ring Retrofit Alarm Kit Review - Setup and Installation
  • Review - Retrofit Hookah (Optima) Review - EPISODE 9 (RHS)

React Boilerplate videos

React Boilerplate com Redux e TypeScript

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Retrofit and React Boilerplate)
Development Tools
66 66%
34% 34
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Javascript UI Libraries
100 100%
0% 0
React
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Retrofit and React Boilerplate. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Retrofit should be more popular than React Boilerplate. It has been mentiond 29 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.

Retrofit mentions (29)

  • Energy-Efficient Schema-Driven Development with Spring WebMVC/WebFlux
    At first, I thought it was just a knockoff of Retrofit (sorry...), but it turns out you can also use it as a controller interface. The *Exchange annotations in the earlier example come from this HTTP Interface. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • Using Retrofit Interceptors to check network connection in Android and testing it
    From this point on, I will assume, you have a basic understanding of Retrofit. To get the most out of this tutorial I would actually suggest you have a retrofit client already implemented in your application. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Lets make a Twitch Android app. Part 1. App access tokens
    Now you might think that in order to make the request we are going to use Retrofit but in reality we are going to be sending out an implicit intent like so:. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Using OAuth2.0 and Retrofit to talk to the GitHub api on Android
    This particular blog post will be us building on the information from the previous blog post and using the authorization code from the GitHub OAuth API in combination with Retrofit. To finally get a access token, which allows us to make requests to the API on a behalf of a user. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Show HN: Turn Your APIs into Swift Protocols
    Hey HN! If you're a fan of Swift you may have noticed that with WWDC 2023 came the (beta) release of macros. They're super powerful and expressive! I've been wishing Swift had a [Retrofit](https://square.github.io/retrofit/) style API definition library for years, and with macros it seemed like this was now possible. I'd like to show you all Papyrus, a library that turns your APIs into type-safe Swift protocols.... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
View more

React Boilerplate mentions (10)

  • Redux developers, please stop doing this!
    I worked on a React project in 2019, I believe it was built on top of the react-boilerplate template, and the developer experience with Redux was so bad that I became a Vue developer. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Top 5 React Boilerplates to Know in 2023
    2 React Boilerplate is a reliable and well-designed boilerplate in the Javascript UI Libraries, with 28.2k ratings on GitHub. The super-rich component and font base, together with Redux, Mocha, Redux-Saga, Jest, React Router, PostCSS, and reselect are all included. They support SEO indexing. Concentrating on app development and performance is more than enough. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Redux Sagas firing multiple times if injected in different containers
    We are using https://github.com/react-boilerplate/react-boilerplate and have a classic store layout with multiple components. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • react-boilerplate authentication login page flashes on page reload
    I'm working on an app with a login page and the rest of the pages of the app (should be logged in to view). I'm using react-boilerplate. From this example, I edited my asyncInjectors.js file to have redirectToLogin and redirectToDashboard methods:. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Identity Server 4 Social Login for SPA
    I'm working on application using a Web API(asp.net core) and a SPA (react-boilerplate). I'm starting work in user registration/login and one of the requirements is to allow for user to sign in with facebook, google, etc. Source: about 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Retrofit and React Boilerplate, you can also consider the following products

jQuery - The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library.

React Native Desktop - Build OS X desktop apps using React Native

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Static Site Boilerplate - A better workflow for building modern static websites.

Babel - Babel is a compiler for writing next generation JavaScript.

UseGravity.App - Build a Node.js & React app at warp speed with a SaaS boilerplate