An Overview of Apps Made with React Native

Popular React Native App Examples in 2022

According to Statista, React Native is the second most popular framework for mobile app development. 38% of the developers use React Native in 2022. 

React Native is now part of the tech stack at several Fortune 500 companies and tech startups. Here are some popular React Native apps: 

Khan Academy — EdTech

Khan Academy is one of the largest EdTech companies on the planet. The company provides short video lessons, learning material, and exercises on various subjects.

Before implementing React Native, Khan Academy had two different codebases for Android and iOS with lots of dependencies. In 2017, they decided to shift to React Native because:

• The app design, features, and content on Android and iOS apps were nearly identical 
• Maintaining two codebases became quite challenging 
• Developing new features and keeping the two apps in sync got harder
• Their website was already using React
  

Khan Academy completed the transition to React Native in 2020. Now, the same engineers take care of the Android app, iOS app, or website from a single codebase.

React Native gave developers the convenience and comfort to build better features, improve UI, and spearhead innovation. Plus, Khan Academy’s apps became smaller. The user experience on the app and the web grew similar. 

Find more details about Khan Academy’s migration to React Native.

Bloomberg — Media and Finance

Bloomberg is one of the world’s largest financial media companies that use React Native for mobile app development. 

Bloomberg offered an interactive experience for accessing personalized content across iOS and Android. The company was searching for a truly native mobile app experience that came without the overhead of having two separate codebases.

Bloomberg’s engineers used React Native to rebuild the apps for both platforms with a host of new features. A single codebase and automatic code refresh in React Native helped their team to speed up the development.

Also, conducting A/B tests and collecting beta user data to validate any experiment or workflow got faster.

React Native enabled quick app updates in sync with fast-moving markets, analysis data, news, and more.

Read more on how Bloomberg is using React Native.

Flipkart — eCommerce 

Flipkart is one of the largest eCommerce players in the world with more than 100 million downloads and 400 million weekly visits. Flipkart is using React Native for iOS and Android apps and also for its sub-brands such as Myntra.

Flipkart chose React Native to solve a few challenges with its iOS and Android development journey, such as:

• The need for a large development team despite having a uniform design and user experience.
• Time waste due to the maintenance of many codebases
• Delay in executing A/B tests and tech experiments due to longer adoption times leading to a drop in sales

React Native helped Flipkart move faster without impacting the app’s performance. The team’s first goal was to implement infinite list displays on search pages, which React Native delivered successfully. 

React Native also helped Flipkart push frequent OTA updates. The teams got more data from end-users and closed A/B experiments in approximately three weeks instead of the previous six. Speed helped improve personalization, boost engagement metrics, and increase sales during flagship sale events like the Big Billion Days. 

Also, React Native helped the dev team adopt a modular approach with custom native components. The team was able to share 95% of the codebase between Android and iOS. 

Read about Flipkart’s React Native journey.

UberEats — Food Delivery

UberEats simplifies ordering food from restaurants in 6000 cities across 45 countries globally. The on-demand giant started UberEats to make ordering food as easy as booking a ride on Uber.

UberEats picked React Native to rebuild its restaurant partner dashboard. The original restaurant dashboard was designed for the web. It needed an upgrade as new insights came in on how restaurant partners operated.

Uber had an existing team proficient in React. Thus, React Native became the natural choice for building the UberEats app for iOS and Android.

React Native provided the utensils to cook the app to near perfection, as per UberEats. UberEats expedited mobile app development in the “language of the web.” The UberEats team wrote features in JavaScript or natively.

With the help of React Native, UberEats shipped new features in days instead of weeks across all platforms. Updates now propagated faster (thanks to background downloads) and bugs were fixed quicker, reducing disruptions at partner restaurants. 

More about UberEats’ transition to React Native.

Coinbase — Cryptocurrency Exchange

Coinbase is a popular crypto exchange that offers trading and other financial services to over 56 million users. 

Till 2017, Coinbase had separate teams working on iOS and Android versions of its app. But challenges with scaling, performance, and feature roll-out encouraged the company to explore new avenues.

Coinbase decided to move ahead with React Native and planned a complete code rewrite. There were several reasons for this:

• The team was looking for a dynamic sign-up experience for mobile users based on location, user preferences, profile, and regulations.
• Making changes to the existing app would be costlier than building an app from scratch.
• Native app redevelopment would lead to unnecessary duplication of code (and loss of development time).  
• They were looking to reuse business logic and wanted consistency between apps across platforms. 

Component reusability and fast refresh capabilities of React Native made Coinbase convinced React Native was the right choice. Plus, onboarding the existing web dev team was easy, as React Native is JavaScript-based. 

Coinbase was able to migrate its massive codebase with substantial business logic easily. Also, Coinbase tackled its scalability challenges and enhanced app performance across platforms.

Impact of the migration to React Native on Coinbase’s key performance metrics. Source: Coinbase Blog

Read more about Coinbase’s React Native experience.

LendMN — Financial Services

LendMN by AND Global is a mobile app facilitating the disbursal of small loans. AND Global provides financial services to underserved populations. The company operates in one of the most underbanked regions in the world — Mongolia.

React Native has been one of the key enablers of AND Global’s achievements and helped the company tackle some burning challenges. The challenges included:

• A lack of financial backing or the resources to hire a large/experienced workforce
• A limited local pool of mobile app developers
• Regulatory complexity of the financial services ecosystem
• Catering to a user base in a country with expensive mobile internet data
  

React Native helped AND Global optimally utilize the budget and cater to local market needs.

React Native’s famous “learn once, write anywhere” mantra, helped AND Global use its existing web development team to develop and deploy the mobile app. The LendMN team used React Native to release an MVP and secure an investment.

The framework helped AND Global stay compliant with the dynamic financial ecosystem through continuous improvement and OTA updates. With React Native, LendMN quickly fixed bugs, improved app performance, and saved time on the app review process.

LendMN knew users wouldn’t trust an app that needs regular updates in a country with high mobile data prices. 1-2 Mb OTA updates for minor bug fixes helped increase the trust factor. React Native allowed the company to offer trustworthiness and convenience — LendMN gained popularity in a country with limited availability of financial services. 

Learn more about LendMN’s experience with React Native.

FAQs about React Native

Which famous apps use React Native?

Many apps you use every day are built with React Native. Walmart, Wix, Discord, Pinterest, Soundcloud Pulse, Facebook Ads Manager, and several other social networking platforms use React Native in 2021. 

Can you build native apps with React Native?

Apps built in React Native offer a native experience for both Android and iOS because React Native renders native UI elements. Under the hood, React Native apps behave just like Java- or Kotlin-based apps on Android or Swift- or Objective-C apps on iOS.

Are Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp built with React Native?

Yes. All three use the React Native framework for their iOS and Android Apps. React Native was created by Facebook to simplify cross-platform app development. So, all of Facebook's companies use React Native.

React Native Powers High-Performance Hybrid Apps

React Native is a powerful cross-platform app development framework for any use case. In all the React Native app examples above, the framework simplified development by solving complex challenges.

React Native’s capabilities improve development efficiency, reduce the cost of development, and create a streamlined experience across platforms. Currently, you can write a React Native app for iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and the web. If you want to launch an app across platforms or optimize existing app performance, React Native is a good choice.