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React Native is one of the most popular frameworks for developing native-like apps for Android and iOS. It was developed by a team at Meta (formerly Facebook). It was developed as a modern solution for developing native (or, more specifically, native-like) apps for multiple platforms with one codebase. It is a JavaScript-based framework specifically used in the development of applications for two prominent platforms – Android & iOS.
React Native application development gained widespread popularity due to its versatility. It helps developers build cross-platform apps with one codebase.
It is built on top of Facebook’s React JS library.with the enhanced capability to develop cross-platform mobile apps. The speed at which applications can be developed is a crucial factor nowadays. React keeps up with the current fast-paced era of app development. Therefore, React Native development has gained widespread popularity. This is why it the second most used mobile development framework in recent times.
Did you know the world’s renowned brand’s apps are built using React Native? Let’s explore some of the popular apps build using React Native. React Native's versatility is also evident in its effectiveness at building mobile apps that address unique business challenges.
It allows the development of a cross-platform application with a single codebase.
No need to employ a separate team to build a cross-platform React mobile app. This streamlined approach is pivotal for building mobile apps that deliver consistent performance across different platforms
UI development is straightforward, with a wealth of React Native UI libraries to rapid-up UI development.
React Native apps offer performance that closely matches native apps.
Backed by Facebook and a large community of developers.
Built on top of React.js, a rich JavaScipt library with modern features, such as live reload and reusable components
Bloomberg used it a long back in 2016 with the launch of a revamped app for iOS and Android platforms. The company employed React Native to introduce features. Personalized content, videos, and live feeds were developed with React Native.
Before React Native, Bloomberg teams used to do parallel development of iOS and Android. They had no idea they wouldn't be able to reuse much of the code they wrote. This pattern often went sour in timings. Ultimately, it would lead to repeated work and inefficiencies.
According to Gabriel Lew, a senior software engineer at Bloomberg, "React Native's unified development capabilities transformed the process, with developers now able to focus on building one feature at a time seamlessly.
This transition streamlined the workflow. Plus, it also helped the company save substantial development time and resources.
At Meta, React and React Native are more than just tools; they are integral to our product development and innovation. These technologies are foundational to our engineering culture, enabling us to rapidly build and deploy high-quality products.
Meta further highlights recent advancements where React and React Native have played a pivotal role in driving innovation.
While the extent of React Native's usage in developing the core Facebook app remains undisclosed, it is well-documented that Meta leverages React Native across various products.
The React Native showcase page explicitly mentions its implementation in flagship applications, including Facebook, Instagram, Facebook Ads Manager, Meta Horizon, and Messenger Desktop. This demonstrates React Native’s versatility and significant contribution to Meta's product ecosystem.
Facebook ads manager is entirely built using React Native, while the company used native code and React Native JavaScript in its Facebook Group app.
Discord is a popular instant messaging platform that allows groups of users or communities to connect via chat, calls, or video calls. It has more than 200 million monthly active users and with ratings of 4.7 stars on the App Store and 4.5 stars on the Google Play Store.
As stated in a blog published by the Discord team:
React Native has been instrumental in allowing us to achieve this with a team of only three core iOS engineers!
The Discord engineers used React Native because they wanted to write a significant portion of the code with the same codebase for both Android and iOS platforms. Additionally, the team found that it would help improve the speed of their existing app. By incorporating React Native into their key tech stack, they managed to build smooth-running apps.
The team adopted React Native for their iOS app to deliver near-native performance without the typical trade-offs associated with cross-platform development. They used a custom approach, integrating React Native for the user interface while maintaining native components for performance-critical functions.
By focusing on optimizing React Native’s performance—such as through advanced memory management and performance tuning—Discord achieved high responsiveness and smooth user experiences similar to native apps.
Image source: Medium
Wix was among the early adopters of React Native technology. It is a popular website builder that provides various pre-built tools and templates to build websites without writing code. They adopted it in 2015, when the Wix mobile team was small, with only 4 team members. They decided to implement React for the reasons as follows:
To make their mobile app more efficient
To develop the app in less time
To develop the significant part of the app using single code (the team shares over 95% of the business logic codebase for iOS and Android)
To build a scalable application
With React, the team was able to develop a high-performing app within a short period of time, adding several changes.
Pinterest is an image-sharing and social platform where you can explore new ideas and save them.
Speaking of Pinterest, initially, the company chose React Native due to its so-called capability of enabling developers to create native-like apps for Android and iOS platforms using a common codebase.
As per the company’s blog, the implementation of React Native resulted in increased development and reduced development costs.
Walmart is the world’s leading online retail store. It provides users with a website and top-notch mobile apps to shop from their homes.
They switched to React Native to build a scalable application with the growing number of smartphone users. They took advantage of React Native in their Android and iOS app development.
Walmart migrated to React Native in order to increase the development velocity. Also, The company has observed better performance in page transition and a native feel across the app.
Instagram is another popular example of a React-powered application. It has over 2 billion active users monthly, making it 4th most popular social media platform in the globe. After incorporating React Native into its Facebook mobile app and Facebook Ads Manager, Meta used its own developed technology in its third platform – Instagram.
They shipped various features to the Instagram app using React Native, like revamping the then-existing edit profile UI, adding a push notification feature, and the product development team used in building various core components.
SoundCloud explored React Native to build its Pulse app, aiming for faster development and cross-platform support. The team found React Native's developer experience, community support, and cross-platform potential (with up to 85% code reuse) compelling.
Despite challenges like frequent updates and third-party library compatibility, the approach led to faster feature delivery and easy integration with existing native libraries. They also expanded React Native use to other internal apps, with a focus on enhancing mobile workflows.
Popular e-commerce company used it to build search/browse feature, an infinite list of heterogeneous items. Flipkart is an Indian online shopping portal with 150+ million active users per month. The app holds a 4.3-star rating and has over 500 million downloads so far.
Flipkart has bulit various components on its homepage with React Native. Though, optimized native apps always exceed react-native apps. The company chose React as one of the tech stacks to enhance the app, keeping the factors below in mind.
It would not degrade the performance, and they found it quite true. The app’s performance didn’t degrade even after using a significant amount of code.
Parallel usage of the native components, along with leveraging the React Native features.
Ability to push minor changes and OTA instantly
Until mid-2020, Meta's Messenger Desktop relied on Electron, but its large size and sluggish startup times, particularly on low-end devices, made them switch to React Native. This change resulted in a significant reduction in the app's final binary size by over 100MB on both macOS and Windows, leading to a 50% improvement in loading speeds.
Additionally, Meta reports a 15% and 67% decrease in app crashes on macOS and Windows, respectively. This successful migration showcases the potential of React Native for building performant desktop applications, as evidenced by the improved Messenger Desktop experience.
Meta reports in their blog that
App loading time was reduced by 50 percent for the great majority of their users on macOS and Windows by using React Native. Application crashes have reduced by 15 percent on macOS and 67 percent on Windows.
Facebook messenger desktop app is prime exmaple of React Native apps.
React Native’s architecture revolves around a bridge that connects JavaScript (JS) code with native platform APIs. The JS thread, powered by the JavaScriptCore engine (or Hermes, a lightweight alternative), handles the app’s logic, while native threads manage rendering and device-specific functions. This separation enables a modular structure where developers can write shared business logic in JS and tap into native modules (Swift, Kotlin) for performance-critical features.
For instance, Instagram’s hybrid approach mixes React Native with native code, using the bridge to synchronize UI updates. This architecture supports scalability but introduces a potential bottleneck: the bridge can slow down communication for highly interactive features. To mitigate this, apps like Discord leverage native modules for low-latency tasks (e.g., WebSocket connections), ensuring smooth real-time performance.
React Native’s component-based UI framework is a game-changer. Developers can use built-in components like <View> and <Text> or adopt third-party libraries like React Native Elements or NativeBase for pre-styled elements. Discord, for example, relies on custom components paired with libraries like React Navigation for seamless screen transitions and gesture handling.
Animation is another strength, powered by the Animated API and libraries like Lottie. Walmart’s app uses these tools to create fluid transitions during product browsing, enhancing user engagement. The declarative nature of React Native’s UI system ensures consistency across platforms, though developers often tweak styles with Platform-specific conditions (e.g., Platform.OS) to match iOS and Android design guidelines.
Performance in React Native hinges on optimizing the JS thread and minimizing bridge overhead. The Hermes engine, adopted by apps like Facebook, reduces app startup time and memory usage by compiling JS to bytecode ahead of time. For computationally heavy tasks, apps like Bloomberg offload work to native modules, ensuring data visualizations render smoothly.
Profiling tools like React Native Debugger and Flipper help identify bottlenecks, such as excessive re-renders or slow network calls. Techniques like memoization (using React.memo or useMemo) and FlatList for large datasets—seen in Walmart’s product listings—further boost efficiency. However, React Native isn’t without trade-offs: it may lag behind fully native apps in graphics-intensive scenarios (e.g., gaming), where direct access to GPU APIs is critical.
This list isn't comprehensive—there are millions of apps worldwide that use React Native as a core technology. Today, it ranks as the second most popular framework, just behind Flutter. It's an excellent choice for startups and businesses aiming to build cost-effective applications.
Looking to create a cross-platform app with React Native? At Brilworks, a top-rated React Native development company, we provide dedicated, full-time React Native development services.Ultimately, building mobile apps with React Native has become a cornerstone for businesses seeking innovation and efficiency.
React Native enhances app performance through several mechanisms. It leverages native components for rendering UI elements, resulting in smooth animations and interactions. The use of a virtual DOM efficiently updates the UI, minimizing re-renders. Additionally, features like code bundling and asynchronous JavaScript execution contribute to faster app startup and responsiveness. By combining native speed with React's declarative style, React Native delivers high-performance apps.
React Native offers numerous advantages for app development. It enables code reusability across iOS and Android platforms, accelerating development time and reducing costs. Its large and active community provides extensive support and resources. The hot reloading feature allows for rapid development cycles and efficient debugging. Furthermore, React Native's ability to integrate with native code provides flexibility for complex functionalities, making it suitable for a wide range of app projects.
Many popular apps rely on React Native for their development. Notable examples include Facebook, Instagram, and Skype. Additionally, several other successful apps across various industries, such as fintech, e-commerce, and social media, have adopted React Native for their cross-platform mobile solutions. The growing number of high-profile apps using React Native demonstrates its maturity and effectiveness as a development framework.
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