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by mottomotto 2918 days ago
React Native is far from dead. I suspect your conflating "React Native isn't good for Airbnb" with "React Native is dead". The reality is Airbnb already had mobile applications. They wanted to use React Native to potentially accelerate their application development. However, after a couple of years, they still had a hybrid application with both purely native screens and a some React Native screens. I think the number was roughly 200 out of 800 screens? Anyway, point is if you're in the same situation as Airbnb, yes, React Native as it stands right now might not be the ideal for making a hybrid application.

If you're not in Airbnb's shoes, React Native may be a completely viable way to build your applications. One hint is that hybrid is harder than it seems. That is is more than just a technical problem. I'm going to avoid rehashing the Airbnb articles but you can read them to get a sense of the pain points. To continue the hint though, it's worth looking at those for whom React Native is working. I've noticed most seem to be greenfield applications developed from the start in React Native.

1 comments

I am glad to read the comments saying that it is not dead, as I am planning to start building my latest project from the ground with React Native.
If you need or will need a web equivalent, you should look into react-native-web (and just for interest, react-native-dom but that is much more expiremental -- I'd stick with -web for actual usage). With react-native-web, you can have one code base that serves both the mobile devices and web. It takes a little bit of getting used to but I'm using it on two projects and it's really powerful.
Thanks a lot! I will absolutely look into that. I will at some point need a web-equivalent, so that might be very useful.