Shopify is abandoning React Native and moving its mobile apps back to native development with Swift and Kotlin. The company made the call after concluding that AI coding tools have changed the economics of building for two platforms. The announcement reverses a decision the company made in 2020.
Why Shopify changed its mind
Shopify went all-in on React Native in 2020. The bet paid off. The company saved time by building features once, let developers without mobile backgrounds contribute, and stopped chasing feature parity between iOS and Android.
“React Native was working well for us, and it remains an excellent framework,” the company said. “But since then, coding models have gotten dramatically better, and for our apps and our team, building the same feature in Swift and Kotlin no longer carries the cost it used to.”
Shopify has been using LLMs to build software since 2021, a year before ChatGPT launched. Initially, the models helped implement features, fix bugs, and review code. By late 2025, they were handling more complex work — enough that building software twice no longer meant doing twice the work.
“We don’t hold on to a decision just because it was successful at the time,” the company said. “When a core assumption changes, we’re willing to go back and ask whether it’s still the right call. LLMs changed one of the core assumptions behind our 2020 decision, so we reevaluated our mobile stack from first principles.”
The company rebuilt several core parts of its biggest apps in Swift and Kotlin using LLMs as a prototype. The results surprised them. AI agents could implement an Android feature using the iOS version as a reference, and vice versa. They helped developers work outside their primary stack. And they cut the cost of maintaining parity between platforms through shared specifications, tests, and review checkpoints.
Native still means building and maintaining software on two platforms. That cost has not disappeared. What changed, Shopify said, is that agents now handle enough of the implementation, translation, testing, and review work that it’s no longer the deciding factor it was in 2020.
React Native apps can be fast, and Shopify says its own apps are. The company is making this change because agents reduced the advantages of sharing implementation, while the advantages of building for each platform remain. Native keeps the code closer to platform capabilities and first-party tooling, with fewer framework and dependency layers in between.
The January 2025 reversal
In January 2025, Shopify publicly wrote that the future of React Native was bright and that the company planned to keep investing in it. That was true based on what the company knew then.
The shift in thinking came quickly. Coding models improved dramatically in the months after that post, and the company went back to question its core assumptions.
What happens to Shopify’s React Native libraries
Shopify published several open-source React Native libraries over the years. Some became the top choice in their categories. The company says it wants a clean transition with no surprises.
React Native Skia will keep getting Shopify sponsorship through the end of 2026. William Candillon will continue working on it beyond that. He will fork the repo in the coming months and publish the library under a new name. The original repo will be archived once the transition is complete. Shopify says it will post updates so users have time to migrate, and it asks apps that rely on the library to consider sponsoring it.
FlashList, a high-performance list library, gets roughly 2 million downloads per week. It has become the default way to render lists in React Native. Shopify will continue to fix critical issues that break compatibility. The company is in discussions with several companies about taking over long-term stewardship of the library.
Restyle has a smaller user base, so Shopify is archiving that repo. It will keep working through the end of 2026, then stop being maintained. Anyone can fork it, and Shopify says it will help with the handover if a team wants to pick it up.
Greenfield beats brownfield this time
Shopify has several large apps: Shopify, Shop, Point of Sale, and Inbox. Millions of merchants and buyers rely on them daily. The company debated between gradually migrating to native, known as brownfield, versus rebuilding from scratch, known as greenfield.
The last time Shopify migrated to React Native, it picked the brownfield approach. A full rewrite would have taken years, and the company would have had to stop shipping new features while the work was in progress. This time, greenfield emerged as the clear winner.
The reasons: LLMs are good at building features in Swift and Kotlin using the React Native version as a reference. A clean slate means rebuilding without previous constraints. And the prototypes showed that coding agents could rebuild the apps substantially faster than was possible before.
The Shop app regularly tops the shopping category in the app stores. It is part of the broader greenfield rebuild plan for Shopify’s apps.
The 2020 bet, revisited
Shopify’s 2020 decision to move to React Native rested on three reasons: stop building the same features twice, let developers work across the stack, and spend less time chasing feature parity and more time shipping value.
React Native delivered on all three. The company spent significant time and resources optimizing performance, improving foundational areas of React Native, and keeping up with framework updates and external dependencies. But those were acceptable tradeoffs at the time. The benefits outweighed the investments.
The calculus changed when coding models improved. By late 2025, agents were not just writing code faster. They were making the company question whether building software twice still meant doing twice the work.
What this means for the wider industry
Shopify’s move is a notable signal for the React Native ecosystem. The framework remains widely used, and Shopify says it is still excellent. But a major corporate contributor has concluded that AI tools have shifted the cost-benefit analysis.
The company was direct about the reasoning: agents reduced the advantages of sharing implementation, while the advantages of building for each platform remain. Native keeps Shopify closer to platform capabilities and first-party tooling, with fewer layers between the code and the platform.
For developers, the practical takeaways are clear. If you rely on Shopify’s React Native libraries, plan for the transitions. Skia is getting a new name and a fork. FlashList is looking for a new steward. Restyle is being archived. The company says it will post updates along the way so that everyone has ample time to migrate.
The migration itself will be a test of how much AI tools have changed software development. Shopify is betting that coding agents can rebuild major production apps in Swift and Kotlin fast enough to make a full rewrite practical. That bet, if it works, could reshape how other large companies think about cross-platform frameworks.
Key facts box:
– Shopify moved to React Native in 2020
– Shopify has used LLMs for software development since 2021
– By late 2025, LLMs were handling complex implementation work
– React Native Skia is sponsored through the end of 2026
– FlashList gets ~2 million downloads per week
– Restyle will be maintained through the end of 2026, then archived
– The Shop app regularly tops the shopping category in the app stores
Source: shopify.engineering
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