React Native is a JavaScript-based framework that allows users to build iOS and Android mobile applications from scratch. Instead of using Java to program for an Android device or Swift or Objective-C for iOS, you can use React Native for both operating systems. As one of the top solutions for mobile development, many companies are embracing React Native for creating their apps and mobile portals.
With the global mobile app revenue projected to reach over $935 billion by 2023, according to Statista, learning React Native can be a lucrative skill for mobile developers. One of the best ways to grasp the core concepts of the framework and sharpen your skills is by challenging yourself with React Native projects. Hence, we’ve compiled several project ideas for beginners and experts to try.
5 Skills That React Native Projects Can Help You Practice
React Native is a popular solution for developers and programmers who want to build apps with excellent performance in web and mobile environments. Since React Native code is compatible with multiple platforms, it can help save time and money. Working on React Native projects will help you sharpen a wide range of skills, including:
- Navigation. All apps for iOS and Android devices must be user-friendly and provide smooth navigation. To do this, developers must know how to properly organize screens and pages.
- User interface design. A good user interface (UI) design ensures the app is easy to access, understand, and use. UI design requires front end programming skills as well as an excellent eye for the aesthetic.
- Debugging and testing. Mistakes always occur during the coding process. That’s why it’s crucial to test and debug applications before releasing them on the market.
- Expo. The Expo framework is popular for React applications. Being proficient with Expo can help users build and publish React Native apps faster as well as take advantage of native APIs. With Expo, you won’t need tools like Android Studio and Xcode.
- Full Stack development. For the more advanced project ideas, you’ll be combining front end and backend tools, thus effectively engaging in full stack development. Indeed, React Native is an excellent skill to learn if you want to become a full stack developer.
Best React Native Project Ideas for Beginners
Those who dream of seeing their creations in app stores can start their journey by completing a React Native project for beginners. These projects allow you to practice basic React Native components during the initial stage of your learning journey.
To-Do List App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Expo, basic coding
Many people have a tough time remembering and managing their daily tasks. This is why creating a to-do list app is a marketable idea. For this simple React Native and Expo project, you will be challenged to create a heading, task item, and task input field. Basic user actions include adding a new task and deleting it once it’s finished.
Calculator App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Basic coding
This simple project idea is great to learn about core React Native components, project hierarchy, and basic layout. This project consists of three components: a container, a number keyboard, and a history view.
Stopwatch App
- React Native Skills Practiced: JavaScript, iOS and Android development environment
For this project, you will build a stopwatch application that works on iOS and Android platforms. It should enable users to measure the time elapsed between two events. The app you create should contain a reset and a lap button. The latter allows you to retain multiple time intervals until the reset button is clicked.
Weather Forecast App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Navigation, UI design
In this project, React Native beginners will create a simple five-day weather forecast. The app should show the name of the city and its temperature, humidity, precipitation, and wind speed. It should have a responsive UI design with a display that is periodically updated to show the latest weather conditions.
Notes App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Navigation, Expo
Another project idea for React Native beginners is to build a note-taking application. This productivity app has basic functionalities, including creating and saving a note, list, or other text-based documents on your iOS or Android device. This React Native project for beginners doesn’t have a rich text editor option as that would require more advanced skills.
Best Intermediate React Native Project Ideas
If you’re no longer a complete beginner and have adequate knowledge about the common command and basics of the React Native code, it’s time to level up your skills. These intermediate-level project ideas involve a more challenging React Native code and React Native commands to test your understanding of the framework.
Calendar App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Coding, performance optimization
A calendar app for an iOS or Android device is a convenient and useful tool that can help users track dates and events. For this project idea, you will learn how to create a calendar component using the React Native framework. Using React Native code, you should be able to create an app that displays months and days of the week and highlights the current date.
Wallpaper App
- React Native Skills Practiced: UI design
If you love changing the wallpaper of your mobile device, this React Native application will allow you to save photos from a grid of wallpaper images. When you open the app, it will download random files from the Unsplash API. You should be able to click the photos to see full-size versions and download them.
News App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Navigation, UI design
In this project, you will create a news app with the React Native environment and the News API. Because this is a larger project, you will need to be smart about how you organize your React Native project folder. Furthermore, you will also install dependencies such as Redux, React-Redux, Redux Thunk, React Native Router Flux, and React Native Elements.
Food Recipe App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Navigation, UI design
For this iOS mobile platform project, you will create a food recipe app that contains login, home, and recipe screens with a scrollable header animation. It should show a navigation button for the home page, search option, bookmark page, and various settings. You can play around with the custom environment variables and style the various UI components as you see fit.
Music App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Navigation, backend development
If you’re a fan of Spotify and other similar streaming tools, then consider building your custom Native version. For this project, try to create a player that will use audio files from remote locations. It should include key features such as buttons to play, pause, skip, and navigate to the previous track.
Advanced React Native Project Ideas
Even if you’ve been experimenting with the mobile app development process and using React Native for years, there is always room for improvement. To help you reach your full potential as a React Native developer, we recommend trying your hand at these advanced-level project ideas.
Social Media App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Front end and backend development
Creating a social media app like Twitter or Facebook is challenging, but it will look good on your portfolio. In this advanced project, you will build an Instagram clone using React Native, Firebase, Firestore, Redux, and Expo. The user should be able to post photos, search for other users, and see their feed and profile.
Build a Messaging App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Expo, navigation
Given how popular messaging apps are, this is one of the best React Native projects to add to your portfolio. Like the project described above, this one requires React Native, Expo, and Firebase. You’ll have to create a server to collect the messages, a screen to display the names of the users, and another screen to send and receive messages.
Ecommerce App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Front end and backend development
An ecommerce tool allows users to buy anything they need, wherever they are. For this project, you will build a full stack online shopping app similar to Amazon. The application will include a search page with a scrollable list of products. Once a user clicks on an item, they should be sent to a page with the details of the product as well as Add to Cart and Buy Now buttons.
Expense Tracking App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Navigation, UI design
Some people have a hard time tracking their day-to-day expenses and budgeting their money. This expense tracker project will display your income, expenses, and balance. Your app should automatically update your cumulative expenses and balance. The expense tracker should also let the user edit old entries.
Taxi or Car Booking App
- React Native Skills Practiced: Navigation, UI design
Taxi and ride-hailing apps like Grab, Uber, Lyft, and Easy Taxi have been gaining popularity over the years due to their convenience, safety, and quick service. For this project idea, you will create an Uber clone using React Native, Redux, Tailwind CSS, and Google Autocomplete. The app will contain a fully interactive map with clickable points, map resizes, and distance calculations.
React Native Starter Project Templates
Although React Native significantly accelerates the development process, building an app from scratch can still be a challenging task. Here’s where React Native templates come in. With these helpful starter kits, you can begin your project with a solid code base and cut back on development time.
- React Native Elements. Your mobile application won’t be complete without React Native elements. This React Native template contains all the Native components your app needs, including buttons, headers, icons, images, and search bars.
- Recipe app template. This beautiful starter kit allows developers to build an app that shows food recipes. It includes a category feature, drawer menu, comprehensive search functionality, and a photo gallery.
- Template for TypeScript projects. This template can help kickstart your next React Native project if you want to use TypeScript. It’s clean, modest, and minimalist.
- Argon React Native. This fully coded template is for people who want to create a beautiful and powerful online shopping app. It’s built with React Native, Expo, and Galio.io. The template consists of 200 components, including cards, screens, navigations, and buttons.
- React Native Starter Kit. You can use this if you’re creating a social media app or another program that requires user management with Firebase. It includes components like email and password registration, Facebook login and logout, and more.
Next Steps: Start Organizing Your React Native Portfolio
When applying for jobs, consider showing potential employers a portfolio of the React Native mobile projects you’ve programmed. It will help them gauge your knowledge of the React Native environment and the skills that qualify you for the position. However, like other career portfolios, it must be well-prepared and organized to help you stand out.
Tailor it for the Role You Want
A React Native portfolio should be a collection of projects and works that demonstrates your knowledge, skills, and experience. However, if you’re targeting a specific job or company, you can tailor your portfolio to that particular role or brand. For example, if you’re trying to land a job at Facebook, it might be a good idea to list projects that involve messenger or social media apps.
Showcase Your Best Work
It may be tempting to include all your works in your portfolio, especially if you have not done a lot of projects. However, most potential employers and clients will only spend a few minutes looking at your portfolio. To ensure they have a chance to admire your best work, list only the projects that you are most proud of.
Create an Appealing Design
If your portfolio doesn’t have an appealing and responsive design on both desktop and mobile platforms, prospective employers and clients may doubt your expertise as a React Native developer. Take time to create a portfolio that looks good and is easy to use and navigate.
React Native Projects FAQ
By building projects, you can learn the theory and concepts behind React Native and how to apply them during development. These projects provide the perfect opportunity to practice programming and understand how each line of code affects the React Native application. You’ll learn how to create an app from scratch and gain problem-solving skills.
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React Native enables the mobile developer to build mobile apps across different platforms. This means that you can use the same code for iOS and Android devices, for example. React Native is perfect if you want to achieve a streamlined user interface design. Moreover, this framework has a huge community of developers that will aid you in whichever project you take on.
Well-known companies using this JavaScript-based framework include Bloomberg, Facebook, Uber Eats, Airbnb, Discord, Instagram, Skype, Pinterest, Walmart, and Wix.
React Native is a JavaScript-based framework used to build mobile applications across multiple platforms. On the other hand, ReactJS is a JavaScript library used for building websites. Both complement each other.
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