What is the difference between Flow and PropTypes?

Flow is a static analysis tool (static checker) which uses a superset of the language, allowing you to add type annotations to all of your code and catch an entire class of bugs at compile time.

PropTypes is a basic type checker (runtime checker) which has been patched onto React. It can't check anything other than the types of the props being passed to a given component. If you want more flexible typechecking for your entire project Flow/TypeScript are appropriate choices.

Practical Code Example

// Flow vs PropTypes:
// Flow: Static compile-time checking before code runs (zero runtime overhead)
// PropTypes: Dynamic runtime checking in development browser console