React Native

Product

Acquired Subsidiary

Open-source framework for building native Android and iOS apps with JavaScript and React, stewarded by the React Foundation.

React Native - Research Notes

React Native renders React primitives to each platform's native UI building blocks rather than a web view, giving apps native platform APIs and interface behavior from a single JavaScript and React codebase. It runs in thousands of production apps, and its community extends it beyond Android and iOS through initiatives such as React Native Windows, React Native macOS, and React Native Web.
The project pairs a full-time engineering team with contributions from individuals and companies worldwide, and it now sits under the vendor-neutral React Foundation announced in October 2025, with Meta continuing dedicated engineering support. An ecosystem of frameworks and libraries, led by Expo, covers routing, native module access, and developer tooling.
React Native's steady release cadence brings recurring upgrade requirements: version 0.84 made the Hermes V1 engine the default and removed Legacy Architecture components on iOS, and version 0.87 raised minimum toolchains to Node.js 22, AGP 9, and Kotlin 2.0+, so teams on older stacks must budget migration work.
The framework deliberately does not prescribe routing or access to the numerous platform APIs, pushing those decisions to external frameworks such as Expo; teams that avoid a framework must assemble and maintain those pieces themselves. Release announcements show support windows of roughly three minor versions before a release line moves to unsupported, which pressures lagging apps to keep pace.
React Native began inside Facebook, where engineer Jordan Walke developed a way to generate iOS UI elements from a background JavaScript thread; an internal hackathon refined the prototype into a framework for building native mobile apps. Facebook announced it at React.js Conf in January 2015 and open-sourced it on March 26, 2015, with early production use in Facebook Groups and Ads Manager.
The project was maintained by Meta for a decade, shipping the New Architecture (Fabric renderer and TurboModules) as an experiment from version 0.68 and enabling it by default in 0.76. In October 2025 Meta announced that React Native would transition, together with React and JSX, to the vendor-neutral React Foundation under the Linux Foundation, while continuing full-time engineering support.
In October 2025 Meta announced that React Native, React, and JSX would move to the vendor-neutral React Foundation, part of the Linux Foundation, a structure intended to keep the ecosystem neutral across vendors. Meta committed to a five-year partnership with over $3 million in funding and a continuing full-time team working on React Native.
Release activity has remained steady since the transition, with versions 0.82 through 0.87 shipping between October 2025 and August 2026 and the New Architecture now mandatory. Community initiatives continue widening the platform set, with maintained ports for Windows, macOS, and the web alongside the core Android and iOS targets.
React Native is distributed free of charge under the MIT License, with no paid tiers, subscription, or per-seat pricing for the framework itself; source and releases are published on GitHub and npm, with copyright held by Meta Platforms, Inc. and affiliates.
Monetary support around the project comes from stewardship commitments rather than product revenue: as the framework moved to the React Foundation in October 2025, Meta committed to a five-year partnership with more than $3 million in funding and dedicated engineering support. Commercial activity instead accrues to third parties, with framework vendors such as Expo and consultancies selling tooling and services around the open-source core.
React Native is an open-source framework for building native mobile applications for Android and iOS using JavaScript and the React programming model; React primitives render to native platform UI components, so apps use the same native platform APIs as other applications. Meta recommends starting new projects through a framework such as Expo.
As of August 2026 the latest stable release is 0.87, which makes the Strict TypeScript API the default and adds experimental Swift Package Manager support for iOS. The New Architecture has been the default since version 0.76, and from version 0.82 the legacy architecture can no longer be enabled.

React Native - Research Notes

React Native renders React primitives to each platform's native UI building blocks rather than a web view, giving apps native platform APIs and interface behavior from a single JavaScript and React codebase. It runs in thousands of production apps, and its community extends it beyond Android and iOS through initiatives such as React Native Windows, React Native macOS, and React Native Web.
The project pairs a full-time engineering team with contributions from individuals and companies worldwide, and it now sits under the vendor-neutral React Foundation announced in October 2025, with Meta continuing dedicated engineering support. An ecosystem of frameworks and libraries, led by Expo, covers routing, native module access, and developer tooling.
React Native's steady release cadence brings recurring upgrade requirements: version 0.84 made the Hermes V1 engine the default and removed Legacy Architecture components on iOS, and version 0.87 raised minimum toolchains to Node.js 22, AGP 9, and Kotlin 2.0+, so teams on older stacks must budget migration work.
The framework deliberately does not prescribe routing or access to the numerous platform APIs, pushing those decisions to external frameworks such as Expo; teams that avoid a framework must assemble and maintain those pieces themselves. Release announcements show support windows of roughly three minor versions before a release line moves to unsupported, which pressures lagging apps to keep pace.
React Native began inside Facebook, where engineer Jordan Walke developed a way to generate iOS UI elements from a background JavaScript thread; an internal hackathon refined the prototype into a framework for building native mobile apps. Facebook announced it at React.js Conf in January 2015 and open-sourced it on March 26, 2015, with early production use in Facebook Groups and Ads Manager.
The project was maintained by Meta for a decade, shipping the New Architecture (Fabric renderer and TurboModules) as an experiment from version 0.68 and enabling it by default in 0.76. In October 2025 Meta announced that React Native would transition, together with React and JSX, to the vendor-neutral React Foundation under the Linux Foundation, while continuing full-time engineering support.
In October 2025 Meta announced that React Native, React, and JSX would move to the vendor-neutral React Foundation, part of the Linux Foundation, a structure intended to keep the ecosystem neutral across vendors. Meta committed to a five-year partnership with over $3 million in funding and a continuing full-time team working on React Native.
Release activity has remained steady since the transition, with versions 0.82 through 0.87 shipping between October 2025 and August 2026 and the New Architecture now mandatory. Community initiatives continue widening the platform set, with maintained ports for Windows, macOS, and the web alongside the core Android and iOS targets.
React Native is distributed free of charge under the MIT License, with no paid tiers, subscription, or per-seat pricing for the framework itself; source and releases are published on GitHub and npm, with copyright held by Meta Platforms, Inc. and affiliates.
Monetary support around the project comes from stewardship commitments rather than product revenue: as the framework moved to the React Foundation in October 2025, Meta committed to a five-year partnership with more than $3 million in funding and dedicated engineering support. Commercial activity instead accrues to third parties, with framework vendors such as Expo and consultancies selling tooling and services around the open-source core.
React Native is an open-source framework for building native mobile applications for Android and iOS using JavaScript and the React programming model; React primitives render to native platform UI components, so apps use the same native platform APIs as other applications. Meta recommends starting new projects through a framework such as Expo.
As of August 2026 the latest stable release is 0.87, which makes the Strict TypeScript API the default and adds experimental Swift Package Manager support for iOS. The New Architecture has been the default since version 0.76, and from version 0.82 the legacy architecture can no longer be enabled.