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Comment by hunterb123 | Hacker News Reader

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hunterb123·

> Facebook uses React on the web and abandoned react native on mobile.

That's not true, FB very much still uses RN on mobile.

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The Facebook app is not written in React Native. They tried it and famously abandoned it no?

The Marketplace tab in the FB app is written in React Native.

The Ads Manager app is written in React Native.

The Instagram app is written in React Native.

The entire FB app is not written in React Native yet, but overtime I'd expect more things to be.

The statement that FB "abandoned react native on mobile" is demonstrably false.

If I’m wrong then I’m happy to admit it. I don’t follow that ecosystem closely and was only going off a few old blog posts I remember and everyone making a big deal of it at the time.

It seems unlikely that FB would give up on Litho, which is extremely performance focused, to use react native instead. Not for their bread & butter flagship news feed anyway https://fblitho.com/

First, both Litho and React Native build on Yoga so there's a fair amount of code sharing.

Second, they serve different purposes. Litho will be used for FB scale optimization of certain intensive views. React Native is used for fast developer productivity. I'd wager that RN will be used in most places and Litho is used in hot spots sparingly.

I don't think the entire Instagram app is written in React Native. Only parts of it.

Someone currently on the Instagram team can correct me if I'm wrong.

If React Native is good enough for Discord, it's good enough for a lion's share of applications out there.

No, they abandoned the Facebook app written in html.

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