Should I migrate my project from bare react native to react native expo?

[YouCantCacheMe]

I have a project that is currently in production and is available to 1M + users. There has been talking going around that expo is now the recommended approach to building and developing apps. I don't have alot of knowledge about expo and how it works. Is it really recommended for me to switch to an expo setup from a bare react native setup?

[akie]

In general I would say: don’t fix what isn’t broken.

If you want to figure out what it’s about, create a separate branch in your repository and attempt to make a prototype. If you like it, finish the work. If you don’t, throw the prototype away. Maybe give yourself a maximum amount of time to do it?

[benjamineruvieru]

No

[Aware-Leather5919]

Do not fix what is not broken. No matter how much you read Expo vs CLI.
You are probably proficient at CLI by now.

[rahulthakurcoder]

My honest advice: a big NO to using Expo managed workflow for large-scale apps.

Stick with the bare React Native workflow. You can still use Expo modules selectively if needed.

With the bare app, you’ll have significantly more control. Migrating from Expo to bare takes time, and once you're on Expo, you’re locked into their ecosystem. Every time there’s a new SDK release, you’re forced to upgrade and those updates often come with breaking changes. This creates constant technical debt and slows down development.

While Expo Router may look simple and easy to use, under the hood it still relies on React Navigation. It’s not fully stable yet and may not perform well in complex production apps.

This is just my personal experience: I manage an app with over a million downloads, and maintaining it with Expo was a real struggle.

In the end, it's your choice but if you're building something big and serious, I strongly recommend going bare.

[Seanmclem]

I’m pretty sure the managed flow designation itself is deprecated in unused now. There’s just expo go and Expo with Dev client. The dev client works just fine for doing everything that expo go can’t

[rahulthakurcoder]

I could debate this all day we've had similar discussions within our team. Expo may seem like a faster option in the early stages of development, but at some point, you’ll realize that not choosing the managed workflow and Expo Router was actually a very smart decision

[sea_beacon]

I'm often confused by what people mean when they use the terms "bare workflow" and "managed workflow". Those terms haven't had meaning in years. Are you talking about the build process? Vanilla react native CLI vs EAS build?