Difference Between MEAN Stack and MERN Stack

Developers traditionally developed apps using JavaSript, HTML, and CSS. The apps were simple with complicated User interface (UI). To resolve the issue, technology companies like Google, Facebook introduced app development frameworks that ease the work of application development.  

Oodles Technologies is a well-established MEAN Stack app development company. We develop apps that are feature-rich and easily scalable. 

In this blog, we will discuss Stack frameworks MEAN and MERN. MEAN and MERN are stacks of technologies used for application development. 

 

MEAN Stack 

The components of MEAN include MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, and Node.js. The Technologies in MEAN stack are Javascript-Based suitable for developing complex websites and web apps. All four components of MEAN Stack speed up and simplify the development process. It is the fastest-growing open-source framework that enables developers to deploy web applications using popular tools and plugins. 

MERN Stack 

The components of MERN include MongoDB, Express.js, React.js, and Node.js. The only difference between the two frameworks is AngularJS in MEAN is replaced with React.js in MERN. Some developers prefer to use React Native over Angular so for them MERN is perfect. 

THE COMMON FEATURES: Both the stacks are flexible and easy to implement and built apps of the Model-view layout. The components of MEAN and MERN serve different purposes. Let’s explore each of the components in detail: 

1. MongoDB: 

• A schemaless NoSQL document database used by the back-end applications to store data as JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) document. 
• Database and application use JavaScript only. 
• Suitable for creating cloud applications. 
• Provides impeccable performance and storage capacity. 
• Manages Data without compromising on data access. 

2. Express.js: 

• An open-source framework that handles interactions between the frontend and the database teams. 
• Errorless template handling accelerates software development. 
• Prevents Variables overwriting within the shared namespace.  

3. Angular: 

• Google’s popular JavaScript framework. 
• Suitable for creating user-centric apps. 
• Ideal for creating web apps for desktop and mobile use. 
• Offers ready to use templates to create cloud-native apps. 

4. Node.JS: 

• Last but not least, Node.js is the backbone of the MEAN stack.
• Comprises of an Integrated webserver to support the deployment of application and MongoDB database to the cloud. 

React.js is an exception in MERN. Discussion about React.js is discussed in the section where MERN stack benefits are listed. 

 Similarities in MEAN Stack and MERN Stack 

• MEAN and MERN are the open-source frameworks
• Both frameworks are capable of covering the complete software development cycle. They cover the frontend and backend development using JavaScript. 
• The frameworks make the development process seamless by supporting the Model View Controller (MVC) architecture.  
• Both frameworks have a pre-designed set of testing tools. 
• Frameworks have substantial documentation and immense support for the developers 

 

Benefits Of MEAN Stack:

1. MEAN stack makes it easier for the app developers to switch easily between the client and the server. JavaScript friendly frameworks make it easier for the developers to develop apps. With the help of the Node.js component, developers can straight away launch an app without deploying it on a stand-alone server.
2. MEAN stack app developers can easily transfer codes written in one language to another language. 
3. MEAN facilitates developers to seamlessly test an app easily on a cloud platform. 
4. It facilitates app development companies to add information by increasing the filed in the form. 
5. A cost-effective framework that enables developers to create apps with JavaScript only. There is no need to hire other language professionals as the entire app is developed with a few JavaScript professionals only. 

 

Benefits OF MERN Stack

1. MEAN Stack uses React instead of Angular. React is a component that summarizes the state of data. It also keeps a check on how an app is rendered.  With so many components developers can concentrate on the reasoning and development of the application. MERN Stack components communicate through sharing their state information in the form of read-only properties to their sub-components. 
2. Since React Natives runs on the server developers can reuse the code on the server and the browser. Developers can create pages on the server whenever they want. 
3. MERN Stack components are free and opensource. It is backed by community developers to enable MERN Stack developers to add additional features to an app. 
4. Covers complete the software development life cycle including the frontend and the backend development. 
5. MVC architecture support in the MERN stack enables developers to create bug-free apps seamlessly. 
6. Available with a set of pre-built exclusive testing tools.
7. React.JS is a library that is better than a framework. The vast library developers come with a special set of tools that enable web app developers to create apps easily. The developers can choose the library themselves and their functions.

 

Point of Differences Between MEAN and MERN Stack:

Performance

MEAN uses Angular because it is more stable than React. It is one of the most stable JavaScript-based MVC frameworks. It enables developers to effectively manage their files and abstraction in the coding.

MERN uses React.Js  to enable developers to code faster. React’s performance is better than Angular because it does the coding exceptionally faster. In terms of the performance, MERN wins over the MEAN stack. 

Architecture

MEAN stack is preferred for enterprise-level applications. In terms of the architecture MEAN Stack wins the game. MEAN uses Angular that renders with an organized framework to support an MVW and MVC architecture. In both the architectures the UI code and the database are isolated from an intermediate layer.   LinkedIn chose MEAN over MERN because React can make the UI rendering simple but in the end, it is just a library and it can be difficult to rely on MERN for maintenance of the architecture.  

Using THIRD-PARTY LIBRARIES

The development of a large scale app requires the use of third party libraries. Angular .js is a framework that enables developers to use third-party libraries easily. It also supports “$http” calls that enable the developers to build a connection with the backend server. On the other hand, React.js requires libraries to support these calls.

Additional features can be seamlessly added through the MEAN stack because of the support from the Angular. React will require additional configurations to add any additional features to the app. Here also MEAN wins over MERN Stack. 

MEAN is there for a long time whereas MERN is comparatively new.  Famous Companies using Angular instead of React in their app development include YouTube, HBO, Nike, NASA. And companies using React over Angular: PayPal, Dropbox, Uber, Instagram, Netflix, Flipkart. 

Are you still confused with the selection of the right app development framework? In our opinion, Both MEAN and MERN are reliable technologies that enable developers to create light-weight JavaScript applications easily. We design apps using MEAN Stack and MERN stack, based on our client’s preferences.  Connect with our Software app developers today!  

Simplifying Mobile App Development Using Flutter

That being said, developing applications separately for Android, iOS, and other mobile platforms using different tools is both expensive and time-consuming. The rapidly changing market trends and dynamically changing business requirements have paved the way for cross-platform mobile app development. There are several tools and frameworks that enable developers to build cross-platform mobile apps for different mobile platforms. The most commonly used frameworks are React Native, Flutter, Ionic, and Apache Cordova. 

Flutter is a Google-owned mobile framework that is relatively new to the market and offers several benefits over the other similar frameworks. At Oodles, we have received many requests for mobile app development specifically using Flutter. The main reason behind the increasing demand for Flutter mobile app development is the quick deployment and reduced time-to-market. In this blog post, we are going to discuss the key benefits of using Flutter for cross-platform mobile app development. 

Also read Choosing Angular 8.0 for Mobile Application Development

What Is Flutter? How It Improves Mobile App Development?

Flutter is an open-source mobile application framework that is run and maintained by Google. It was launched in May 2017 with the sole aim to simplify and accelerate the mobile application development process. The framework was designed to develop native mobile interfaces for popular mobile operating systems like Android and iOS. Later on, Google also rendered support for Windows, Mac, Linux, Fuchsia, and web applications. As of today, the framework is being used by a large community of developers to build feature-rich web and mobile applications. Below are the key benefits of using Flutter for mobile application development. 

Faster Code Execution

The main benefit of using Flutter is that it accelerates the development process with faster code execution which reduces complexities and time-to-market. With its “hot reload” feature, developers can make dynamic changes in code and preview them instantly before pushing it further. The changes are reflected in milliseconds, making it fast and easy to add new features and functionalities to the app. 

The hot reload feature is also effective at improving the interactions between developers, designers, and QA testers. All these entities can work together on Flutter to quickly and efficiently finalize the app interface with simultaneous bug detection and resolution.  

Cross-platform Compatibility

Unlike many similar mobile app frameworks, Flutter requires a single codebase for both Android and iOS mobile app development processes. In addition, developers don’t need to build both apps separately. Flutter enables them to build multiple apps simultaneously with minimal code changes. Furthermore, it doesn’t require third-party applications or services as it comes with built-in widgets and plugins. All these factors contribute towards significantly reducing the development costs and accelerating the development process. 

Faster App Testing 

Flutter enables developers to build a single application that works perfectly for both Android and iOS platforms. It significantly reduces the complexities related to quality testing. Since you are only going to test a single app for both platforms, it makes the process time-saving and cost-effective. Flutter app development requires less effort from the QA engineers, so they can be allocated on other critical quality assurance tasks. 

Smooth App Performance

It’s been tried and tested that mobile apps developed using Flutter are lightweight, responsive, and work faster than their other counterparts. Besides, users get smooth navigation and multiple features under an intuitive and user-friendly interface. While you may require third-party tools to implement complex functionalities, Flutter is ideal for building simple, user-centric mobile apps with cross-platform compatibility.

Vast Options For UI Design

Flutter app development enables companies to create dynamic mobile apps with interactive, engaging, and intuitive user interfaces. It eliminates UI design complexities and makes it easy to map user journeys to drive significant user engagement across devices.  

You may also be interested in reading How to Merge a Flutter Project in Native Android Project

Closing Remarks

The aforementioned factors shed light on the significance of using Flutter for cross-platform mobile app development. The framework’s hot reload feature has made it easier than ever to make changes in real-time. The same feature also enables developers to release multiple app updates with minimal complexities. Flutter is also an effective tool to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for your app and use it to drive investments. 

Why Choose Oodles For Flutter Mobile App Development?

We are a seasoned mobile app development company that provides full-scale Flutter app development services to clients. Our development team is experienced in building user-centric mobile apps using Flutter that perform seamlessly across Android and iOS platforms. We analyze your business requirements and formulate effective strategies to develop feature-rich mobile apps that overcome complex enterprise challenges.

Choosing Flutter Over Other Native App Development Frameworks

Mobile app development is done using app development frameworks like Kotlin, Swift, React Native, React JS, and more. These frameworks decide the functionality of an app. Often native technologies make the app development process complex and time-consuming. To develop an application for both Android and iOS in a short duration mobile application developers are using Flutter. Flutter enables app developers to overcome the issues of native app development. Our Flutter App Developers receive requests for scalable and feature-rich that offers seamless navigation to the users of the app. 

Flutter is an open-source, cross-platform, Mobile SDK used to build Android and iOS apps using the same source code. Flutter is managed by Google and it is the first stable SDK released in Dec 2018. Flutter supports all native features to develop the native app or we can say that Flutter provides a platform to build the application for both Android and iOS platforms.

Flutter vs Native Development

1 Native Mobile Application development takes more time to develop than Flutter 

2 Developer spend more times on UI Design in the native application as compare to the Flutter

3 Flutter is more productive and effective as compared to the native applications

4 Flutter makes thing easy than native SDK 

5 Native development takes more testing than Flutter

6 One time code reflects on both platform ios and android so it reduces the time to get the application

7 Flutter provides own rendering engine for both Android and iOS platforms

8 Flutter Mobile application development is better for small scale industries also

9 Flutter provides ready-made Widget For UI Development

10 Flutter provides Hot Reload Function to updates

 Basic Terminologies in Flutter

1 Technical Architecture 

2 UI Components 

3 Testing

Technical Architecture

Native development architecture is different from Flutter architecture. native development normally is done on its SDK and Frameworks but in Flutter application development we use IntelliJ Idea(IDE), Android Studio or any other text editors like Sublime Text or Atom. 

UI Components 

1 Most of the time developers spend their time in UI Design by using native UI Components but in Flutter UI components run on its rendering engines and framework.

2 Flutter uses a tree-like structure with the stateless and stateful widget. here we have lots of widgets in Flutter to build the complex UI Design.

Testing

1 Native Development provides its testing tool to test the application like Junit & XCTest but Flutter provides the testing tool to write the test cases for UI and functional level.

2 Widget Testing is a testing tool provide by Flutter to test the app at a different level. 

Flutter Mobile Application development is a fast-growing network after Google announced its first stable version. 

Are you planning to develop a feature-rich app? We are a Flutter app development company that delivers robust and scalable business apps for Android and iOS platforms. Get in touch with our experts to get the quote! 

Leanback Library For Android Smart TV Application Development

In this blog post, we'll study how to easily enable a smart TV application supported by Android TV using the Leanback library. At the end of the blog, we can expect to have a UX compliant single APK for Android TV that aids in smart TV application development.

Overview of The Lean-back Concept

To make easy integration for developers android created the Leanback library. The core fragments you'll be working with are:

BrowseSupportFragment - For browse through a video player with a complete video library

PlaybackOverlayFragment - For getting the full control of video playback

DetailsFragment - To Display the details information of a particular video

All these fragments are using the Model View Presenter pattern. We'll bind our data model to the view using presenter class.

Browse Support Fragment

In this step, you'll learn about the framework for the video browse support fragment. The following concepts to take away in this step are:

a). Update the android manifest for Android TV

b). Extends our fragment with the Leanback Browse Support Fragment

Add these Lean-back dependencies to the build Gradle file. and synchronize these;

  implementation 'androidx.leanback:leanback:1.0.0'

  implementation 'androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.1.0'

For an application that requires support for old versions of Android, we should make sure that the path of code utilizing libraries with a higher minimum SDK does not run on devices with version < minimum SDK (library).

Now, create a browsing activity.

In the Android Studio project, create a new project with package name com.android.example.leanback by right-clicking the folder and clicking New -> Package.

Name the new package lean back demo.

source: Google Codelabs

Creates a new Blank Activity name as Leanback Activity, and click on Finish;

source: Google Codelabs

If we want to use lean-back for the android smart TV then we should declare the launcher activity for Android TV. and add an intent filter to the LEANBACK ACTIVITY tag. that is android.intent.category.LEANBACK_LAUNCHER which told to Android TV to launch LeanbackActivity when the application is on the running state.

and also we should declare the lean back tag in the manifest;

For handling unsupported hardware features in the android smart TV

Some features are not available on smart TV, We need to explore their requirement. If We use any of the following features we'll need to add the android: required="false" to the manifest. In the following image we'll under the about it;

The Browse Support Fragment class in the android Leanback library which allows us to create a primary layout for browsing categories as well as rows of media items with a minimum amount of code.

                                                   Browse Support Fragment with combination of Row Fragment and Side Navigation Categories

Details Fragment

The Details Fragment includes classes for displaying additional information about the description, reviews, and media items and for taking action on that item, such as purchasing it or playing its content etc. We can see the example of details fragment in the following picture;

source: Medium

For every application, especially for smart TV application development, UI is one of the biggest differences between the Android smart TV application. We need to make UI suitable for smart TV usage. Because the user uses a remote control and cannot use the “touch screen” like mobile function with a smart TV. To achieve this requirement, the Leanback library plays a major role in android smart TV application and it has multiple widgets and features that are better for the developers as they can easily implement UI which satisfies these requirements and thus suitable for TV usage.