React Native: A Year in Review
Article Summary
Martin Konicek reveals how a 2013 hackathon project became a framework that changed mobile development forever. One year after open-sourcing, React Native hit 30,000 GitHub stars and attracted 650+ contributors.
Facebook's React Native team shares their first-year retrospective after open-sourcing in March 2015. The article chronicles React Native's evolution from internal hackathon to cross-platform framework, detailing adoption metrics, community growth, and the infrastructure built to manage massive open-source contributions.
Key Takeaways
- 85% code sharing achieved between iOS and Android Ads Manager apps
- 30% of 5,800 commits came from external contributors, hitting 50% by February 2016
- Built automated bots to handle 266 monthly pull requests and 2,351 closed PRs in one year
- Microsoft and Samsung announced React Native support for Windows, Xbox, and SmartTV platforms
- 70,000 npm downloads in March 2016 with 107 apps in production showcase
Critical Insight
React Native grew from Facebook internal tool to the 21st most-starred GitHub repo in 12 months, proving cross-platform mobile development could work at scale with strong community collaboration.
