Any react-native developers here? How's the experience so far?

I hear a lot of good things. Going to try it soon.

@Jumpshot44 Me too :)

If you don't have any interest in learning native, go for it. Otherwise, don't.

@BellAppLab hi.. Please elaborate. I see it as just native development made easy with js. Plus can write native code too which makes sense. Do easy things that take too much time in react native in very less time. And then hard things in android and ios

@Sainathl I shall.

Learning React Native does not mean you won't have to learn how the underlying systems work. It's fine for simple UIs and interactions, but anything more complex than a list of posts will require more involvement.

React Native still relies on third party dependencies to make the magic happen. Things as simple as navigation will require you to use code from someone else. Each library in turn has its own ideas about how to implement things and they will overlap and clash with each other. You'll need to understand how things work under the hood to realise why you're seeing two navigation bars on top of one another and fix that, for instance.

Writing your own components doesn't mean less work. It means more. You'll have to write them once for iOS, once for Android and the React Native wrapper. It's 50% more work, not less. And then you'll have to watch out for things clashing with each other again.

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Both iOS and Android have come up with solutions to their own quirkinesses, for example accounting for different screen sizes and resolutions. React Native hasn't. Soon enough you'll find yourself building your UIs several times instead of one (or two) to have your app be more "responsive".

Additionally, React and React Native are not the same thing. You'll not be writing once and have everything working everywhere. They share the same language and principles, but the libraries aren't exactly the same. Events like `componentWillMount()` may have different behaviours, for instance.

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React Native still needs Xcode and Android Studio to work. When things stop working, you'll have to deal with them independently still.

Bottom line is: development in general is less about the languages and more about the libraries you'll work with. Knowing Python on itself doesn't take you very far. Knowing Django, NumPy and so forth matters more. Similarly, in mobile development, the problem is not learning Java or Swift, is learning how iOS and Android work. It's the library, not the language. React Native is yet another library will have to learn, which in turn depends upon iOS and Android.

Having said that, I think React Native still has a place, especially if you're not interested or don't have the time to learn native. Or if you're app isn't too complex.

@BellAppLab. Thank you so much for the detailed answer. I'm building a not so complex app for testing react native. And hope don't have to write native code😅. Let's see where I reach with react native only.
Thanks again for the answer.

IMO react native is the true hybrid. I'm using it now on my project

RN + Redux + Redux Saga