From Native to React Native for TV The Zattoo Case

Zattoo supports its direct-to-consumer service and white-label apps across many devices, operating systems, countries, and customer brands. Separate platform teams and codebases duplicated work, made release schedules uneven, and created small differences in the user experience. One pause-button behavior once required more than ten people from frontend and backend teams to align.

After finding limits in PWAs and WebViews, Zattoo revisited cross-platform options but initially stopped at a small proof of concept. In late 2022, Amazon invited Zattoo to build for Vega OS, whose primary app development approach was React Native. Two engineers tested whether they could reuse web projects, shared JavaScript logic, and infrastructure in the company’s monorepo while making login and streaming work.

Zattoo added a universal TV project to its monorepo and reused configuration, translations, and business logic. The team starts with abstract files and uses platform-specific overrides when behavior differs, such as for input fields. It reported roughly 95 to 99 percent code sharing for UI functionality, while playback and some integrations remain platform-specific.

Zattoo moved from platform teams toward stream-aligned teams for content and search, playback, and sign-up and accounts, supported by platform and infrastructure work. Teams combine engineers with web, Android, and Apple experience; the company estimated losing 10 to 15 percent of engineers during the transition. It adapted Playwright tests for multiple platforms and now ships dozens of app variations every two weeks, with platform-specific rollouts.

The first React Native release lacked some features, and user ratings dipped when features used by a small share of customers were left out. The team used telemetry to find Android device-specific playback issues among more than 800 device types, then iterated on performance; it reported faster TV guide behavior than in the previous native app. React Native apps were live on Android TV and Vega, with Fire TV, tvOS, and web-based smart TVs in progress; mobile apps were a future challenge.