React Native 0.85 contains over 604 commits from 58 contributors.
Special thanks to Zeya Peng, Bartłomiej Błoniarz, Dawid Małecki, Vitali Zaidman, Moti Zilberman, Phil Pluckthun, and the community!
reactnative.dev/blog/2026/0...
Other changes
- Dropped support for EOL Node.js versions
- StyleSheet.absoluteFillObject removed (use StyleSheet.absoluteFill)
- Metro bumped to ^0.84.0
- TextInput onChange now includes selection data
Jest preset moved to new package
The Jest preset has been extracted to @react-native/jest-preset, reducing core package size.
Update your jest.config.js:
preset: '@react-native/jest-preset'
Metro TLS support
The Metro dev server now accepts a TLS configuration, enabling HTTPS and WSS during development — useful for testing APIs that enforce secure connections.
Configure in metro.config.js with cert, key, and ca.
React Native DevTools improvements
- Multiple CDP connections — connect DevTools, VS Code, and AI agents simultaneously
- Native tabs on macOS — system-level tab handling for power users
- Request payload previews restored on Android
New Animation Backend
Built with Software Mansion, this new internal engine powers Animated and Reanimated. You can now animate layout props with native driver in Animated — the limitation stated in the docs no longer applies.
Opt in via ReactNativeFeatureFlags.
React Native 0.85 is now available!
This release includes the New Animation Backend, selection data in TextInput onChange events, Metro TLS support, and moves the Jest preset to a dedicated package.
reactnative.dev/blog/2026/0...
React Native 0.84 contains over 650 commits from 95 contributors.
We want to thank our partners and the community for your contributions in this release!
You can find the complete changelog here:
reactnative.dev/blog/2026/0...
Other improvements
- Node.js 22 minimum
- ESLint v9 Flat Config support
- Additional image formats (HEIC/HEIF)
- Keyboard events on Android
- URL API improvements
- Accessibility enhancements
React 19.2.3
This release syncs React 19.2.3 into React Native, including the latest fixes and improvements from the React team.
Legacy Architecture removal continues
Building on 0.82's work to make the New Architecture the only runtime option, React Native 0.84 removes more Legacy Architecture code from both iOS and Android — reducing build time and app size.
Precompiled binaries on iOS by default
React Native 0.84 now ships precompiled binaries on iOS by default. No more compiling React Native core from source on every clean build.
The precompiled .xcframework binaries are automatically downloaded during pod install.
Hermes V1 as default
Hermes V1 is now the default JavaScript engine on both iOS and Android, bringing improved execution speed and reduced memory usage.
No migration required — if you're already using Hermes (the default since 0.70), you'll automatically get Hermes V1.
React Native 0.84 is now available!
This release makes Hermes V1 the default JavaScript engine and ships precompiled iOS binaries by default — bringing significant performance improvements and faster build times to all React Native apps.
reactnative.dev/blog/2026/0...
React Native 0.83 contains over 594 commits from 56 contributors.
We want to thank our partners and the community for your contributions in this release!
You can find the complete changelog here:
reactnative.dev/blog/2025/1...
No breaking changes 🎉
We're working hard to make React Native releases more predictable and easier to upgrade. React Native 0.83 is the first release with no user facing breaking changes.
Upgrade from 0.82 → 0.83 with no changes to your app code.
New iOS build options
We now offer an experimental flag to compile out the Legacy Architecture, as well as to debug your precompiled binaries on iOS.
Web Performance APIs as stable
As introduced in 0.82, React Native now implements new performance APIs from Web, such as PerformanceObserver, performance.mark/measure, and high resolution timings — now enabled by default.
Intersection Observers (Canary)
Continuing our expansion of Web APIs in React Native, we've added IntersectionObserver, which allows you write code responding to layout intersections.
New React Native DevTools features
- Network inspection — now in core, and see where requests came from.
- Performance tracing — deeply understand how your app is running.
- New desktop app — a faster and better experience, still with zero setup.
React 19.2
This release includes React 19.2, bringing the new <Activity> and useEffectEvent APIs to React Native.
react.dev/blog/2025/1...
React Native 0.83 is now available!
This release includes React 19.2, new React Native DevTools features, and support for new Web APIs. And, it's the first React Native release with no user facing breaking changes.
reactnative.dev/blog/2025/1...
Over the last decade, React Native has changed how the world builds apps.
Declarative UI, Component-based architecture, Hot reload are now market standards among many other UI frameworks.
We’re so looking forward to the next decade of React Native!
You can now also write VR apps for Quest devices with React Native.
Expo Go is now available on the Horizon Store so you can bring your apps to Horizon with the blink of an eye!
We showcased how the Instagram and Facebook VR apps have been entirely written with React Native.
This allowed us to reuse much code from web, while also allowing new capabilities such as parallax effects on Instagram.
With React Native you can also reach more users on new emerging platforms.
One clear example is Amazon's Vega OS, which is effectively a 'React Native Operating System'. You can now write apps for Vega OS with the tools you know and love.
x.com/AmazonAppDe...
React Native is also supporting several emerging AI use cases such as @vercel V0, @MistralAI Le Chat or @Replit which are written in React Native.
Those apps demonstrate how React Native can reduce the time to market for new AI use cases.
Another great example of how React Native is helping achieve faster developer productivity and code sharing is HelloFresh.
They’ve started migrating all of their mobile apps to React Native while keeping consistency across different brands.
engineering.hellofresh.com/hellofreshs...
React Native also supports large enterprise with code sharing, as they migrate from per platform frameworks to React Native.
For example, Zalando is able to incrementally migrate their mobile app to React Native.
engineering.zalando.com/posts/2025/...
Apps built with React Native are also Award Winning.
Last year we saw several apps built with React Native reaching the top of app stores such as:
- Rise (Apple Design Awards Finalist)
- Runna (App Store Best App Finalist)
- Partiful (Google Play Best App 2024)
