2 ms·

In my experience React Native has definitely "lost its luster", primarily because it occupies a bit of a weird middle ground that nobody wants: 1. If you truly

In my experience React Native has definitely "lost its luster", primarily because it occupies a bit of a weird middle ground that nobody wants: 1. If you truly need all the advantages of native performance and integration, just go native. Yes, you'll need to "write it twice", but you'll find that it's actually easier to hire top notch iOS or Android devs in the first place (in my experience they tend to be partisans) with high productivity. 2. I think the biggest thing that has changed since React Native first came on the scene is that the browser-based cross-platform toolkits, things like the Capacitor framework (and starting with Progressive Web Apps in the first place), have gotten much better, and browser tech now gives loads of access to underlying devices and sensors (accelerometer, cameras, biometrics, etc.) React Native really came out with the idea of "I've got all these web devs, can I make them productive on native mobile?" I think things like Capacitor and their ilk are a much better option for this issue now. So in my opinion, if you really need native, use the native frameworks, but if your app doesn't need that and you can do cross-platform, use one of the web-view-based cross-platform frameworks.

theultdev 3y ago
What if you can't afford to hire a "top notch" iOS and Android dev? (or any extra devs for that matter) You don't think there's a lot of companies in that boat? I was able to make a react-native app, targeting web first. Took a little under a year. Took 1 month to get it working and deployed on both app stores to replace the apps our iOS and Android team used to work on natively. I now maintain web, iOS, and Android, solely, with one codebase, 95% code shared. We used to have at least two devs on each native platform. That saves about $600k/yr. (browser-based cross-platform toolkits are a joke, they are not flexible, and are hard to extend)
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  > (browser-based cross-platform toolkits are a joke, they are not flexible, and are hard to extend) I would have agreed with you say 5 or more years ago, but completely disagree now. I certainly don't think the better web-view-based frameworks have any more issues than React Native, and on the contrary I've seen React Native usually have more.
  - theultdev 3y ago
    We'll have to agree to disagree there. A webview-based framework has way too many limitations even to this day for us. React Native has been able to provide a native-like experience for us with no issues.
pbowyer 3y ago
Capacitor framework has an awfully outdated and unmaintained camera library (I was the maintainer for a short while). It's fine if you want to trigger the native camera to open and then get the picture, but embedding the camera in your app is a right pain. If someone would make reasonably priced modules like this for CapacitorJS it'd be a good ecosystem, but instead we've got dying open source libraries, and extortionately priced addons (4 figure+) from the likes of Ionic.
- xtracto 3y ago
  Time and time again ive tried Ionic (7 years ago, and again 1 year ago) and every time it underwhelmed. I like that you can do react now. But Ionic documentations has and still is really bad (thin) and the forums are full of unanswered questions or with answers for Ionic versions that are very old. If you try to make something real/production grade in Ionic, it will quickly disappoint.

theultdev 3y ago

What if you can't afford to hire a "top notch" iOS and Android dev? (or any extra devs for that matter) You don't think there's a lot of companies in that boat? I was able to make a react-native app, targeting web first. Took a little under a year. Took 1 month to get it working and deployed on both app stores to replace the apps our iOS and Android team used to work on natively. I now maintain web, iOS, and Android, solely, with one codebase, 95% code shared. We used to have at least two devs on each native platform. That saves about $600k/yr. (browser-based cross-platform toolkits are a joke, they are not flexible, and are hard to extend)

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
> (browser-based cross-platform toolkits are a joke, they are not flexible, and are hard to extend) I would have agreed with you say 5 or more years ago, but completely disagree now. I certainly don't think the better web-view-based frameworks have any more issues than React Native, and on the contrary I've seen React Native usually have more.
- theultdev 3y ago
  We'll have to agree to disagree there. A webview-based framework has way too many limitations even to this day for us. React Native has been able to provide a native-like experience for us with no issues.

pbowyer 3y ago

Capacitor framework has an awfully outdated and unmaintained camera library (I was the maintainer for a short while). It's fine if you want to trigger the native camera to open and then get the picture, but embedding the camera in your app is a right pain. If someone would make reasonably priced modules like this for CapacitorJS it'd be a good ecosystem, but instead we've got dying open source libraries, and extortionately priced addons (4 figure+) from the likes of Ionic.

xtracto 3y ago
Time and time again ive tried Ionic (7 years ago, and again 1 year ago) and every time it underwhelmed. I like that you can do react now. But Ionic documentations has and still is really bad (thin) and the forums are full of unanswered questions or with answers for Ionic versions that are very old. If you try to make something real/production grade in Ionic, it will quickly disappoint.