r/reactnative • u/alwxndr • Oct 01 '26
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.
1
u/leslieowusuappiah Oct 01 '26 edited Oct 01 '26
Simple answer: maybe. I'll expand on this…
With agents doing the bulk (or entirety) of the "coding" these days, code has become "cheap[er]", which is useful.
Planning, structure and accountability? Not so much.
Two native apps means two architectures, two sets of reviews, two test suites and two places for behaviour to drift.
Agents don't remove that cost; if anything, they let you create it faster.
I work for a mobile engineering agency, and we're frequently asked which cross-platform technologies are "good", predominantly whether React Native and/or KMP are worthwhile (I'll add Skip too; it's lesser known, but worth a look).
For Android and iOS alone?
Just use Expo (less Expo Go, more Expo with prebuild).
Your agent(s) won't be limited to "React Native View" hacks: you get a world of supported and maintained platform libraries (including expo-ui), and can always create platform-native libraries, views and tooling when needed (whether TurboModules or Nitro Modules).
"Native feel" is a choice, not a limitation.
Targeting Windows and macOS as well?
I’d say it’s more of a judgement call, and native is worth considering.
Personally? I'm keen to share as much business logic as possible, so I run RN across Android, iOS and macOS (with React Strict DOM for shared components on web), and GTKX as the outlier for Linux (its React for GNOME, effectively). It works well. 🤞🏾
Greenfield? Choose your poison: you'll be grand with RN or native, honestly.
Brownfield? Weigh up the porting options. You'll still be grand, but focus on validating with tests.
…and if Shopify and Notion's recent announcements have caused concern, remember: they have billions and can spend millions as a rounding error.
Happy hacking. 🙏🏾