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Comment by cageface | Hacker News Reader

I've been doing a RN app lately after not using it for almost two years. It's still a very fast way to iterate on both Android & iOS but it also still feels extremely brittle. I've tried and failed to upgrade to the latest version of RN several times now but every time gotten tangled up in dependency hell. I also haven't been able to get it to build on my M1 Mac at all.

RN is good for fast prototyping and market value fit testing but I'm not sure I'd use it for something like Coinbase.

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If at all possible, I can't recommend Expo enough. I hated building RN apps prior to it, and now I hate building apps without it.

Isn't the apk size much larger if you use Expo? Or is that not the case anymore?

With the EAS Build system, it's no longer a concern. Available to paying customers at the moment.

When Expo works like it should it's like the best dev experience ever. Supporting all React Native 3rd party components without ejecting and ditching the Expo app will be a huge step forward.

Expo is great for prototyping and small apps with limited scope. However anything bigger and expo just doesn’t work. At some point you will need to mess with the native side of thing, most of the time to initialize things like Firebase or adding a lib with a bridge. When you have to make native changes, no matter how small, Expo will get majorly in the way

Honestly I think you'd be surprised just how far the managed workflow can get you these days. That being said, Expo is aware of the limitations and is actively working on addressing those.[1]

[1] https://docs.expo.io/introduction/why-not-expo/

It's too limiting right now. When the Expo team finishes the "Expo Application Services" it will be an option for almost every project. For now, it's limited to just the Expo APIs and for most projects you will ultimately end up ejecting.

I think also a requirement is to have experts in React, iOS, and Android. Plus maybe even someone who focuses fully on React Native internals. Those dedicated people ensure all components compile and other developers can be productive. With the headcount of Coinbase it seems to be worth it.

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