React Native is one the opensource platforms, made by facebook. Since it got its opensource status, I can pretty confidently say that it is one of the best tool/technology to build powerful mobile and web apps. Yea, you read it right. Today, we can use react-native not just to make android/iOS applications but we can also make powerful web applications with one code that we use for mobile development.
Now, there's two different tools that react-native can be installed in the system. One is React Native expo-cli and another is React Native cli. Both of these are similar in almost all development except there are same differences that can make or I would say restrict someone to build something.
Let me explain what I would like to say about my point.
React Native Expo CLI:
It is one of the way to build react-native applications. It's more like an wholesome environment that let you build awesome projects in react-native. It has its own expo libraries to achieve different functionalities.
Pros:
It is quite simple, easy to setup.
It allows you to build complex solutions using its expo libraries.
You can build android/iOS apps with the support of expo online server thus there would be no restriction regarding operating system as we all know that one has to have a macOS to build iOS apps.
Cons:
It restricts its users inside its environment in such a way that one cannot use native libraries of android/iOS in react-native expo projects. So, we cannot use deep linking functionality.
It can have limited libraries and its support towards different solutions.
React Native CLI:
React Native cli is one that is widely used my professional developers all over the world. It is officially recommended way to build react native apps. Let's get straight towards its pros and cons.
Pros:
React Native cli gives you full freedom to do anything.
You can use natively build android/iOS libraries with the help of deep linking.
NPM has insane amount of awesome packages that you can use in your projects.
Cons:
It is little difficult to initially setup its environment.
We cannot generate iOS builds on window machine. One has to have a mac system.
One can mess up the project easily if he reallt don't understand the concepts of native development.
There you go readers. I hope, I have written enough about these react native expo-cli and react native cli frameworks. In short, I would recommend you all that if you are a beginner or naive, go with the react-native expo cli to learn basics. Then after getting hands on experience with basics of react-native then move on to react-native cli. You will better handle large scale projects in this way!
Thank you for reading this!
