61–70 of 172 posts
works until you need to use a native library that hasn't been ported for Expo, then you need to eject. I would only consider Expo for POC/MVP
What does eject mean in this context?
This is in contrast to an IPA or AAB file which can be deployed to a device or distributed to an App Store.
Slightly off-topic: how practical is it really to build devices (iOS and Android) and web from the same code base? My poor understanding is that React Native, and hence Expo, doesn't use the same CSS frameworks as web development. I'm curious how that works from the same code base, or perhaps that's one of the major difficulties. Also I see Expo as a fancy build framework but it's still fundamentally a RN application…
I've used Expo going on 3 years now, their development team is incredible. There are very few reasons to use base react-native over Expo anymore; They make upgrades to new RN versions easier, can support any custom native libraries, have an awesome build service (EAS), support OTA updates, their docs are great... I could go on and on. If you're a RN dev and haven't tried out Expo in the past year I highly recommend g…
I haven't used react native in years. Expo at the time felt like a shitty add-on trying to capture some part of the app development process but I didn't feel it added anything. Sounds like I s gotten a lot better and found an actual usecase. I'll have to check them out again.
- Generally a poorer developer experience (bugs, bad documentation).
- Couldn't use some popular/common react native packages. It needed to be compatible with Expo, and there was an expo specific version to use the camera for example. These would have different (and more) bugs. Trying to use any unsupported packages meant ejecting, a hell that might be similar to ejecting from create react app or using craco, perhaps.
- Wasn't really adding much apart from being "all-in-one", but unfortunately each piece was sub par to the original react native.
- Unfortunately the react native docs were defaulting to suggest using Expo. They still do that now: https://reactnative.dev/docs/environment-setup. And yet developers often eject from Expo, so you'd rewrite the scaffolding of your app without expo instead of ejecting. IMHO that's quite sad to see the React Native docs still suggests Expo.
Side note: I've been using Flutter for a few years now, much better developer experience. Doesn't have code push yet, but https://shorebird.dev/ is working on it. (I am not affiliated with them).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK using -—local still requires an eas account though.
It does. It's possible to make a patchset that lifts this restriction, though. If you're interested, I'd be willing to make it available.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
AFAIK using -—local still requires an eas account though.
It does. It's possible to make a patchset that lifts this restriction, though. If you're interested, I'd be willing to make it available.
My primary issue with it is the lack of support for in app purchases (last checked in late 2022).
The only easy way to do it is via RevenueCat, as none of the other RN IAP libraries work with Expo.
Expo also has built in support for over-the-air updates, which is great. However, it is a paid product, for $5/m per 1000 users (first 1000 free).
I believe you can run your own server for OTA updates, but it's fairly obvious that this feature will eventually be removed when they need to monetize harder.
Slightly off-topic: how practical is it really to build devices (iOS and Android) and web from the same code base? My poor understanding is that React Native, and hence Expo, doesn't use the same CSS frameworks as web development. I'm curious how that works from the same code base, or perhaps that's one of the major difficulties. Also I see Expo as a fancy build framework but it's still fundamentally a RN application…
[0] - https://solito.dev
[1] - https://www.nativewind.dev
[2] - https://tamagui.dev
Slightly off-topic: how practical is it really to build devices (iOS and Android) and web from the same code base? My poor understanding is that React Native, and hence Expo, doesn't use the same CSS frameworks as web development. I'm curious how that works from the same code base, or perhaps that's one of the major difficulties. Also I see Expo as a fancy build framework but it's still fundamentally a RN application…
Tbh, I liked expo, but since you cannot build locally nowdays (you can eject and build, but that won't work 99% of the time, literally didn't work for me on the hello world example), I kinda just threw it in the "cool, but won't use" bucket for time beeing :/, could change in the future, but I don't know how I feel about 3d party service (EAS) building my app and holding my signing certificates (yet)
FYI I've made a patchset that pretty much allows me to actually use the EAS --local builds offline and without an EAS account, so it's in fact possible, even though they, for obvious reasons (e.g. https://github.com/expo/eas-cli/issues/1606 ), don't encourage it.