React Native

Why React Native

React Native bridges the gap between web and mobile development. If your team already knows React, they can build mobile apps without learning Swift and Kotlin from scratch. The learning curve is gentle. The productivity gains are real.

Meta created React Native to solve their own problems. They needed to ship mobile features faster without maintaining separate iOS and Android teams. The framework has matured significantly since 2015. Companies like Shopify, Discord, and Coinbase trust it for their flagship apps. That’s not hype — that’s production validation at massive scale.

The architecture changed in 2022 with the New Architecture release. The old bridge bottleneck is gone. JavaScript now communicates directly with native modules through JSI (JavaScript Interface). The result is better performance, synchronous native calls, and support for concurrent rendering. If you tried React Native years ago and hit performance walls, it’s worth another look.

What We Build

Consumer apps with complex, gesture-heavy interfaces. Think swipeable cards, pull-to-refresh, smooth scrolling lists with thousands of items. React Native handles these patterns well when you understand the performance model.

Business tools for field teams who need offline capability. Sales reps capturing orders at trade shows. Technicians logging maintenance visits. Delivery drivers managing routes. These apps need to work without reliable internet, then sync when connectivity returns.

Healthcare applications for clinicians who need quick access to patient data. HIPAA compliance requires careful architecture, but React Native doesn’t add complexity here. The compliance concerns are the same as any mobile platform.

E-commerce experiences that convert. Product catalogs, shopping carts, checkout flows, order tracking. Integration with payment processors like Stripe is straightforward. The native modules for Apple Pay and Google Pay work reliably.

Internal tools that companies don’t want to build twice. HR apps. Expense tracking. Inventory management. These projects rarely justify separate iOS and Android development.

Our Experience

We’ve shipped React Native apps across multiple verticals. We understand the patterns that work and the traps to avoid. Navigation with React Navigation. State management with Zustand or Redux Toolkit depending on complexity. Forms with React Hook Form. API calls with TanStack Query for caching and synchronization.

We write TypeScript. Every component, every hook, every utility function. The type safety catches bugs before they reach users. It also makes refactoring safer as your app grows.

Our apps include comprehensive testing. Unit tests for business logic. Integration tests for complex flows. Detox for end-to-end testing on actual devices. We’ve seen too many mobile projects skip testing and pay for it later.

When to Use React Native

React Native makes sense when you need both platforms and speed matters. A startup validating a mobile idea. An enterprise extending their web app to mobile. An agency building apps for multiple clients.

It’s particularly strong when you already have React web developers. The mental model transfers. Components, hooks, state management — the concepts are identical. Your team can contribute to mobile features within days, not months.

The JavaScript ecosystem is a genuine advantage. Need a date picker? Multiple options. PDF viewer? Covered. Barcode scanner? Several libraries, all maintained. You rarely have to build standard features from scratch.

When to Consider Alternatives

Heavy 3D graphics or AR experiences deserve native development. React Native can integrate with ARKit and ARCore, but the developer experience isn’t as smooth. Game-like apps with complex animations might hit performance limits.

Apps that need deep platform integration — custom Bluetooth protocols, specialized hardware communication, heavy background processing — sometimes benefit from native development. You can bridge native code into React Native, but if 80% of your app is native anyway, the abstraction adds complexity without much benefit.

If your team has no JavaScript experience but strong Swift or Kotlin skills, native development might be faster. React Native’s productivity gains assume familiarity with the React mental model.

Common Challenges

Navigation complexity. Mobile navigation is harder than web routing. Deep linking, authentication flows, nested navigators, tab bars with stacks inside them. We’ve implemented these patterns many times. The solutions are documented but not obvious to newcomers.

Performance on low-end devices. Android fragmentation is real. Apps need to run on devices with 2GB of RAM. We profile on actual hardware, not just simulators. Memory leaks in JavaScript are easier to create than you’d think.

Native module maintenance. Third-party libraries sometimes break after iOS or Android updates. We choose dependencies carefully. Popular, well-maintained libraries with active communities. We avoid orphaned packages that haven’t been updated in months.

App store approval. Both Apple and Google have strict guidelines. We know the common rejection reasons and design around them from the start. Proper permission handling. Required privacy disclosures. Compliance with platform guidelines.

Our Approach

We build React Native apps that your team can maintain. Clean architecture separating business logic from UI. Comprehensive documentation. Onboarding sessions when we hand off the codebase.

CI/CD pipelines deploy to TestFlight and Google Play automatically. Every merge to main triggers a build. QA can test within minutes. When you’re ready, production releases are one click away.

We’re direct about tradeoffs. If React Native isn’t the right choice for your project, we’ll say so. Our goal is building the right thing, not selling a specific technology.