There’s always going to be a performance penalty for React Native applications because of the JavaScript bridge, and on iOS you’re giving up ARC memory manageme

There’s always going to be a performance penalty for React Native applications because of the JavaScript bridge, and on iOS you’re giving up ARC memory management for your app logic. For basic stuff you can write it off, but doing anything cutting edge like AR, custom graphics drawing, custom text layout and input, etc. is off the table. Even picking up a new iOS feature (e.g. focus filters) is a pain because you need to maintain a layer of bridge code, or wait for a third party module to catch up. One somewhat direct comparison is Discord (RN) vs Telegram (Swift) on iOS. Discord has put a massive engineering effort into their app but switching channels still often feels glitchy and sluggish whereas Telegram’s layouts snap into place instantly. Telegram feels more solid, and it also properly wires up all the little iOS features like haptic feedback, pull to refresh, etc. whereas Discord mutes all of that and feels less lively. Regarding constraint-based layouts, they can actually be much simpler in many cases because they help you avoid deep layers of nesting. They also ensure consistency (leading and trailing margins, safe areas, etc.) Again, trade-offs that deal in performance and uniformity with the platform. For CRUD type apps, it probably doesn’t matter. But like I said those probably aren’t the types of apps native developers would be most interested in building.