NativeScript vs React Native, revisited: where we landed.
Seven years on from our 2018 comparison, the landscape's moved. Capacitor showed up. React Native shipped a new architecture. NativeScript is quieter but alive. Here's the current call.
In 2018 we picked NativeScript for most of our mobile work and wrote about why. Seven years on, the calculus has changed. React Native shipped its New Architecture. Capacitor became a serious option, especially for teams already on the web. NativeScript is quieter, but still actively maintained — and still the right answer for some briefs.
What React Native fixed
- 01The bridge bottleneck — the New Architecture's JSI replaces it cleanly.
- 02Type safety — TypeScript support is now first-class.
- 03Expo got genuinely good. For new projects with no native module surprises, Expo is the default.
What Capacitor changed
Capacitor lets you ship a web app — literally a Nuxt or Vue or React build — as a native shell, with sensible APIs for camera, geolocation, file system, push notifications. For products that are fundamentally web-first and want app-store presence, Capacitor is now our default. We're shipping Scan My Receipt on it.
The cross-platform mobile matrix, 2025
| Brief shape | Default choice | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Web-first product going to the app stores | Capacitor | Same code, native shell, fastest path |
| Team is React, mobile-first with native UI | React Native + Expo | Best-in-class for React shops |
| Heavy bespoke native API surface, hardware | NativeScript | Direct native binding, no plugin wait |
| Hardware-bridged installations | NativeScript or React Native | Depends on team; both genuinely work |
| Single platform (iOS-only or Android-only) | Native (Swift / Kotlin) | Cross-platform isn't earning anything |
What NativeScript is still best at
- 01Native UI feel — not a web view, not a re-render-everything framework. Real native widgets.
- 02Direct native API access for niche hardware integrations.
- 03Smaller team, calmer release cadence, less framework churn.
Our 2018 self would be surprised by how often the answer now is 'just ship Nuxt + Capacitor'. The web really has caught up.
How we now choose
- 01Web-first product going to the app stores — Capacitor.
- 02Team is React, brief is mobile-first with native UI — React Native + Expo.
- 03Heavy bespoke native API surface, niche hardware — NativeScript.
- 04Hardware-bridged installations — anything but a wrapped web view, usually NativeScript or React Native depending on team.
Our 2018 self would be surprised by how often the answer now is 'just ship Nuxt + Capacitor'. The web really has caught up. But for the brief where the answer used to be NativeScript, the answer is still NativeScript — and we like that it's still here.