Life today seems impossible without usage of web and mobile applications! Newer trends are evolving and the implementation of a variety of apps is in vogue now. React Native is one of the most popular mobile application development frameworks today and has a bright future ahead.

With the rise of progressive web apps and native mobile app development, the need for React Native is going to be on the rise. The developer community is sure to expand far and wide. As one of Facebook’s top open-source ventures, React Native has proven itself as an adaptable, extensible, and convenient platform with access to the highly popular ReactJS library.

React Native supports the creation of user interfaces with component libraries and UI toolkits. React Native libraries are apt for simplifying and fastening the development process, with the help of pre-built components.

Users find it convenient to leverage the libraries instead of writing custom functionalities. These libraries turn out to be great friends with developers and contribute big time in the success of projects.

There are many React Native libraries that are of great help to the developer community. This article will focus on the ones that are popular and can contribute to successful implementations.

Before that, let us glance through the goodness of React Native and its salient features.

React Native – An Overview

React Native combines the best parts of native development with React, a best-in-class JavaScript library for building user interfaces. React primitives render to native platform UI, meaning your app uses the same native platform APIs other apps do.

React Native is a well-known, cross-platform, JavaScript-based mobile framework that is powered by Facebook. It empowers developers to create native applications for different platforms utilizing the same codebase.

Supported by a huge developer community, React Native offers great competence in creating a cross-platform mobile app with the React framework, JavaScript and JSX. There is a bridge that empowers the availability to native rendering APIs in Java or Objective-C. JavaScript interfaces are accessible to platform APIs through React Native.

Salient Features

• Components for effective code maintenance
• Unidirectional data flow with Flux
• Cross-platform development
• Reusability of code leading to faster development and cost-effectiveness
• Easy implementation of third-party plugins
• Good and large community support

Organizations Using React Native

Instagram, Facebook, Salesforce, Microsoft, Pinterest, Discord, Yahoo, Tesla, Intuit, Skype, Bloomberg, Uber Eats, Oculus, Walmart, Tesla, Airbnb and more…

20 Useful and Popular React Native Libraries, For Your Project

• NativeBase
• Ignite CLI
• React Native Elements
• React Native Maps
• Gifted Chat
• Nachos UI
• Lottie
• React Native UI Kitten
• Shoutem
• React Native Paper
• React Native Vector Icons
• Teaset
• Quasar
• Ant Design
• Google Places Autocomplete
• Detox
• React Native Material UI
• React Native Calendars
• Mobiscroll
• Pickadate.js

• NativeBase

NativeBase is a user-friendly, utility-first component library for React Native that assists developers in creating reliable UI across platforms. There are many tools that develop different themes, projects with the help of native library support.

It offers many cross-platform components for React Native. It involves an enriched ecosystem ranging from starter-kits to themes to templates. NativeBase showcases a design kit that integrates UI components, mobile and web pages, style guides etc.

• Ignite CLI

Ignite CLI is a leading React Native library which is Infinite Red’s modernized React Native project boilerplate, with a CLI and component-based generators. This library has been aimed at assisting developers in implementing their applications with ease and speed.

It is easy for developers to adapt this library for their applications. It is an open-source tool that has been ideal for fastening the development time, thanks to the multiple inbuilt components it possesses.

• React Native Elements

React Native Elements is a cross platform, open source React Native library and UI toolkit. There are many flexible components like badge, overlay, pricing etc. that help in accelerating the speed of development.

Developers find it easy since they can do with very little boilerplate code for readying the component. They have complete control over the design and appearance of components. It is a customizable toolkit that is created in JavaScript.

• React Native Maps

React Native Maps is an effective library for customized map components in any project. It helps in changing the map view regions, markers, styles with ease, offering a better user experience.

Developers find this tool usable and with good documentation. It provides various component APIs like Circle, Overlay, Callout, MapView, Marker, Polygon etc. The Map component makes use of Apple Maps, Google Maps etc. depending on the platform.

• Gifted Chat

Gifted Chat in React Native is an apt tool to implement chat functionality for enhancement of communication in the application. It is a comprehensive chat component library that helps in setting up a chat user interface with customization.

It is based on TypeScript and showcases customizable features like loading old message, attaching pictures, multiline text input, copying messages to the clipboard, avatars, attachment options etc.

• Nachos UI

Nachos UI is a free, open-source, readymade component library for React Native. There are over 30+ easy to use and customizable UI components. Owing to React Native for Web, it works well on the web too.

It makes use of Prettier for an opinionated JavaScript formatter. It also uses Jest Snapshot Testing and Yarn. There are pre-styled inputs like text buttons and forms that are used by the developers with ease.

• Lottie

Lottie is a known mobile library for React Native that parses Adobe After Effects animations that are exported as JSON and rendered natively on mobile. With this, designers can build attractive animations easily and effectively.

Designers don’t need to recreate the code since it provides rendering animations in the React Native app itself. There are several props and methods that can be leveraged for better efficacy.

• React Native UI Kitten

UI Kitten for React Native is an open-source UI framework with customizable components. It provides the frequently used elements as a distinct package with the same UI design. There are dark and light themes for creating cross-platform mobile apps.

It helps developers focus more on creative design since its library brings along scalability and reliability in the design aspect. There is a provision to change the themes at runtime without reloading the application.

• Shoutem

Shoutem is a simple, easy to use React Native UI kit that can be adapted by novices. It has themes, UI components and component animation. There are cross platform components that are flexible and composable.

All components have a pre-set style that is common with the others and hence it becomes easy to create complicated components without defining individual styles. It has a drag and drop feature that is of great use.

• React Native Paper

React Native Paper is a popular, high-quality, cross-platform UI component library that abides by the Material Design standards. It offers customizable and set components for React Native.

There is global theming support and React Native Paper is of great help when you need to start off on any application even without doing the design. It empowers in creation of attractive interfaces on the mobile and web. It is fast, approachable, and dependable.

• React Native Vector Icons

React Native Vector Icons offer an apt set of buttons, logos, and bars for any type of application development. There are a set of customizable icons that support complete styling.

It is easy to adapt and integrates seamlessly into any type of project. These icons are popular custom icons of the GitHub library and are free to use. Developers can customize them in terms of colour, size, and styling.

• Teaset

Teaset is a well-known UI library meant for React Native that focuses on content display and action control. It offers over 20 pure JS components. It is simple to use and has an attractive design that is liked by developers.

It goes by a minimalistic approach to design and helps users stay concentrated on the app’s content rather than design. It offers good support for common components and those that are rather rarely used.

• Quasar

Quasar framework is a component library for React Native, an open source Vue.js based framework for creating apps, with a singular codebase. It lets users deploy the application on the web in the form of a single page app, progressive web app, mobile app etc.

It makes use of HTML, CSS, native components, and JavaScript for creation of apps. Since it leverages all controls equally, the application will be uniform across all platforms from beginning till end.

• Ant Design

Ant Design is a popular design system and a web component library meant for enterprise level applications. It is open source and offers native UI components. There are components for buttons, toggles, cards, tooltips and much more.

There is a style guide that helps in creating apps with reliable and uniform design across all involved platforms. It evaluates design quality based on certain design standards offering great visualization effects.

• Google Places Autocomplete

Autocomplete is a salient feature in the Places library of the Maps JS API.  It is a library that offers customizable components for Android and iOS. It can be utilized to offer the type-ahead-search feature in the Google Maps search area.

It can match with substrings, addresses, full words, plus codes etc. There are features like XHR cancellations, predefined places, terms compliance etc. It is a web service that sends place predictions in reply to an HTTP request.

• Detox

Detox is created from the base to effectively support React Native projects and the native projects too. It is considered ideal for gray box comprehensive testing and as an automation framework for mobile apps.

It offers real-time interaction with the mobile app in such a way that it feels like a real user operating on a real device or simulator. It lessens the dependency on manual testing and offers high-speed results through continuous integration systems.

• React Native Material UI

React Native Material UI offers modular and customizable Material Design UI elements for React Native. There are a variety of components like toolbars, dividers, action buttons, drawers etc.

It showcases both dark and light mode themes. Powered by React, it is easy to use and flexible to leverage all available components. One of the good reasons to use this is many organizations are already using Material Design as a concept and hence is easier for them.

• React Native Calendars

React Native Calendars is an effective library when there is a need to showcase an attractive and customized calendar in your application. There are multiple, robust React Native calendar components in this library.

There can be customization done on different elements like period marking, date marking, multiple dots marking etc. This library is compatible for Android and iOS both. Horizontal calendar, event calendar, calendar with range etc. can be created with this library.

• Mobiscroll

Mobiscroll offers enhanced calendaring and scheduling solutions to offer a mobile friendly experience. There is a calendar view, weekly view, timeline, schedular, agenda etc. provision to offer whatever the user needs to see.

As a leading UI component library, there are a lot of features that come with customizable components and detailed documentation. It offers good support for mobile devices and tablets that use different platforms like iOS, Android, Windows.

• js

Pickadate.js is a responsive, light weighted, mobile-friendly jQuery-based calendar picker. It assists in picking up relevant date and time with a lot of choices for customization. It is user friendly and provides support for gestures.

As an open-source project, it can be used without a bundler. It showcases touch & keyboard friendliness and loads a tiny JS and CSS footprint. It comes with translations for over 40 languages.

Till Later

React Native development has a bright future and there is a long way to go. Scanning through the popular list of React Native libraries is a tough task since there are so many of them. Though all of them aim towards simplifying the development process and making it faster, it does need detailed analysis before finalizing the library.

Considering major decisive parameters like quick installation, detailed documentation, open-source library support, size, popularity, project needs, tools availability etc., it becomes an easy task to select the best possible React Native library for your project.