React Universe Conf | Sept 2-4, 2025

“Learn once, write anywhere” has always been React’s promise, but how close are we to that goal? Our Closing Panel at React Universe Conf 2025 brought together leaders from Amazon, Expo, Microsoft, and the open source community to discuss what it really takes to build React apps that scale across mobile, web, desktop, AR/VR, and smart TVs. A huge thank you to all the panelists for a great discussion, and to Chris Traganos for hosting it. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/dj5niCKH

Modern JS dev often means endless choices (and wasted time). Christoph Nakazawa (CEO, Nakazawa Tech KK) argued for a different approach: stop picking libraries and start building. He introduced an open-source Expo-based stack with great defaults - covering both client and server - that enables developers to build apps end-to-end, quickly and reliably. With support for TypeScript, PNPM, Prettier, Vitest, NativeWind, React Compiler, FBT, Prisma, Pothos, GraphQL Yoga, and Hono, the stack solves the “boring but critical” details like lists, SVGs, bottom sheets, and build caching out of the box. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/dZYQwPkK

How do you bring React Native into one of Europe’s largest e-commerce apps, without breaking what already works? In his talk René Eichhorn (Senior Software Engineer at Zalando) explored the challenges of brownfield integration, achieving seamless interoperability with existing native code, and how Zalando uses React Strict DOM as a foundation for unifying web and mobile development. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/dGsaUAhd

Distributed development has transformed the web, and now it’s coming to mobile. Zackary Chapple (CEO, Zephyr Cloud) shows how Module Federation in Re.Pack 5 brings the proven patterns of distributed web development to React Native. With millions of downloads a week, Module Federation is the de facto standard for decomposing apps on the web, and now it’s available for mobile. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/dw8hP9Nv

Async UI doesn’t have to mean flickers and unstable states. Aurora Scharff (Crayon Consulting) explored modern React patterns for handling async operations: concurrent rendering, Actions in React 19, and React Server Components in the Next.js App Router. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/dqYqrRgm

Mobile and web don’t need to be separate optimization stories. Jay Meistrich (Founder of Legend, CTO of Bravely) shared how his team built Legend List, a React app tuned to be lightning fast on both mobile and web. By minimizing renders, leveraging signals, and applying platform-specific performance tricks, Legend List delivers consistent speed across environments. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/dfZntmiM

What if converting web components to mobile UI took hours, not weeks? At React Universe Conf 2025, Ohans Emmanuel (Staff Software Engineer at HelloFresh) shared how his team leveraged GenAI coding agents to automate the migration of web components into native mobile UI. Ohans’ talk offers a real-world case study on combining AI with React Native to accelerate development, improve platform parity, and rethink how teams tackle large-scale migrations. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/deXzMznq

What if React Native JavaScript wasn’t bound by a single thread? Tomasz Żelawski (Software Mansion) introduces react-native-worklets, a library that brings concurrency to JavaScript in React Native. Worklets unlock new levels of performance by allowing concurrent execution outside the main JS thread, reducing bottlenecks and enabling smoother, more responsive apps. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/duGpmt-k

React Native DevTools are powerful, but they’re missing plugins. Szymon Chmal (Callstack) introduced Rozenite, a plugin framework built on top of DevTools. Instead of forking or hacking around the core, Rozenite hooks cleanly into DevTools’ architecture, enabling developers to build their own plugins with sandboxed execution and native React-based UIs. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/dDDdxPQh

Faster builds, fewer native module failures, and better testing - all enabled by Node-API. Kræn Hansen (Senior Software Engineer at MongoDB) shares the latest progress on bringing Node-API to React Native. His talk highlights how Node-API can reduce friction for app developers and library authors, while opening the door to cross-runtime, type-safe, and faster React Native development. ▶️ https://lnkd.in/dVkQ-xEH