The real cost of React Native animations: benchmarking every approach

Janic Duplessis, head of consulting at App&Flow and a seasoned React Native contributor, shares insights into optimizing animations in React Native applications, particularly focusing on the challenges posed by the Reanimated library's reliance on the UI thread, which can lead to frame drops in busy apps. To address these issues, App&Flow developed react-native-ease, a declarative animation library that leverages platform APIs like Core Animation on iOS and ObjectAnimator on Android to run animations outside the app's thread, reducing UI thread overhead. The post details a comprehensive benchmark comparing four animation approaches—react-native-ease, Reanimated's worklet-based and CSS animation APIs, and RN Animated with useNativeDriver: true—across various devices and configurations, highlighting how react-native-ease significantly lowers per-frame UI thread costs by offloading animations to the OS render server. The findings underscore the importance of choosing the right animation library based on the specific needs of the app, particularly for long-running animations or those involving a high number of concurrent animations, while acknowledging the forthcoming improvements in React Native 0.85 with its Shared Animation Backend.

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