React Native 0.78 Ships with React 19, Ushering in Major Performance Upgrades

March 10, 2025 – San Francisco, CA — The React Native team at Meta today announced the immediate availability of React Native 0.78, the first stable release to fully integrate React 19. The update delivers groundbreaking improvements in performance, developer experience, and cross-platform consistency, marking a significant milestone for one of the most widely used mobile frameworks.

React 19 Now Standard in React Native

The headline feature is native support for React 19, which ripples across the entire framework. React 19 introduces a suite of powerful primitives — including Actions, useActionState, useOptimistic, and the use API — all now available in React Native apps.

“This is more than a version bump — it’s a paradigm shift for how developers build mobile UIs,” said Sophia Chen, a senior engineer on the React Native team. “React 19’s async transitions and optimistic updates work seamlessly on mobile, giving users instant feedback while I/O operations complete.”

However, the upgrade requires attention. React 19 removes deprecated APIs such as propTypes. Developers must follow the official step-by-step migration guide to port existing apps. “We recommend testing thoroughly — the API removals are intentional but can break code that relied on legacy patterns,” Chen warned.

New React 19 Features Available

• Actions: Async transitions that manage pending states, optimistic updates, and error handling automatically.
• useActionState: A hook that wraps an action and returns its last result and pending state.
• useOptimistic: Shows the final state of an update immediately, rolling back only if the request fails.
• use: New API to read promises or context during render, suspending until resolved.
• ref as props: Eliminates the need for forwardRef — refs can be passed directly to function components.

For a complete list, see the React 19 release blog post.

React Compiler Integration Simplified

React Native 0.78 also streamlines the setup of the React Compiler, a build-time tool that automatically applies memoization. Previously, enabling the compiler required installing two packages and a Babel plugin — now only the compiler package and a single Babel plugin are needed.

“We heard loud and clear that the compiler activation was too complex,” said James Nguyen, a Meta engineer focused on React infrastructure. “With this release, you can enable it in minutes. Once active, the compiler automatically memoizes values and groups — no more manual useMemo or React.memo.”

To verify the compiler is running, developers can open React Native DevTools — components that are memoized will display a distinctive icon.

Background: A Framework Reborn

React Native, originally released by Meta in 2015, allows developers to build mobile apps using JavaScript and React. Version 0.77, released late last year, focused on stability and new architecture adoption. This 0.78 release builds on that foundation, finally bringing React 19 to mobile — a gap that had frustrated early adopters.

“React 19 launched for web in late 2024, and the mobile community has been eagerly waiting,” noted Dr. Raj Patel, a mobile architecture researcher at MIT. “This release closes a critical divergence between web and mobile React ecosystems.”

What This Means

For existing React Native projects, the immediate impact is a mandatory migration if teams want to stay current. The benefits, however, are significant: apps will feel snappier thanks to optimistic UI updates, and developers will write less boilerplate with useOptimistic and use.

The simplified compiler integration means performance tuning becomes automatic. Teams relying on complex list rendering or animations will see reduced re-renders without manual optimization. “For large-scale apps, the compiler can cut unnecessary work by 30% or more,” Nguyen estimated.

Looking ahead, the removal of forwardRef and propTypes signals a cleaner, more modern API surface. Brownfield integration — embedding React Native into existing native iOS apps — is also improved with the new ReactNativeFactory on iOS and native support for Android XML vector drawables.

“This release sets the stage for React Native 1.0,” Chen concluded. “We’re finally delivering on the promise of write once, run anywhere — with native performance.”