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InfoQBruno Couriol4 min readintermediate

Shopify Drops React Native for Swift and Kotlin as AI Changes Cross-Platform Development Tradeoffs

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Summary

Shopify is abandoning React Native for native Swift and Kotlin development, driven by the improved quality of AI coding models and a looming refactor to React Native's New Architecture. This shift resulted in significant performance and stability gains for their flagship app, challenging previous cross-platform development tradeoffs.

  • Shopify rewrote its flagship app in Swift/Kotlin, citing AI coding models and React Native's New Architecture refactor as catalysts.
  • The rewrite led to substantial improvements: 23-50% faster cold startup, 10x fewer crashes, and 75% faster Android build times.
  • AI coding models enabled a single engineer to build a PoC in a week, and six engineers to rebuild the app to production in 12 weeks.
  • Native development allows for better leverage of device hardware and specific platform features like widgets and background jobs.

This decision by a major tech company like Shopify signals a significant re-evaluation of cross-platform mobile development strategies, particularly for engineers considering React Native or leveraging AI in their workflows.

7/10
architectureaikotlinswiftmobilereact native

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