Comparative Analysis of App Size Variations between React Native and Apache Cordova Powered Android Applications

One of the primary challenges encountered in the development of a mobile application is the fragmentation of mobile platforms – Android, Apple iOS, and Windows Phone. To address this problem, developers have access to various Cross-Platform Tools (CPTs) that enable them to target multiple mobile platforms using a single code base. Among these CPTs, React Native and Apache Cordova are widely used across the globe. This study investigates the variability in file sizes of the same application developed using React Native and Apache Cordova. Overall result shows that the same application developed using Apache Cordova produced a smaller application size than the one built via React Native. App download size of the application (Version 1) built via React Native is 14.1 MB and that of Version 2 built using Apache Cordova is 2.08 MB. App size on device of the application (Version 1) built via React Native is around 41.9 MB and that of Version 2 built using Apache Cordova is 4.73 MB. The application built using Apache Cordova have lower app download size (85.25% lower) and app size on device (88.71% lower) than that built using React Native. After analyzing the breakdown of the two parameters, app download size and app size on device, further this study realized that version 2 has smaller sizes of the components when compared to version 1 of the app.