Is React Native for Web or Mobile?

What is React Native?

React Native development was a framework created by Facebook. Its primary goal was to make sure that Facebook works seamlessly on android and IOS on mobile phones. Therefore, cross-app development has gained popularity because of its accessibility.

Flutter vs React Native before developing React Native, working on two different operating systems required two separate codebases, which was quite tricky, managing and solving problems differently, that is why React Native was developed so that developers can navigate their paths easily.

Is React native designed for Web or mobile?

React Native development was designed for mobile applications. Its primary purpose is to allow apps to work adequately on IOS and android, while React came before React Native and was created for designing the front end of the website. Facebook has developed both frameworks.

When developers use React Native development for the Web, they can write a single React Native application that can run natively on Android and iOS. Furthermore, they can also run a web browser using standard web technologies.

However, React, the parent of React Native, was designed only for the web. The main reason why React Native was developed was to allow apps to work on mobiles.

The main idea structure of a React Native mobile app is entirely different from a web app. For instance, React uses essential HTML5 elements like div and span to build its layout. However, React Native uses custom UI APIs like View and Text. Because of this significant difference, very few technologies support building web and mobile apps.

React Native development for the Web is basically an attempt to bridge this gap. It is built to help create cross-platform applications only using a single React Native codebase.

How does React Native for the Web?

We have established that web apps and mobile apps have very different foundations. Different APIs in both platforms do the same job, like rendering the UI.

The primary purpose of any developer and thus a framework is to link the two worlds together. The main reason behind this is that you can easily use your app on their mobile phones and desktops, and to make sure they run with no hurdles, developers want to use one framework to build them on both.

The main idea behind any framework is to act as a bridge to diminish the gap. Use one of the platform’s APIs so that you can build a parallel of the other platform’s APIs. React Native development company for Web is designed to do that exactly.

React Native for Web gives a browser-compatible alternative component of React Native. For instance, if is chosen to provide views on your mobile through React Native, an appropriate browser version of this < View> is available in React Native for Web.

However, not all native components can be made browser-friendly. Some mobile-oriented elements use mobile hardware APIs, which are not directly accessible by a web browser.

We cannot use React Native for Web to port an app into its web version completely. But we can still port a significant piece, which is usually more than enough.

React and React Native have entirely different ways of Styling. In React, you can utilize various styling solutions like CSS, Sass, CSS-in-JS, etcetera. On the other hand, in React Native, all styles are written in CSS-in-JS.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, React Native for Web adopts the CSS-in-JS approach of React Native, ensuring that the same set of styles works well on both mobile and web.

Ending Note

React Facebook was initially developed natively in 2015. It supports the web from version 0.60 upwards. Developers can combine a React Native app into a single codebase using React Native Web without developing and maintaining two codebases for both mobile and web and without losing in-app results. Their apps will supply correctly on the web and perform just as well as mobile devices.