React Native Development

Two apps, one team

React Native’s appeal is straightforward arithmetic. Instead of an iOS team and an Android team building the same product twice and drifting apart on details, one team writes TypeScript and React and ships to both stores. Features land on both platforms in the same sprint, and a bug gets fixed once.

Unlike a webview-based approach, the interface is made of real native components. Scrolling, keyboard behaviour, navigation transitions and gestures come from the platform, so the app feels the way users expect rather than approximately right.

What actually gets shared — and what does not

Expect most of your business logic, state management, API layer, validation and the bulk of screen code to be common. Expect not to share: anything touching platform permissions, push notification setup, in-app purchase and subscription flows, deep linking configuration, widgets and background execution. Those need platform-specific work on both sides.

We are specific about this because “write once, run anywhere” oversells it and sets up disappointment. A realistic expectation is a large shared core with a genuine platform-specific tail — still far cheaper than two codebases, but not free.

Expo or bare React Native?

Expo has become the sensible default. Its managed workflow and config plugins remove most of the native build maintenance, over-the-air updates let you ship a JavaScript fix without waiting on store review, and the build service produces signed binaries without a Mac in the loop. Bare React Native still makes sense when you need a native dependency that resists integration, or when an existing native application is adopting React Native for part of its interface — which it supports, screen by screen.

Performance work

The New Architecture — the Fabric renderer, TurboModules and the Hermes engine — removed the old asynchronous bridge that used to be the source of most jank. What remains is ordinary application discipline: virtualise long lists properly, keep re-renders narrow, move heavy work off the JavaScript thread, use the native driver for animation, and measure startup time on a mid-range Android device rather than on a current iPhone. Most “React Native is slow” complaints trace back to one of these being skipped.

When we would recommend native instead

If the product is a game, leans heavily on the camera or augmented reality, does substantial on-device media or machine-learning work, or must adopt brand-new platform APIs the day they ship, native Swift and Kotlin is the honest recommendation. If the app is mainly content, forms and workflow and you already have a web codebase, Ionic may get you there for less.

The stack we work in

React Native with Expo, TypeScript, React Navigation, TanStack Query for server state, Zustand or Redux Toolkit where state justifies it, Reanimated and Gesture Handler for interaction, MMKV or SQLite for local storage, Detox or Maestro for end-to-end tests, Sentry for crash reporting, and EAS or Fastlane for automated store delivery.

Engineers are available through outstaffing, or we can take a mobile product on end to end — see cross-platform mobile app development.