[jameside]

Expo is the free and open source framework and, separately, Expo Application Services (EAS) is the SaaS. Expo and EAS are designed to be decoupled while also working well together, optionally.

The Expo framework gives you the module system, runtime environment, CLI tools, debugger, a suite of modules, navigation to build universal native apps. They're universal in that there is an Android build, an iOS build, and a web build, and, especially with Expo Router, they work together with universal links. They're native in that the user experience is native to the underlying platform, usually using system UI components and behaviors.

EAS provides hosted services for building your app, submitting it to the stores, and updating it. Many developers will use both EAS and their own hardware. It is convenient and fast to build locally when iterating on a feature. And it is convenient in a different way to use EAS to make preview builds of your app on your PRs that change your app's native code or to make release candidates for production.

[paradite]

Hey. I appreciate that there is a distinction between Expo and EAS.

However, as a user reading the Expo docs, I'm not sure if I can separate them easily without deviating from official docs.

Look at the Expo docs on building and deployment, which are essential steps to getting your app distributed. I don't see any mention of how to achieve it without EAS.

There used to be an expo build but it was deprecated a while ago.

https://docs.expo.dev/develop/development-builds/installatio...

https://docs.expo.dev/deploy/build-project/

[jameside]

A lot of the docs prioritize ease of getting started and EAS has a free plan generous enough to get you to production and often beyond. The Expo CLI docs have a section on building locally here: https://docs.expo.dev/more/expo-cli/#building

"npx expo prebuild" (covered in that link) is a good command to know. It generates "android" and "ios" directories with your Android Studio and Xcode projects, respectively. These projects can be built entirely locally and there is no dependency on EAS.

As a side note, the old "expo build" command also ran on hosted servers. It was part of the old Expo CLI, which, for historical reasons from six or seven years ago, didn't separate the free & open source Expo framework from the hosted offering. We built EAS years later, with a major new feature being support for builds that have custom native code. Keeping EAS decoupled from Expo has been a conscious effort, and we've also designed EAS to work with any React Native app whether it uses Expo or not.

[paradite]

I guess I'm just saying it would be nice to have an actual "expo build" command that can build the app locally (assuming Android Studio and Xcode are in place), to complete the full Expo framework experience, instead of using expo prebuild and letting the user deal with Android Studio and Xcode manually.

Then again, I can understand why it isn't a priority for the company.