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Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

shopify.engineering

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Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#791

Post by canto »

gvv wrote: post #386
canto wrote: post #351

So, instead of paying humans twice for the same thing, Shopify will pay corporations to burn the planet a little bit more, waste water and energy - to build the same thing twice. Just because. There's no tech reason to do it. "LLMS are better now". There's no low level optimisations, no blockers, no app shortcomings, it's a shopping app for Christ sake. Instead of optimising, creating more with less, they will create…

quality ragebait

yeah, apologies, i shouldn't be doing that but it's just... doh

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#793

Post by HPsquared »

Vegenoid wrote: post #721
vantassell wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Spotify has progressively gotten much worse over the last 15 years, all while the size of their engineering team has ballooned. Spotify or Shopify?

Spotify, the comment I replied to drew a comparison from Shopify to Spotify. I think I’ll start a company called Shpoptify.

You could start a consultancy called Optify to help them optimize their engineering.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#794

Post by tonyedgecombe »

Epa095 wrote: post #788
hypendev wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, importantly, this was 2008. Most of the modern software tooling you have today wasn't available back then, from great IDE's to popular libraries, writing software in 2008 was a different beast compared to today.

Tja, besides LLMs I can't really see the major improvement todays IDEs and language combination brings over Eclipse+Java. Great docs, good autocomplete, good compiler feedback.

Yes, IntelliJ 8 was out in 2008. From my experience most of the progress since then has been keeping up with language and library updates.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#795

Post by mcosta »

kamaal wrote: post #701
railka wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, AI have changed the game, and now you can build and maintain two separate projects in Swift & Kotlin instead of one on React

If AI can make any language do anything, why move away from React Native ? What you could do with Kotlin/Swift you can do with React Native as well. This just feels like internal factions wanting their own teams, and owning their respective politics, than a discussion on Merit.

> What you could do with Kotlin/Swift you can do with React Native as well.

In theory yes, in practice no. I mean, in theory you can do it in mips ASM and ship QEMU along with the app, in practice it makes no sense.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#796

Post by WA »

ojr wrote: post #449
hylaride wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuance is always a thing. Native apps are faster and better most of the time. Electron and React Native wouldn't annoy me so much if they were used with small apps where it's not worth over-optimizing. However, it's now the default for Multiplatform apps that are used constantly, including IDEs, chat apps, etc. They gobble up memory and cpu cycles and are constantly getting updates due to the shitshow that is the jav…

React Native apps make more revenue than Flutter and Native apps according to Revenue Cat report published on June 3rd, 2026. https://www.revenuecat.com/blog/engineering/why-react-native...

Thanks, but from the same article:

"First key learning: execution matters far more than stack choice"

which directly translates to: make a great app and nobody cares about the tech and this includes whether or not to use Liquid Glass.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#797

Post by tonyedgecombe »

cwackerfuss wrote: post #674
abustamam wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shopify works well for me but it used to push nonsense like podcasts or audio books that I had no interest in, with no way for me to hide them. I just want to listen to music. Upon looking just now, seems like they have been relegated to their own tabs now, which is great.

I can’t tell if we’re trolling at this point with the mixing up of Shopify and Spotify

Poor reading comprehension is more likely than trolling.

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#798

Post by liamgm »

kamaal wrote: post #701
railka wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, AI have changed the game, and now you can build and maintain two separate projects in Swift & Kotlin instead of one on React

If AI can make any language do anything, why move away from React Native ? What you could do with Kotlin/Swift you can do with React Native as well. This just feels like internal factions wanting their own teams, and owning their respective politics, than a discussion on Merit.

Native is fast , no extra layer , the problem is maintaining on every native platform your app available. And AI tooling can handle that efficiently today , not way back then.

The problem with xplat is they add extra layer on top of platform native.

- React native and similar, add extra js runtime engine.

- Flutter and Kotlin MP add extra skia graphics engine.

- Skiptools add extra swift runtime

- Cordova adn similar add extra browser engine

- Etc

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#799

Post by jimnotgym »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #599

Numbers from GPT Astra - Shopify has 3000 engineers as of 2026 - Google Chrome when released in 2008 conservatively had ~ 60 engineers. - GTA 5 in its credits had 150 software engineers. Surprising even to me who has had many an experience of being in a bloated FAANG team, this 150 includes GTA Online! In a sane society, Shopify’s opinion on anything engineering related would be thrown into rubbish because they seem…

How many of those 3000 engineers are working on the core engine?

That is vs infrastructure, customer support, partner outreach etc? Then you have all the people working on localisation, not just changing the words, but local regulatory issues.

Chrome only has one customer to deal with, Google itself. And since Shopify is saas and hosted for thousands of customers, vs Chrome running on the users pc, the infrastructure complexity does not compare

Re: Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin

#800

Post by altmanaltman »

sashank_1509 wrote: post #599

Numbers from GPT Astra - Shopify has 3000 engineers as of 2026 - Google Chrome when released in 2008 conservatively had ~ 60 engineers. - GTA 5 in its credits had 150 software engineers. Surprising even to me who has had many an experience of being in a bloated FAANG team, this 150 includes GTA Online! In a sane society, Shopify’s opinion on anything engineering related would be thrown into rubbish because they seem…

> GTA 5 in its credits had 150 software engineers. Surprising even to me who has had many an experience of being in a bloated FAANG team, this 150 includes GTA Online!

This is so... wow. You think only 150 devs made GTA 5? Despite the fact that rockstar has 10 studios and you think only 150 people in 5 years touch the code of the game? You should learn how those credits work. It doesn't mean what you think it does.

Furthermore, game dev also includes so many artists and other work. It is so insane to claim gta 5 was made by 150 people that I don't think the rest of your comment can be taken seriously.

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