React Native, developed by Facebook in 2015, is a widely-used framework for building cross-platform mobile apps using JavaScript, while Flutter, launched by Google in 2017, utilizes the Dart programming language for similar purposes. React Native's performance can be slower due to its bridging concept, whereas Flutter is faster because it eliminates the need for such bridging. In terms of documentation, Flutter provides clearer and more straightforward resources compared to React Native, which relies heavily on external development kits.