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324 points onnnon | 4 comments | | HN request time: 0.865s | source
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prophesi ◴[] No.42730929[source]
I'm surprised that there was no mention of Expo. In the past, I would say bare-metal is better than Expo-managed React Native projects because of the limitations when it came to native modules. Fast forward to today, and anything you can do in a bare metal RN app can be done with Expo.

The biggest game-changer recently is Expo's Continuous Native Generation[0]. You can configure all of your native modules and ios/android files with a simple config file (which has its limits, whereby you'll need to write an Expo Config Plugin[1]). You will no longer commit the ios/android native code to your repository, and instead let it be procedurally built.

This resolved a lot of environment issues developers would often run into, and greatly simplified onboarding new devs. You can build your iOS/Android apps through the CI with ease. And you'll no longer be afraid of upgrading React Native, as Expo will handle all of the breaking changes in the native code for you.

My guess is that Shopify started with bare metal React Native apps (which I would have done the same 5 years ago), and now migrating back to Expo-managed projects is nontrivial. At my work we only manage one app, and it was well worth migrating back.

[0] https://docs.expo.dev/workflow/continuous-native-generation/

[1] https://docs.expo.dev/config-plugins/introduction/

replies(1): >>42732798 #
gunian ◴[] No.42732798[source]
What are your thoughts on Flutter vs Expo vs React Native for someone that wants to build a native app for fun?
replies(4): >>42732845 #>>42733920 #>>42736576 #>>42737723 #
1. EddieRingle ◴[] No.42732845[source]
None of those will get you a "native" app, but they might get you most of the way to a cross-platform app.
replies(1): >>42733050 #
2. gunian ◴[] No.42733050[source]
fair point but coin toss it is what I'm getting they are all equally good/bad?
replies(1): >>42735361 #
3. wiseowise ◴[] No.42735361[source]
Flutter has THE best dev experience out of all platforms, including native. Hands down, Dart tooling + Flutter tooling are just on another level.
replies(1): >>42736548 #
4. mdhb ◴[] No.42736548{3}[source]
Agreed, I know people get incredibly pissy at Google on this site but Flutter is hands down the best app development experience period in 2025.