Expo vs React Native: Which Is Right for Your App? expo vs react native

At its heart, the Expo vs React Native debate comes down to a simple choice of philosophy. Expo is a complete framework and toolset built on top of React Native to make your life easier, while the React Native CLI (often called the "bare workflow") gives you direct, unfiltered access to the underlying native projects.

For most new apps, the official recommendation is to start with Expo. It’s no longer just for simple projects; it’s a powerhouse that streamlines everything from setup to deployment.

Understanding the Core Difference

Picking between Expo and the React Native CLI isn't about which one is "better." It’s about choosing the right path for your project and your team.

Think of Expo as the all-inclusive resort of mobile development. It handles the messy details—native builds, configurations, and over-the-air updates—so you can focus on building features. In contrast, the React Native CLI is like being given a plot of land and a box of tools. You get the raw ios and android project folders and the freedom to build whatever you want, but you're also responsible for all the groundwork.

Modern Expo has completely shed its old reputation as a simple prototyping tool. It now powers massive, production-grade applications for major companies, which is why the official React Native team now points developers to it as the default starting point.

The real question is one of trade-offs: Do you want a managed, hyper-efficient development experience with incredible cloud services, or do you absolutely need granular control over every single piece of the native build process from day one?

React Native's place in the mobile world is undeniable. The 2024 Stack Overflow Developer Survey pegs its market share at 35% among cross-platform frameworks. Along with Flutter, it dominates over 80% of the market, which shows just how critical tools like Expo are in making this powerful technology accessible to more developers.

Of course, this is just one part of a bigger picture. It's always worth understanding the high-level pros and cons of cross-platform frameworks versus building natively from scratch. If you're curious, this deep dive into React Native vs. native development is a great read.

Expo vs React Native CLI At a Glance

To make the choice clearer, here’s a quick breakdown of how these two paths diverge right from the beginning. This table sums up the immediate, practical differences you'll feel when you start a new project.

Ultimately, Expo provides a managed layer that handles most of the native complexity for you, while the bare workflow puts that complexity directly in your hands. We'll dig deeper into what each of these points actually means for your day-to-day development in the sections that follow.

A Deep Dive Into Development Workflows

The day-to-day grind for a developer looks wildly different depending on whether you’re in the Expo vs React Native CLI world. This choice directly shapes how fast you can build, test, and push out new features.

With Expo, you’re off to the races. You can spin up a new project and have it running on your actual phone in just a few minutes, all thanks to the Expo Go app. Just scan a QR code, and your app instantly loads. It’s a game-changer for rapid prototyping and getting a real feel for your work without ever touching native build tools.

Every change you make to your JavaScript code shows up almost instantly on your device. That tight feedback loop is a huge productivity win, especially when you're just starting and messing around with UI and logic.

The Expo Managed Workflow

Expo's managed workflow is all about hiding the messy parts of native development. You mostly stick to a simple set of commands, like npx expo start, which magically handles everything from bundling your code to getting it on the Expo Go app.

This approach comes with some killer perks:

• Painless Tooling: Forget about installing or configuring Xcode or Android Studio just to get a "Hello, World!" running.
• Smooth Integrations: Modern tools like TypeScript and styling libraries like NativeWind work right out of the box with almost zero setup.
• One Command to Rule Them All: You use the same commands whether you're building for iOS or Android, which keeps your whole process clean and simple.

But what if you need a specific native module? In the old days, you had to "eject," a scary, one-way process. Now, you can build a custom development client. Think of it as your own personal version of Expo Go, packed with any native dependencies you need. You get to keep the slick workflow while tapping into the full native ecosystem.

The React Native CLI Bare Workflow

Jumping into the React Native CLI workflow—often called the "bare" workflow—is like diving headfirst into the native world. The moment you run npx react-native init, you’ll see those ios and android folders in your project. This gives you total control, but also a lot more to manage.

The core difference is directness. With the React Native CLI, you are the bridge between your JavaScript code and the native platforms. With Expo, that bridge is managed for you, letting you focus almost exclusively on your app's features.

Developing in the bare workflow means you're dealing with:

• Direct Native Project Management: You'll live in Xcode to run your app on an iOS simulator and Android Studio for an Android emulator.
• Manual Linking: While auto-linking has gotten way better, you'll still find yourself manually tweaking native module setups in files like Podfile (iOS) or build.gradle (Android).
• Platform-Specific Commands: You’ll be using separate commands to run your app, like npx react-native run-ios and npx react-native run-android.

This workflow is non-negotiable for projects that demand deep, custom native integrations right from the start. Just be prepared for a steeper learning curve and more operational headaches. If you want to see exactly how this plays out, our detailed Expo React Native tutorial walks you through setting up a project from scratch.

4. Comparing Build and Deployment Processes

Alright, let's talk about the final stretch: getting your app out into the world. This is where the rubber meets the road, and the philosophical differences between Expo and the React Native CLI become crystal clear. We're moving beyond coding and into the nitty-gritty of operations, a place where your workflow choice can either save you weeks of headache or cause it.

Frankly, this is where the Expo vs React Native debate often tilts heavily. If your team doesn't have a dedicated mobile infrastructure specialist, the gap between the two approaches is massive. One offers a fully managed, cloud-native pipeline; the other drops you in the driver's seat and asks you to build the car.

Expo Application Services (EAS): A Cloud-Native Approach

Expo Application Services (EAS) is Expo’s answer to the most painful parts of app development. It’s a suite of cloud services designed to completely sidestep the need for Xcode or Android Studio on your local machine—or a dedicated CI server—just to create a production-ready build.

It’s as simple as running a command like eas build. From there, Expo's servers take over, handling all the complex steps behind the scenes. This includes:

• Cloud Builds: Generating the final .ipa (for iOS) and .aab (for Android) files in a clean, consistent cloud environment. No more "it works on my machine" issues.
• Automated Submissions: Pushing your builds directly to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It manages the metadata, authentication, and all the tedious steps you'd otherwise do by hand.
• Credential Management: Securely handling your app signing certificates and provisioning profiles. This alone is a lifesaver, preventing the chaos of passing sensitive files around the team.

But the killer feature, without a doubt, is Over-the-Air (OTA) updates. With EAS, you can push JavaScript and asset updates directly to your users' devices, completely bypassing the app store review process. This is a game-changer for shipping hotfixes, A/B testing new features, or just fixing a typo.

EAS fundamentally changes the deployment game. It takes a process that traditionally required deep native expertise and specialized CI/CD setups and turns it into a simple command-line operation accessible to any developer on the team.

The Manual Build Process with React Native CLI

When you go with the bare workflow, you're on your own. You have full control over the build and deployment pipeline, but this power comes at the cost of significant operational overhead. The journey usually involves setting up a dedicated build machine (a Mac is a non-negotiable for iOS builds) and wrestling a CI/CD tool like Fastlane or Jenkins into submission.

Your team is now responsible for everything:

1. Generate Binaries Locally: Firing up Xcode and Android Studio to archive and export your application bundles.
2. Manage Code Signing: Manually creating, downloading, and installing all the necessary signing certificates and provisioning profiles for both platforms. This is a notoriously finicky and error-prone process that has humbled many developers.
3. Configure CI/CD Scripts: Writing and—more importantly—maintaining complex scripts (like a Fastfile) to automate the build, signing, and submission process.

This path demands a deep, practical understanding of each platform's specific build requirements. While the flexibility is absolute, it eats up a ton of development time that could have been spent building features your users actually care about.

Expo's rise has dramatically shortened development timelines, with some teams reporting a faster time-to-market by up to 50%. By offloading the build complexities to EAS and using OTA updates, they can sidestep the cumbersome app store review for minor changes, which massively boosts their deployment agility. You can read more about why Expo is gaining popularity among React Native developers.

Native Modules and Performance: Separating Myth from Reality

When people debate Expo vs. React Native CLI, the conversation almost always lands on two core questions: "Can I use the native code I need?" and "Will my app actually be fast?" Let's cut through the noise and clear up some old myths that just won't die.

For years, a common belief was that choosing Expo meant you were locked out of the native module ecosystem. Back in the day, there was some truth to that. Your only escape hatch was to "eject," a messy, irreversible process that everyone dreaded. But that’s ancient history now. The game completely changed with the arrival of config plugins and custom development clients.

Unlocking Native Code in Modern Expo

Think of a custom development client as your own personalized version of the Expo Go app. It's a special build of your app that includes any specific native library you need, whether it's for Bluetooth Low Energy, a custom video processor, or a niche hardware integration.

This approach genuinely gives you the best of both worlds. You get to integrate pretty much any native module out there for React Native while sticking with Expo's streamlined workflow, simple commands, and fantastic cloud services. The process is as simple as running a command to build the development client, which you then pop onto your simulator or phone.

Here’s a quick look at how the native integration workflows really compare:

• Expo: You add a native library, tweak its plugin in your app.json, and build a custom development client. Your day-to-day development stays fast and smooth.
• React Native CLI: You install the library, then you have to dive into native project files like Podfile on iOS or build.gradle on Android to configure it by hand. It's a more direct route, but it's also way more prone to errors and assumes you know your way around native tooling.

Modern Expo isn't about choosing between convenience and power anymore. Instead of ejecting, you just extend the managed environment to pull in the native features you need. Your development process stays clean.

The Performance Myth That Needs to Go

Another stubborn myth is that an app built with Expo is somehow slower than one made with the React Native CLI. For production builds, this is just plain wrong.

Whether you start a project with npx expo prebuild or npx react-native init, both paths end up compiling your JavaScript and native code into the exact same final product: a standard iOS (.ipa) or Android (.aab) app package. The underlying native code and React Native core are identical.

Performance problems almost always come from your own application code, not the tools you used to build it. The real culprits behind a slow app are things like:

• Bad JavaScript: Clunky, unoptimized re-renders, running heavy calculations on the main thread, or just messy state management.
• Poorly Built Native Modules: A buggy or slow third-party native library is going to drag your app down, no matter how you installed it.
• Bloated Assets: Huge, uncompressed images and videos can kill your app's startup time and make screen transitions feel sluggish.

At the end of the day, your app's speed is a direct reflection of your code quality and architecture. It has nothing to do with choosing Expo's powerful workflow. A well-built Expo app will perform just as well as a well-built bare React Native app—period.

Sharing Code Across Web and Mobile

One of the biggest promises of the React Native world is a single, unified codebase for iOS, Android, and the web. That "write once, run anywhere" dream is a massive efficiency boost, but how you actually achieve it is a totally different story in an Expo vs React Native CLI setup.

Expo was built with web support in mind from day one—it’s a first-class citizen. Right out of the box, an Expo project is already set up to run in a browser with a single command. This is all thanks to react-native-web, an incredible library that translates your React Native components into standard web elements. The integration is so tight that you can often get a fully adaptive website from your mobile app's code with very little extra work.

Expo's Unified Platform Approach

So how does it work? With Expo, your View components become <div>s, and Text becomes a <p> or a <span>. This layer of abstraction means you can share not just your business logic but your UI components, too. It just works.

This is where universal component libraries really shine. A library like gluestack-ui, for example, gives you a set of components that look and feel consistent whether they're on a phone screen or in a desktop browser. This approach makes building a cohesive user experience way simpler because you aren't stuck writing platform-specific conditional code all the time.

Expo’s philosophy is crystal clear: web support isn't an afterthought. It's a core part of the cross-platform experience, letting teams launch mobile and web apps from the same repository at an incredible pace.

Adding Web Support to a Bare Project

Now, let's look at a bare React Native CLI project. Web support is not included by default. While you can absolutely get it working, it's a manual, and often tricky, setup process. You'll have to roll up your sleeves and install, configure, and integrate react-native-web with a bundler like Webpack yourself.

This usually involves a few key steps:

• Installing dependencies: You'll need to add packages like react-dom and react-native-web to your project.
• Configuring Webpack: You have to create a webpack.config.js file from scratch to handle things like module aliasing, making sure that any imports from react-native are correctly pointed to react-native-web.
• Creating an entry point: You’ll also need to set up a root index.html file and a web-specific entry point, typically index.web.js.

This extra legwork really puts into perspective the convenience that Expo gives you for free. For teams that need to maximize their development speed across all platforms, Expo's built-in web capabilities are a huge win. If you want to see what this looks like in a real project, you can learn more about how to create a website app using these powerful tools.

Making the Right Choice for Your Project

Choosing between Expo and the React Native CLI isn't about finding a single "best" tool. It's about matching your workflow to what your project actually needs. The right path depends entirely on what you're building, your team's skillset, and how fast you need to get your app into users' hands. This decision really sets the tone for your development speed, operational headaches, and long-term maintenance.

To make this a bit more concrete, think about one of the biggest decision points: sharing code across platforms.

As you can see, if sharing a single codebase between mobile and web is a big win for you, Expo gives you the most direct and integrated way to get there.

A Decision Checklist for Common Scenarios

Let’s move past generic pros and cons and look at real-world situations. To help you map your project to the right workflow, here's a quick decision matrix.

Project Scenario Decision Matrix

The key takeaway? The modern Expo ecosystem has largely killed the old "all or nothing" dilemma. You can start with a fully managed workflow and gradually introduce native code as needed, or even bring Expo's services into an existing bare project. The migration paths are incredibly flexible now.

When Is the Bare Workflow Still the Right Call?

The React Native CLI remains the best choice for a small, specific group of projects. You should really only reach for the bare workflow if your app has deep, complex native requirements from day one that involve fundamentally changing the underlying project structure itself.

Think building a custom brownfield app that weaves React Native into an existing Swift or Kotlin codebase, or developing a white-label app that requires extensive, dynamic native configurations for each client.

For just about everything else, starting with Expo is the modern, recommended approach. It just provides a faster, more maintainable foundation to build on. For a wider perspective on this, check out our guide on other cross-platform app development tools.

Common Questions, Answered

When you're weighing Expo against the React Native CLI, a few questions always seem to pop up. Let's clear the air and tackle them head-on, based on how things really work today.

Can I Use Any Native Module with Expo?

Absolutely. This is probably the biggest myth still floating around. With modern Expo, you can use any native module you want.

The key is creating a custom development client. Forget "ejecting"—that's old news. Instead, you build a special version of your app that bundles in the specific native libraries you need. You then use this client to develop your app, giving you total native freedom while keeping all the great parts of Expo's workflow, like the powerful EAS Build service.

Is an App Built with Expo Slower?

Nope. This is another misconception held over from Expo's early days. A production app built with Expo is not automatically slower than a bare React Native CLI app.

At the end of the day, both paths compile down to the same native code. Your app's performance will come down to how you write your JavaScript and structure your components, not whether you started with npx create-expo-app or the CLI.

Can I Switch from Expo to Bare React Native Later?

You can, but you probably won't ever need to. The old "eject" command has been replaced by something much more flexible and less destructive.

If you ever find yourself needing direct access to the native ios and android project files, you just run npx expo prebuild. This command generates those folders for you, effectively giving you a bare-workflow setup. The best part? You can still use all of Expo’s tools and services. It’s a win-win.

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