Expo

Three strengths

• Builds in the cloud. Expo can compile your app on its servers, with no need to install each phone maker's own tools. 2
• Ready-made phone features. A standard library of ready-made tools covers the phone's features, such as the camera. 1 4
• Stays current. Expo tracks React Native as it changes: when React Native moved to its New Architecture, Expo made it the default for new projects in version 52. 5

What it is

A phone app needs more than screens: it needs navigation, access to the camera and other parts of the phone, a way of being packaged into a file, and a route onto the Apple App Store and Google Play. React Native provides the building blocks, and Expo is a framework on top of it, a ready-made foundation so a team doesn't assemble those parts alone. Expo is a React Native framework that makes developing Android and iOS apps easier. 1

Expo was founded in 2015, 3 and co-founder Charlie Cheever, who had earlier co-founded Quora, has said he was "so frustrated by how hard it seemed to build anything in mobile" that he persuaded fellow co-founder James Ide to build it with him. 4

On top of React Native, Expo supplies file-based routing, which organises screens the way files are organised so the structure is easy to follow, and a standard library of ready-made tools for the phone's features, such as the camera. 1 4 Its cloud service, EAS Build, compiles the app without anyone installing the phone makers' own software (Xcode and Android Studio), and EAS Submit then uploads the finished app to the stores. 2

Expo also tracks React Native as it changes. When React Native moved to its New Architecture (a rewrite of its inner workings), Expo made it the default for new projects in version 52 and always on from version 55. 5 We choose it for that reason, among others: a team building on Expo isn't left behind when the phones and React Native change.

How we use it

Expo is the framework we choose for our React Native apps in our recent work, where earlier builds used React Native on its own. We moved because Expo is easier to work with day to day, and because it keeps supporting new versions of the phone operating systems and of React Native as they change.

We build with it under our Software Development service, alongside React Native, TypeScript and a component library called Gluestack UI, which does for our mobile apps what Chakra UI does for our websites. That's how your app reaches the stores and keeps working as Apple and Google update their phones.

We use AI-assisted tools to draft and prototype screens quickly. Once an idea is settled, we test it on both iPhone and Android and polish it before we ship it to you.

References

1. Expo, "Introduction", Expo documentation. https://docs.expo.dev/get-started/introduction/ (accessed 28 October 2026)
2. Expo, "Development workflow overview", Expo documentation. https://docs.expo.dev/workflow/overview/ (accessed 28 October 2026)
3. Expo, "About", expo.dev. https://expo.dev/about (accessed 28 October 2026)
4. Ball, K. (host), "Expo with Charlie Cheever and James Ide", Software Engineering Daily, episode 1775, transcript, 2024. https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SED1775-Expo.txt (accessed 28 October 2026)
5. Expo, "New Architecture", Expo documentation. https://docs.expo.dev/guides/new-architecture/ (accessed 28 October 2026)