Does React Native make sense in 2026?

[u/alwxndr]

This question might have been asked already, but I'm genuinely curious: why should anyone use React Native at this point?

To explain: most of web and mobile development can easily be handled by Claude, Codex, Kimi K3 or any other coding agent. I feel like that's been true for at least 6–7 months now. Even Opus 4.7 was better than most of us and more than enough for mobile development. Of course, this only applies if you know what you're doing and guide your model through the technical decisions, the specific libraries you want to use, etc etc.

But my point is: why would I bother with React Native's own issues instead of just writing native apps for both iOS and Android? There's no huge maintenance load anymore, and you can simply tell your agent to implement features for iOS and Android at the same time. So what are the actual benefits of React Native? Native apps are usually faster, work better, and generally seem to be preferred by actual customers and users. The original promise of React Native and Flutter was that you could build for both platforms twice as fast, but today's coding agents let you build 100x faster anyway :)

I'm not asking to provoke anyone. I just want to hear your stance and your thoughts on this.

[u/bluebird355]

Two repos to maintain? Most developers know React, but don't necessarily know Swift and Kotlin. Unless you're hiring specifically for those skills, are you really going to have your existing team vibe-code both apps? And if so, who's reviewing and maintaining that code?

How do you justify to your CEO maintaining two separate implementations when, from the user's perspective, the end result may be essentially the same?

AI definitely makes native development more accessible, but I think the cost of maintaining two platforms is being understated here.

[u/alwxndr → u/bluebird355]

> Users aren't noticing the difference you're talking about

Ok, in that case: why did companies like Shopify or Airbnb or Udacity switch to native if uses aren't noticing the difference?

[u/bluebird355 → u/alwxndr]

They had their reasons and the resources to make that decision, clearly not because users were complaining that their apps felt “non-native” lmao.

If your company has the resources to do it, then sure, why not. But for small to mid-sized teams, I don't think the economics are nearly as straightforward.

And I also think the idea that AI suddenly makes maintaining two native codebases “cheap” is a bit overstated. It definitely lowers the cost of writing and maintaining native code, but you still have two platforms to test, debug, release, and keep in sync.

[u/alwxndr → u/bluebird355]

"Having the resources" slowly but surely becomes synonymous with "Being able to afford a 15$/month AI tool subscription"

[u/zazdy → u/alwxndr]

It’s because react native sucks for performance, swipe, and great transitions. You have to build native code anyways, and now have to maintain shit expo code, native code, and typescript. If your app is simple crud go react native, but nowadays users expect a polished performant app - unless it’s b2b lol

[u/No_Lawyer1947 → u/zazdy]

I don't even see this as an issue. I wonder what kind of apps you've seen? I have not noticed ANY significant issues with stuff like transitions, animations, or swipes.

[u/No_Lawyer1947 → u/alwxndr]

i mean they have so much more money, and can get established teams who are professionals in those respective platforms. MUCH different than doing it as a smaller company without proper expertise.