React Native Limitations: An Expert View in 2025

React Native is a powerful tool for building cross-platform applications. Its promise of fast development and code reuse makes it attractive to startups and enterprises. But when you move from prototypes to production, a different picture emerges – the one shaped by real-world limitations. In this guide, we’ll go beyond surface-level claims and dig into the real-life React Native limitations and best practices to overcome them – to help you choose the right tech stack for your project. 

React Native today: what’s changed?

In 2019, we published an article exploring the performance limitations of React Native and shared common workarounds used by developers at the time. Back then, React Native’s architecture relied on a JavaScript-to-native bridge that led to performance and stability issues in real-world apps, especially under complex or high-load scenarios.

Since then, the framework has undergone major architectural changes. Ram N, our Microsoft interviewee, noted in 2019: 

Indeed, by 2025, the introduction of the new architecture — Fabric, JSI (JavaScript Interface), and TurboModules — has significantly improved performance profile and resolved many of the earlier limitations of React Native. 

Issues that have been resolved or significantly mitigated:

• Bridge bottleneck eliminated with the adoption of JSI, allowing for synchronous, direct communication between JavaScript and native code without costly serialization.

• Animations now run on the native thread with libraries like Reanimated 2+, bypassing JS thread limitations and achieving true 60 FPS performance.

• TurboModules simplify native module creation, reducing bridging complexity and enabling lazy loading.

• Render optimization techniques (e.g., using PureComponent, useMemo, shouldComponentUpdate) remain relevant but are now more effective with React 18 tooling. 

 Issues that are improved but still require care:

• Bridging native code is easier but still needed for advanced features or native SDK integrations.

• React Native remains a UI framework only — it doesn’t provide batteries-included solutions for state, storage, or networking.

• iOS deployment complexity is still a barrier, though tools like EAS and Fastlane help streamline the process. 

These architectural improvements were driven by a strong, engaged community and consistent investment from Meta and the wider open-source ecosystem. The React Native team has prioritized long-standing developer pain points, bringing the framework closer to native performance and stability. 

Today, better tooling, more predictable updates, and a growing set of robust libraries make React Native more reliable and production-ready than it’s ever been. Yet, even with improvements, some React Native drawbacks continue to surface in production.

In the next section, we explore the limitations of React Native that continue to affect developers today — with detailed insights drawn from real-world experience and community feedback. 

React Native limitations in 2025

1. Heavy reliance on third-party libraries

React Native is modular by design, but that modularity comes at a cost. Developers routinely depend on external packages for even core features like navigation, gestures, and camera access. 

This decentralization creates what many describe as “dependency hell” – where maintaining compatibility between dozens of third-party packages becomes a full-time job. Many of these libraries are not maintained at the same pace as React Native itself, making upgrades risky and time-consuming. 

Developer experience:
Critical dependencies like react-navigation or react-native-camera are maintained outside of Facebook, which means even small breaking changes in RN can ripple through your codebase. 

2. Painful upgrade process

Upgrading React Native is not as simple as bumping a version number. Every new release risks breaking the build – especially if you're several versions behind. Native configurations (like Android Gradle or Xcode settings) often need manual intervention. The longer you wait between upgrades, the harder they get.

Developer tip:
To avoid build failures, upgrade React Native one version at a time and use the official React Native Upgrade Helper. Some teams opt to copy the old project into a new clean RN install and migrate features over. Also, If you're working with Expo CNG, the upgrade process is significantly easier. 

3. Native code knowledge still required

Despite the appeal of “write once, run anywhere,” React Native often requires native development skills. This is especially true when integrating SDKs, accessing platform-specific APIs, or debugging cryptic build errors. If your team lacks experience in Swift, Objective-C, Java, or Kotlin, you’ll likely hit bottlenecks that can’t be resolved in JavaScript alone.

Developer experience:
A developer struggled integrating a third-party iOS SDK using Swift Package Manager while React Native expected CocoaPods. The mismatch led to failed header references that took hours to debug. 

4. No true multithreading

React Native relies on a single-threaded JavaScript runtime. This works well for most UI interactions but fails under CPU-intensive tasks. Long-running calculations or data transformations can block the UI, making the app feel unresponsive.

There are only three threads – JS thread, shadow thread (layout), and the native thread. Developers must offload CPU-heavy tasks to native modules or re-architect the app.

Developer tip:
Libraries like JSI and Reanimated v2 help shift computation closer to native. For anything beyond that, you’ll need to write native modules. 

5. Steep learning curve for non-JS developers

React Native combines JavaScript, JSX, native build tools, and occasionally TypeScript. For developers coming from purely native or backend backgrounds, this stack can be overwhelming. JSX’s syntax, while powerful, is not intuitive for everyone.

Developer experience:
Teams without previous experience in React may underestimate the ramp-up time required for React Native development.

6. Difficult debugging and tooling fragmentation

Debugging across the JS and native bridge often requires switching between Chrome DevTools, Xcode, Android Studio, and terminal logs. Stack traces can jump across layers, making it hard to isolate issues.

Developer tip:
Don’t rely on hot reloading when debugging major bugs—restart the app fully. Use Flipper for inspecting native views and Redux state. 

7. Animations are not truly native

React Native animations can appear janky if not optimized correctly. Default animation APIs operate on the JS thread, which leads to dropped frames during heavy rendering. Creating fluid, touch-responsive animations like in native apps still requires fine-tuning and deeper library knowledge. 

Developer tip:
Use Reanimated v2 or the LayoutAnimation module to move animation logic to the native thread. 

8. Platform-specific bugs

Because React Native runs on two OSes with their own quirks, you may hit bugs that only appear on one platform. These issues may stem from OS updates, device-specific behaviors, or differences in gesture handling. 

Developer experience:
One developer’s build failed due to iOS auto-updating to a version unsupported by the current Xcode. The solution was to install the Xcode beta – after several hours of obscure compile errors. 

9. Native deployment complexities

Android deployment is relatively straightforward, but iOS requires provisioning profiles, TestFlight configuration, and certificates. CI/CD for iOS takes more time to set up and maintain.

Developer tip:
Many teams turn off auto-updates on macOS and iPhones to avoid accidental build issues caused by OS or Xcode updates. Also, with Expo’s eas build and eas submit, a lot of the iOS deployment pain points are automated. You can build in the cloud without needing a macOS machine locally, and Expo can manage provisioning profiles and certificates through its own tooling or by linking with your Apple Developer account. 

10. Larger app size

React Native apps include the entire JS runtime and React Native engine. This increases the binary size even for simple apps, especially when compared to native equivalents. This makes React Native problematic in use cases like consumer-facing apps with strict size limits (e.g., games or developing markets). 

Developer tip:
Trim unused assets and use Proguard/minification tools, but savings will be incremental.

11. Navigation can get messy

Complex navigation structures – like nested stacks or tab navigators – often result in confusing state transitions, memory leaks, or unexpected screen renders.

Developer tip:
Stick closely to documentation and avoid chaining navigation events. Monitor memory usage in debug tools.

12. Integration with 3rd-Party SDKs is often painful

Integrating analytics, crash reporting, or ad SDKs sometimes requires deep platform-specific configuration, even when an RN wrapper exists. SDK updates can break your build or conflict with other dependencies.

Developer experience:
Firebase, Facebook SDK, and others frequently cause Gradle or CocoaPods issues if not configured exactly right.

13. Frequent breaking changes and maintenance overhead

React Native evolves quickly, but that pace introduces churn. APIs get deprecated, build processes change, and libraries fall out of sync. Long-term maintenance requires teams to watch changelogs and plan upgrade windows proactively. 

Developer tip:
Use TypeScript for stricter typing and test coverage. Lock versions carefully and stagger updates. 

Will React Native cons outweigh the pros for my project? 

Normally, our teams choose frameworks based on a combination of project scope, team expertise, time-to-market, performance needs, and maintenance expectations. But the most important aspect is the type of project you’re working on. 

These projects benefit most from React Native’s strengths:

 

But if your project falls into one of these buckets, cons of React Native may outweigh the pros: 

 

In our experience building cross-platform apps, the pros of React Native consistently outweigh the cons. With the right planning and architecture, React Native delivers on its promise of faster development and code reuse, even in complex cases like live streaming video apps. 

Our teams follow React Native best practices to maximize performance, stability, and maintainability. Overall, when used thoughtfully, React Native can power reliable products that can easily scale across platforms. 

Conclusion

Many of React Native’s early limitations now have solid workarounds, and when applied right, React Native becomes a stable, high-performing foundation for custom software development. With a team that knows the ecosystem and follows best practices, it’s a framework you can trust — from launch to long-term growth.

Not sure what tech stack fits your product best? Let’s figure it out together.

At Apiko, we’ll help you weigh React Native limitations against your project goals. Whether you’re building from scratch or scaling something that’s already live, we’ll help you choose the right tools and build your software in the right way.