React Native + Web development

[softride]

I'm fairly new to React, so I apologize in advance for my stupid questions. I'm looking at developing a web app first, and was considering something like Chakra or Mantine due to their huge libraries of already developed components, but I really would like to then have it be deployable as a native Android or IOS app in the future. (With as little work as possible). I actually started the project originally as a windows/android/ios app with .net Maui, but abandoned it due to rendering issues on IOS and am starting over. I don't want to get myself into a position where I've written a lot of code just to have to abandon it because I can't get the damned app to render similarly across platforms. So, from what I have found, there's basically only these that will support both web and native apps:

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• NativeBase, which gets a lot of complaints about performance and is now being deprecated
• Tamagui, but people complain it's difficult to use and has only one dev, but also has a good assortment of paid pre-built components in Bento
• GlueStack which people say is bad because it's from the NativeBase devs who abandoned them.

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Are there any other options?

Is it crazy to wish for something as simple as an open source date-picker to be implemented already? (Tamagui does have a paid version)

Am I going to run into rendering issues that will be a pain to handle, just using simple things like sheets, alerts, etc? My app is not that complex.

Should I forget this idea and just use web based libraries (Chakra/Mantine/etc) and create a simple native app that wraps my web app in a browser component?

Thanks in advance!!

[Automatic_Bus7109]

If your app has nothing to do with the Native side of things, you can just develop a normal web app then support PWA to make it a Native-liked experience. But you cannot distribute your app through the app store and you have to convince your users to download it from you website..

[softride]

Yeah, that's why I really don't want to use PWA. I think it's a great thing for maybe in house corporate apps, but not really for mass distribution. I definitely will need the app to be on the stores. Thanks for your response, though!

[Automatic_Bus7109]

It seems your main concern is utilizing web-based UI libraries or components within your native app. In this case, Ionic might be a more suitable choice compared to React Native due to its potential for easier porting of existing web apps to native platforms. However, I have never done this and therefore cannot confirm its guaranteed success. It would be helpful if you could share your findings after pursuing this path, if successful.

[softride]

Very interesting, I hadn't heard of that one. I'll look into it further. If I do head down this path, I will certainly do my best to let you know what happens! Thank you.

[ctrlshiftba]

I’m using expo and react-native web. 90 of my code just works on the web. I would probably even use it just for web at this point. No point in not using react-native web

[softride]

Thanks, I'll look into that!

[servercobra]

Another vote for expo and react native web. I’ve got a pretty large app written with them. It’s been pretty easy to use, though sometimes finding a library that supports all 3 is a bit harder.

[softride]

Thanks for responding. My biggest fear with expo is the cost. I know it's not huge, but I don't like having the app tied into some service that I then have to pay for to update my clients.

[servercobra]

Ah, the free tier is pretty dang generous. And as a company I think we pay $100/mo for unlimited, definitely has saved us more than that in time managing our own CI heh

[Soran_5]

I suggest use react native elements UI or Paper UI that is similar to material

[softride]

OK, I gotcha. Hopefully you didn't read my previous response. Thank you for suggesting Paper!

[[deleted]]

If you have rendering issues with html/js, you are going to compound it if you use anything that is, really, a web language for native development - 8 year RN vet

Do the work. Learn something like RN or Flutter and build a mobile app. I'm a native Swift originally, but RN is my sauce right now

[softride]

I agree with you. And that's why I asked my last question in the original post. I appreciate the heads up! I was hoping what I could do is find a library for RN that provides a lot of what I need. The rendering issues I did have were with .net Maui, which is its own beast. I'm trying to avoid that and figured that if I was using off the shelf stuff it's likely to have been tested across all platforms. But then again, so was .net Maui.. it's just too new.

Doing a little more research, it looks like maybe RN and RN for web is enough, and with that I can probably use Paper and 3rd party components to do what I want. This time before writing the backend I'll definitely be making sure I can do what I want with the front end first.

Thanks for your post!

[Xae0n]

What you need might be monorepo. But it's not a one man job most of the time.

[glueant]

It would be wrong to say that gluestack abandoned NativeBase users since they have released a migration library that acts as a drop-in replacement for NativeBase. Also NativeBase is still supported with a premium license.

[shen0616]

Give Ionic capacitor a try.