After five years powering cross-platform development, React Native is undergoing a significant re-architecture designed to enhance flexibility and improve integration with native infrastructures within hybrid JavaScript/Native applications. This exciting news is welcomed by React Native app development companies worldwide. The re-architecture is poised to retain developers who may have been considering alternatives like Flutter, giving React Native a competitive edge.

As Sophie Alpert, Facebook engineering manager, stated in a 2018 blog post, "State of React Native,"

"With this project, we’ll apply what we’ve learned over the last 5 years and incrementally bring our architecture to a more modern one. We’re rewriting many of React Native’s internals, but most of the changes are under the hood: existing React Native apps will continue to work with few or no changes.”

One of the primary challenges with the React Native framework was its Asynchronous Bridge. While initially functional, this approach presented long-term limitations. The Asynchronous Bridge hindered seamless integration of JavaScript logic with native APIs requiring synchronous responses. The batched bridge, which queues native calls, made it difficult for React Native apps to interact efficiently with natively implemented functions. Meanwhile, the serializable bridge led to unnecessary data copying. These restrictions could be particularly frustrating for apps built using both existing code and React Native.

To address these challenges and improve developer experience, the re-architecture introduces three key internal changes:

Beyond these internal changes, DEFX is also streamlining React Native's JavaScript footprint for better compatibility with the JavaScript ecosystem. This includes making the bundler and VM swappable. Additionally, addressing community feedback, Defx is committed to providing more comprehensive documentation.

While specific details remain limited, DEFX expresses optimism that these changes will simplify feature development. For instance, integrating gesture handling and native navigation, currently requiring complex workarounds, is expected to become much more straightforward.

Ready to leverage the power of the re-architected React Native? Contact our team of expert React Native developers at DEFX today.