react-native

FlatList performance improves by adding a stable keyExtractor, memoizing renderItem components with React.memo, providing getItemLayout for fixed-height items, and tuning initialNumToRender, maxToRenderPerBatch, and windowSize. For very large lists, FlashList from Shopify offers a recycling architecture as a drop-in replacement.

Reanimated is preferred for complex or gesture-driven animations because it runs on the UI thread, while the built-in Animated API runs on the JS thread and can cause jank. Combine Reanimated with react-native-gesture-handler for smooth drag and swipe interactions.

Expo Router handles deep linking automatically and supports dynamic routes through file-based conventions like [id].tsx in the app directory. Layout files such as _layout.tsx configure navigators, making it the preferred routing approach for new Expo projects.

Zustand provides minimal-boilerplate global state that works well in React Native, while TanStack Query handles server state with caching and offline persistence via MMKV. MMKV itself is roughly 30x faster than AsyncStorage for local storage.

Reanimated commonly fails when it is not imported first in the app entry file; add 'react-native-reanimated' as the first import in your root file. Also clear the Metro bundler cache with npx expo start --clear after installation.