Why react native is still the fastest way to build apps

Connect With Us
Sign up for our newsletter

Sign up to our Newsletter to get the latest news and offers.

  • August 04,2025

Why react native is still the fastest way to build apps

React Native speeds up app development by enabling a single JavaScript codebase to run on iOS and Android, cutting time and effort. Its strong ecosystem, hot reloading, and ability to integrate native modules make it the fastest way to build high-quality, cross-platform apps.

Why React Native Is Still The Fastest Way to Build Apps

1 ) Introduction: The Accelerated Development Advantage of React Native  

React Native is celebrated as a framework that allows developers to build multi platform mobile applications quickly using JavaScript and React. Its architecture enables significant code reuse between platforms, such as desktop apps built with ElectronJS and mobile apps, dramatically speeding up development time and easing maintenance.

2 ) Performance Challenges and Solutions  

Despite its development speed, React Native historically faced performance challenges, especially with processing large images and binary data. For example, downloading and decrypting a 7MB image could take up to 40 seconds, which was drastically improved by replacing JavaScript based polyfills with custom native modules. The article highlights that relying on JavaScript polyfills for performance critical tasks like encryption and binary data handling is inefficient and leads to slow app behavior.

3 ) The Drawbacks of JavaScript Based Polyfills  

React Native lacks out of the box native modules for binary data processing (such as cryptographic operations), so developers often resort to JavaScript polyfills and libraries. These are not only slow but also complicate project maintenance due to multiple dependencies. The encryption/decryption tasks crucial for end to end security perform poorly when done purely in JavaScript, sometimes causing critical bugs like images failing to load.

4 ) Native Modules and JSI for Performance Boost  

To overcome these limitations, the author emphasizes writing native modules in platform languages (Objective C, Swift, Java, Kotlin, C++) alongside JSI (JavaScript Interface) native modules in C++. This approach bypasses the inefficiencies of JavaScript polyfills by handling heavy operations on the native side, leading to a significant speed increase—up to 50 times faster in some cases.

5 ) Handling Binary Strings and the NULL Character Challenge  

React Native struggles with strings containing NULL characters due to the JavaScriptCore engine's handling of UTF 8 strings. To work around this, binary data must be escaped or encoded (e.g., into base64 ), which impacts performance slightly but is necessary for effective binary data handling in native modules.

6 ) Why React Native Remains an Excellent Choice  

Despite these challenges, React Native offers unparalleled speed in development due to:  

  Cross platform code reuse reducing total development effort  

  Strong community support and continuous evolution by Meta and contributors worldwide  

  Availability of frameworks like Expo that simplify routing, native module integration, and developer tooling  

  Ability to write custom native code when performance is critical, combining the best of JS and native worlds

7 ) Community and Ecosystem Support  

React Native is backed by a robust community and major companies including Microsoft and Meta, offering thousands of ready to use modules and continual platform improvements. It supports extension beyond mobile platforms to Windows, macOS, and web, further maximizing code reuse and developer productivity.

Summary  

React Native is still the fastest way to build apps because it promotes rapid development with a shared codebase across multiple platforms, well supported frameworks, and a rich ecosystem. While it has some performance constraints due to JavaScript limitations, these are effectively addressed by integrating native modules. This balanced approach enables developers to build performant, native feeling apps quickly and reliably.

 

 

https://justacademy.in/news-detail/future-of-flutter-careers-post-2025

 

https://justacademy.in/news-detail/react-native-vs-flutter-2025:-the-battle-heats-up-again

 

https://justacademy.in/news-detail/how-react-native-is-making-foldable-phone-apps-easy

 

https://justacademy.in/news-detail/flutter-material-3-custom-components

 

https://justacademy.in/news-detail/why-react-native-is-the-go-to-for-gaming-apps-in-2025

 

Related Posts