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I work with both native iOS and React Native on daily basis. Both had their own (dis)advantages and it's hard to have a definite answer on which is better. It a

I work with both native iOS and React Native on daily basis. Both had their own (dis)advantages and it's hard to have a definite answer on which is better. It all depends on the nature of the app you want to build, your budget and trade-offs you are willing to take. RN is moving fast and has improved a lot in the recent months but still has some pain points: - If you want to build a chat app, forget about well working sticky text input. (https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/371 https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/371) - All the dev time you have saved with hot reloading will be lost if you hit the infamous 4968 (https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/4968 https://github.com/facebook/react-native/issues/4968) - Multithreading, but that has been covered in other comments. If you're obsessed about buttery smooth UI you'll have some unpleasant time. Also : - I find RN's ecosystem feeble and don't trust packages. Triple check everything you run npm install on. - Using solely RN/JS is not an excuse to completely avoid learning native development. It bites in the future. + ScrollViews are great. + Build times are shorter, you get quicker feedback especially for UI small modifications. + I really enjoy working with RN's Animated API.

udfalkso 9y ago
This is a good list of pros and cons. I'd just add this: + App also runs on Android (and even web, and tvos) I'm always surprised when people don't list this massive benefit when discussing RN. It's really the core value proposition. The fact that it's even in the conversation when developing for only one platform seems like quite an endorsement of the developer experience with RN.
- pawelwentpawel 9y ago
  Definitely. That is also my main reason for mentioning the budget - building one app for multiple platforms is (usually...) cheaper.
LeoNatan25 9y ago
Scrollviews are relatively easy, but table (list) views and collection views are terrible due to the way RN is implemented internally. FlatList, while a small optimization over the normal ListView, is still just not good enough.

udfalkso 9y ago

This is a good list of pros and cons. I'd just add this: + App also runs on Android (and even web, and tvos) I'm always surprised when people don't list this massive benefit when discussing RN. It's really the core value proposition. The fact that it's even in the conversation when developing for only one platform seems like quite an endorsement of the developer experience with RN.

pawelwentpawel 9y ago
Definitely. That is also my main reason for mentioning the budget - building one app for multiple platforms is (usually...) cheaper.

LeoNatan25 9y ago

Scrollviews are relatively easy, but table (list) views and collection views are terrible due to the way RN is implemented internally. FlatList, while a small optimization over the normal ListView, is still just not good enough.