Lynx is Here, But React Native Isn't Going Anywhere (Yet)

Introduction

As a mobile developer, I always stay updated on new mobile tech stacks. Recently, there has been a lot of hype about a new mobile framework on the internet. On March 5, ByteDance open sourced its cross platform development framework that can be used for mobile development, Lynx. Several discussions claim that its release could challenge React Native.

Why they compare it to react native and not flutter? It's because both Lynx and React Native render UI components natively on the platform while flutter, however, uses its own rendering engine (Skia) to draw widgets independently of native components.

What makes this framework so powerful? I did a quick hands-on with it, and here's my first look.

What is Lynx?

Lynx is a cross platform mobile development framework created by ByteDance, the company behind TikTok. It was originally used internally at TikTok for their product in production, eg: Search, Shop, Studio, and Live. Lynx is designed to provide high performance and native-like experiences, making it a serious competitor to existing cross-platform solutions like React Native.

Comparisons between Lynx and React Native

Lynx and React Native are both frameworks for cross-platform mobile development. This section explores their differences in performance, architecture, and usability to help determine the best fit for your project.

Pros

Lynx introduces several architectural differences compared to React Native:

1. Dual-Threaded Architecture

React Native traditionally relies on a single JavaScript thread, which can sometimes lead to UI performance issues. Lynx, on the other hand, uses a dual-threaded architecture:

• main thread handling UI rendering. (uses PrimJS which based on QuickJS)
• background thread managing business logic (uses PrimJS as default in android , javascriptCore by default in iOS)

This separation aims to prevent UI blocking and improve responsiveness.

2. Rendering and Styling

Lynx offers native rendering while also maintaining pixel perfect consistency across platforms. Unlike React Native, Lynx allows developers to use standard CSS for styling, making it more familiar for web developers.

3. Explicit Thread Management

Developers using Lynx can handle thread execution using runOnMainThread and runOnBackground. Data passed between these threads must also be serializable, which adds complexity but enhances control.

4. Faster App Launch Times

ByteDance reports that Lynx's architecture enables Instant First Frame Rendering (IFR), which prioritizes initial UI rendering to eliminate blank screens during startup, creating the impression of an immediate app launch.

Cons

1. Immature Ecosystem

Since Lynx was only recently open sourced (March 2025), its ecosystem is still in its early stages. Unlike React Native, which has had years to mature, Lynx currently lacks a well established set of libraries, tools, and community support. Notably, there is no framework like Expo yet, which can allows developers to start and ship a project fast.

The community is still small, finding solutions to problems can be difficult. Unlike React Native, where common issues are well documented with plenty of support from developers worldwide, Lynx users may need to spend extra time debugging and resolving issues on their own. With fewer developers contributing to the ecosystem, many essential third party libraries are either unavailable or require modifications to work with Lynx.

While these limitations are expected for a new framework, Lynx has the potential to grow over time, just as React Native took several years to become the mature and widely adopted solution it is today.

2. Thread Management Complexity

Unlike React Native, which abstracts threading behind a single JavaScript thread, Lynx requires developers to manually manage execution between the main thread and the background thread. This adds flexibility and performance benefits but also increases the complexity of development.

3. Modified Component Lifecycle

Lynx’s dual-threaded nature is different than React lifecycle, requiring adaptation for React developers. This requires developers to rethink certain assumptions about how components execute and interact compared to React's single threaded lifecycle.

Hands-On Experience

Setting Up Lynx

Setting up Lynx is quick and easy, but to run the app, you'll need to download the Lynx Explorer manually and install it by dragging it into he simulator.

Once installed, you'll need to copy and paste the URL into the app and press "Go" to start viewing the application.

Lynx supports hot reload, just like React Native, allowing immediate file change previews.

Observations & Limitations

• Uses React 17+, which is not yet optimized for the latest React 19.
• Lacks built-in components:
  • Only a few core elements are available: View, Text, ScrollView, Image, and Page.
  • Extending native components (e.g., UITextInput) requires significant native code, which may not be ideal for rapid project development.
• Not suitable for building new applications from scratch:
  • Lynx currently only supports integration into existing iOS, Android, or web apps; the project that created didn't include an iOS or Android project file, you cannot build apk/ipa directly. You have to create a native iOS or Android app or have an existing one and integrate a native library for Lynx Engine, initialize LynxEnv, and load Lynx apps through Lynx views.
• Build time:
  • Since it doesn't have it own native ios / android project file during the Lynx app creation, build times depends on the project you're using to integrate it with. However the render time of lynx app is within miliseconds when loading in the LynxView.

Final Thoughts

Lynx is an exciting new player in the cross platform development space, offering a native performance-focused approach with dual-threaded architecture, CSS styling, etc. However, React Native remains more stable, mature, and widely supported.

So, will Lynx replace React Native? The answer is not yet, but I think it's definitely a framework to watch, especially for developers who prioritize native performance and are open to exploring new architectures. With support and contributions from the open source community, it has the potential to grow and become one of the major options for cross platform development.

Written by Low Wan Ting