State of React Native 2023

2023 was a big year for debugging in the React Native ecosystem. Expo launched the first iteration of its Chrome DevTools integration, Expo and Meta joined forces and launched the debugging working group, and Meta announced replacing the default Flipper integration with the Chrome DevTools-based React Native JS Inspector.
While these renewed efforts are clearly still in the early days, it’s exciting to see more adoption of platform-native debugging tools. Expo Dev Clients allowed developers to access the networking layer of your app, which turned out to be the #2 most used feature according to the State of React Native survey 2023. Infinite Red released Reactotron 3.0 to help larger teams create optimal debugging workflows. Expo and Sentry collaborated for SDK 50 to manage source maps for EAS Updates by supporting Sentry’s debug ID standard. Software Mansion teased a full React Native IDE combining the simulators, project code, debugging features, and more, all in a single vscode instance. On top of that, Expo released the Expo Dev Tool Plugins to make this debugging workflow a feature-complete replacement for Flipper.
I’m even more excited for 2024 — we’ll improve stability, expand functionality, and unify the Chrome DevTools experience for Expo and React Native through the React Native JS Inspector.