Problem Statement
What is a key difference between Flutter and React Native?
Explanation
Flutter renders everything itself using the Skia graphics engine, drawing each pixel on the screen without relying on platform widgets, giving consistent appearance and performance across all platforms. React Native acts as a bridge to native platform widgets, rendering actual iOS and Android components through JavaScript bridges.
This fundamental difference means Flutter apps look and behave identically on iOS and Android because they're rendered by the same engine, while React Native apps can have subtle differences between platforms since they use native widgets. Flutter's approach also eliminates performance bottlenecks from JavaScript bridge communication.
Flutter typically has better performance, especially for complex animations and custom UIs, because there's no bridge overhead and the rendering engine is optimized for mobile. React Native has better access to native platform features out of the box but can face performance issues with complex UIs due to bridge communication, while Flutter requires platform channels for native features but renders UI faster.
