No... :D Why would anyone use it then, you could just as well wrap a regular webview. RN's gui elements are native, it taps into native animations, schedulers, openGL and so on. But driven by Javascript running in a separate thread. RN produces real mobile apps, RN-windows real UWP applications, RN-macos real mac apps, and so on.
You heard the opposite of reality. Here are the key facts:
- React Native is faster than apps using a webview because it uses native UI components for their OS targets (e.g. Android and iOS). They also look more native.
- React Native runs the JS code in a separate thread from the native UI components rendering. Webview apps will use the same thread for their app code and the DOM rendering.