Shopify moves from React Native back to native Swift and Kotlin apps
Shopify is moving its mobile apps from React Native back to separate native Swift and Kotlin codebases, a shift attributed to AI agents reducing the cost of building and maintaining two platforms. The company had switched to React Native in 2020 to avoid building features twice and to allow cross-stack work, but now agents can handle enough implementation, translation, testing, and review work that the dual-platform cost is no longer decisive. Shopify maintains three React Native libraries, with react-native-skia and flash-list finding new homes and restyle having a smaller user base.
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Simon Willison
Native is now the future of mobile at Shopify Shopify are moving from React Native back to separate Swift and Kotlin codebases for their native apps, for the exact reason you would expect: We decided to switch from native to React Native in 2020 for three reasons: Stop building the same features twice Allow developers to work across the stack Spend less time chasing feature parity and more time shipping value [...] Native still means building and maintaining software on two platforms, that cost has not disappeared. What changed is that agents can now do enough of the implementation, translation, testing, and review work that it’s no longer the deciding factor it was in 2020. It's a well-written post, which gives full credit to React Native as a great platform for the six years they were using it. Shopify are the maintainers of three significant React Native libraries: react-native-skia , flash-list , and restyle . The first two are finding new homes; the third "has a smaller user base
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