React Native is an open-source framework created by Meta that enables developers to build mobile applications for iOS and Android using React. Instead of rendering to the DOM like React for the web, React Native renders to native platform components, allowing apps to achieve near-native performance and look-and-feel while sharing a single JavaScript or TypeScript codebase.

The framework bridges JavaScript logic with native APIs, enabling communication between the React layer and platform-specific UI components written in Swift/Objective-C for iOS and Kotlin/Java for Android. This allows developers to build mobile experiences using familiar React paradigms such as components, props, and state management.

React Native is widely used in production applications and supports a large ecosystem of libraries, tooling, and community-driven modules. It also supports integration with native code when deeper platform functionality or performance optimization is required.

Over time, React Native has evolved to include improvements such as the new architecture (Fabric renderer, TurboModules, and JSI), which reduces reliance on the traditional bridge system and improves performance, responsiveness, and concurrency handling.

It is commonly used for cross-platform development where teams want to maintain a single codebase across mobile platforms while still delivering native UI performance and behavior.

Key features include:

• Cross-platform mobile development using React
• Native rendering (not web views) for iOS and Android
• Shared JavaScript/TypeScript codebase
• Access to native APIs and modules
• Large ecosystem and strong community support
• New architecture with improved performance and concurrency

Common use cases include:

• Building cross-platform mobile apps
• Rapidly prototyping mobile products
• Maintaining shared codebases between iOS and Android
• Integrating native mobile features into React-based architectures

React Native is developed and maintained by Meta (Facebook) along with a large open-source community.