What Is React Native? The Rise of Hybrid Mobile Apps

React Native, launched in 2015, is a JavaScript framework that facilitates the development of mobile applications for both Android and iOS from a single codebase, offering significant cost and time savings. It builds on ReactJS, allowing developers familiar with ReactJS to transition smoothly to mobile app development while maintaining code consistency across platforms. React Native translates JSX components into native platform-specific components, ensuring a fast user experience. This approach is beneficial for companies with existing web developers, but may not be ideal for complex applications requiring extensive custom UI components or device-specific APIs, due to potential delays in third-party support for new platform features. While companies like Facebook and Bloomberg have successfully utilized React Native, others like Airbnb have reverted to native development due to challenges such as rapid framework evolution and the need for native code. Despite these challenges, React Native remains a popular choice for many businesses due to its efficiency and the ease with which JavaScript developers can adopt it.