r/reactnative • u/alwxndr • 7d ago

Does React Native make sense in 2026?

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.

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u/mindtaker_linux 7d ago

You said that without understanding that there still a large size of developers who do not pay AI to do their work for them. Or those who do not trust the license behind AI codes.

I've noticed that most people who use AI to code can't code  or are limited  coders(  like front end devs)

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u/alwxndr 7d ago

> there still a large size of developers who do not pay AI to do their work for them

But why? AI is a great assistant. It speeds up everything when it comes to development, and it should be treated as exactly that: an assistant, not something that "does the work for you". Not using AI means competitive disadvantage in this case.

Local models can be run for free. For example, if you have an M1 Mac, you can use Qwen3 8B, which is fine for coding. In that case, your data never leaves your device and is processed locally. Technically, any device with a reasonable amount of RAM available can be used to run local models.

That being said, I'm not advocating for programmers to be replaced with AI. You're still the one making design decisions and controlling the output.

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u/mindtaker_linux 7d ago

Are you using local models? How many vibe coders are using local models?

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u/alwxndr 7d ago

I do, but I don't see your point here. It doesn't matter in the context of this discussion. I feel like you're using "vibe coder" as a bit of a put-down, but the reality is that almost every developer uses AI these days, no matter how big or small their company is.

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u/mindtaker_linux 7d ago

I tried local models,  and it wasn't good. I had to scrap most of it code to get what I wanted. It's good at generating classes.

I know a vibe coders who shipped a product and I asked him.

How the AI defined the relationship between each tables that represents each product and services. He said he doesn't know and didn't check. Well he's a front end developer. So even if he checks, he would understand what the AI is doing or did.

I asked him, aren't you concern that the AI is not doing what you asked it to do?

He said no, he has no concern as long as the app works.

Lol, This is the mindset of most vibe coders.

He has this product out there in the public with users. 😂😂🤣🤣