Mike Grabowski welcomes attendees and reflects on how React Native has changed since his 2019 keynote. He cites more than 4.5 million monthly developers, over 15 million monthly downloads, and React Native use in 30% of top finance apps. He frames the ecosystem’s growth as a community achievement and a reason to focus on maturity.
React Universe Conf 2025 Keynote
Speakers
At React Universe Conf 2025 in Wrocław, Callstack CTO and founder Mike Grabowski, Meta software engineer Riccardo Cipolleschi, and Callstack's Michał Pierzchała discuss React Native's stability, future direction, and enterprise tools.
Riccardo Cipolleschi describes 2025 as a year of predictable releases, stable APIs, and adoption of the New Architecture. After React Native 0.77 in January, releases moved to roughly every two months; 0.82 had its branch cut in August, with a planned October release. He also covers Android 16 edge-to-edge support, the deprecation of SafeAreaView, and experimental iOS precompiled binaries that made some apps build up to 10 times faster in initial experiments.
Cipolleschi explains that the team is narrowing React Native’s public API and moving unused Android classes to internal or private status. He says the Legacy Architecture is frozen: Meta no longer develops, tests, or supports it. Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, Quest, Ads Manager, and Meta Horizon apps use the New Architecture, and developers who want ongoing framework support should plan to migrate.
Michał Pierzchała argues that React Native’s foundation can support broader adoption through native API access, a stable API layer, web compatibility, and Hermes ABI stability. He introduces ROK, a framework for legacy apps, large applications using micro-frontends, and native apps integrating React Native. ROK builds on Expo tooling and offers shared build caching, a Brownfield option that packages an app as a framework, and plug-ins including Re.Pack with Rspack.
Pierzchała and Grabowski outline other Callstack projects: Rosanite for debugging, Ultralite for OpenTelemetry-based observability, and React Native Node API for a stable module interface. Grabowski also describes React Native Sandbox for isolating third-party micro-frontends, plus planned React Native Harness for end-to-end testing and ROK Router for file-based routing. They argue that different use cases need different frameworks, with Expo serving most projects and other tools addressing specialized needs.
Takeaways
- Budget for React Native upgrades on a roughly two-month release cadence.
- Review layouts for Android 16 edge-to-edge rendering and plan to replace SafeAreaView.
- If your app still uses the Legacy Architecture, assess migration to retain framework support.
- For native apps adding React Native, evaluate ROK’s Brownfield packaging and shared build cache.
- Large teams can consider separate tools for debugging, telemetry, module compatibility, isolation, and testing.
Mentioned in this talk
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What was claimed 17
- role atRiccardo Cipolleschi is Core team member at
Meta“I'm from the Meta Core team.”
0:13inIt's Not New Anymore: How New Architecture Unlocks React 19YouTube Verified5 sources· Talk
- usesMeta uses React Native
“we've been testing the rollout of them within our own apps, including the flagship Facebook app.”
0:20inThe New React Native: Bringing the Fabric renderer to the “Facebook” appYouTube Verified8 sources· Talk
- role atMike Grabowski is Founder and CTO at
Callstack“I'm a co-founder of Callstack.”
0:26inWe’re making opportunities for people to connectYouTube Verified6 sources· Talk
- role atMike Grabowski is core contributor at React Native
“I'm on the React Native core team. In particular, I'm responsible for releases and some CI work.”
0:26inINTROYouTube Verified4 sources· Talk
- builtMeta built React Native
“What began as an internal project at Meta grew”
YouTube Verified4 sources· Talk
- metricReact Native: Over 15 million downloads every month
“downloading this framework over 15 million times every single month”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- metricReact Native: Over 4.5 million monthly developers actively use it
“over 4.5 million monthly developers actively using React Native”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureReact Native 0.81: Android 16 support
“In 0.81 specifically, we worked on Android 16 support.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureReact Native 0.81: Experimental precompiled binaries for iOS; some apps built 10 times faster in initial experiments
“we’ve seen some apps build 10 times faster than before”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- built
“This is why we created ROK.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- integrates withRock integrates with Expo Fingerprint
“it builds on Expo’s fantastic open-source tooling, such as Expo Fingerprint”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- integrates with
“a simple plug-in system with powerful bundlers like Re.Pack with Rspack”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureRosanite: Debugging helper for React Native DevTools and successor to Flipper
“a new debugging helper for React Native and successor to Flipper”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- built
“At Callstack Incubator, we like to think a little bigger. We're building a whole ecosystem”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureUltralite: End-to-end, auto-instrumented app telemetry sent to providers using OpenTelemetry
“It gives you end-to-end, auto-instrumented telemetry about your app.”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureReact Native Harness: End-to-end testing for React Native
“We're fixing that with React Native Harness”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
- featureRock Router: Type-safe, file-based routing backed by Re.Pack
“a type-safe, file-based routing system”
YouTube Unverified1 source· Talk
