react-device-detect vs react-native-device-info
Device Detection Libraries for React Comparison
1 Year
react-device-detectreact-native-device-infoSimilar Packages:
What's Device Detection Libraries for React?

Device detection libraries help developers identify the type of device being used to access an application, enabling them to tailor the user experience accordingly. These libraries can determine whether the user is on a mobile device, tablet, or desktop, and can provide additional information such as the operating system and browser. This is crucial for responsive design, optimizing performance, and ensuring compatibility across different devices. The two packages, 'react-device-detect' and 'react-native-device-info', serve similar purposes but are tailored for different environments: web and mobile, respectively.

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react-device-detect981,4952,86249.6 kB722 years agoMIT
react-native-device-info686,0976,558716 kB162 months agoMIT
Feature Comparison: react-device-detect vs react-native-device-info

Device Detection

  • react-device-detect:

    This package provides a simple API to detect the type of device (mobile, tablet, desktop) and the operating system (iOS, Android, Windows, etc.) directly in the browser. It leverages user-agent strings to determine device capabilities, allowing developers to conditionally render components based on the detected device type.

  • react-native-device-info:

    This package offers extensive device information for React Native applications, including device model, system name, system version, unique device ID, and more. It allows developers to access native device features and tailor the app experience based on the specific device capabilities.

Ease of Use

  • react-device-detect:

    The API is intuitive and easy to use, requiring minimal setup. Developers can quickly implement device detection with just a few lines of code, making it suitable for rapid development cycles.

  • react-native-device-info:

    While also user-friendly, this package may require additional setup for linking native modules in React Native projects. However, once set up, it provides a rich set of features that enhance the app's functionality.

Performance Impact

  • react-device-detect:

    As a lightweight library, 'react-device-detect' has minimal impact on performance. It processes user-agent strings efficiently, ensuring that device detection does not slow down the application.

  • react-native-device-info:

    This package is optimized for performance in mobile environments, but accessing certain device information may involve asynchronous calls. Developers should be mindful of performance implications when fetching extensive device data.

Community and Support

  • react-device-detect:

    This package has a strong community and is actively maintained, ensuring that it stays up-to-date with the latest browser changes and user-agent patterns.

  • react-native-device-info:

    With a robust community of React Native developers, this package is well-supported, and issues are typically addressed promptly. It also benefits from continuous updates to accommodate new devices and OS versions.

Use Cases

  • react-device-detect:

    Ideal for web applications that require responsive design adjustments based on device type, such as displaying different layouts or features for mobile users versus desktop users.

  • react-native-device-info:

    Best suited for mobile applications that need to access device-specific information for features like analytics, user tracking, or customizing user experiences based on device capabilities.

How to Choose: react-device-detect vs react-native-device-info
  • react-device-detect:

    Choose 'react-device-detect' if you are developing a web application and need to detect the user's device type and capabilities directly in the browser. This package is lightweight and provides a straightforward API for device detection.

  • react-native-device-info:

    Choose 'react-native-device-info' if you are building a React Native application and need to access device-specific information such as device ID, OS version, and more. This package offers comprehensive device information that is essential for mobile app development.

README for react-device-detect

react-device-detect

npm

Detect device, and render view according to the detected device type.

Installation

To install, you can use npm or yarn:

npm install react-device-detect --save

or

yarn add react-device-detect

When to use this library

This library uses a technique called user agent sniffing to detect device information. That means it works by examining the User Agent string given by a browser and comparing it to a list of browser and device names it knows about. This technique works, but has drawbacks and may or may not be the right approach, depending on what you're trying to achieve. If you need to detect a specific browser type (e.g. Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer) or specific category of device (e.g. all iPods), this library can do that. If you just want your React app to behave differently or look different on mobiles in general, CSS @media queries and matchMedia are probably what you want. There are many libraries that can help with using @media queries and matchMedia in React projects, such as react-responsive and @react-hook/media-query.

API

Usage

Example:

import { BrowserView, MobileView, isBrowser, isMobile } from 'react-device-detect';
<BrowserView>
  <h1>This is rendered only in browser</h1>
</BrowserView>
<MobileView>
  <h1>This is rendered only on mobile</h1>
</MobileView>

if you don't need a view, you can use isMobile for conditional rendering

import {isMobile} from 'react-device-detect';

function App() {
  renderContent = () => {
    if (isMobile) {
      return <div> This content is available only on mobile</div>
    }
    return <div> ...content </div>
  }

  render() {
    return this.renderContent();
  }
}

If you want to leave a message to a specific browser (e.g IE), you can use isIE selector

import { isIE } from 'react-device-detect';

function App() {
  render() {
    if (isIE) return <div> IE is not supported. Download Chrome/Opera/Firefox </div>
    return (
      <div>...content</div>
    )
  }
}

If you want to render a view on a specific device and with a specific condition:

import { browserName, CustomView } from 'react-device-detect';

function App() {
  render() {
    return (
      <CustomView condition={browserName === "Chrome"}>
        <div>...content</div>
      </CustomView>
    )
  }
}

Style the view

You can style a view component by passing class to the className prop

<BrowserView className="custom-class">
  <p>View content</p>
</BrowserView>

or you can pass inline styles to style prop

const styles = {
  background: 'red',
  fontSize: '24px',
  lineHeight: '2',
};
<BrowserView style={styles}>
  <p>View content</p>
</BrowserView>

Testing

import * as rdd from 'react-device-detect';

rdd.isMobile = true;

// use in tests

License

MIT