Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

React Native Desktop VS esbuild

Compare React Native Desktop VS esbuild and see what are their differences

React Native Desktop logo React Native Desktop

Build OS X desktop apps using React Native

esbuild logo esbuild

An extremely fast JavaScript bundler and minifier
  • React Native Desktop Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-30
  • esbuild Landing page
    Landing page //
    2024-05-07

React Native Desktop features and specs

  • Cross-Platform Code Sharing
    React Native Desktop allows for code sharing between mobile and desktop platforms, reducing development time and effort. This promotes a unified codebase across iOS, Android, and macOS platforms.
  • React Ecosystem
    Developers can leverage the extensive ecosystem of React and React Native, including libraries, tools, and community support, thus simplifying development and benefiting from existing solutions.
  • Hot Reloading
    React Native Desktop supports hot reloading, which allows developers to see changes immediately without rebuilding the whole application. This greatly enhances development speed and productivity.
  • Native Performance
    React Native Desktop aims to deliver a performance close to native applications on macOS, allowing for smooth user experience and efficient utilization of the system's resources.

Possible disadvantages of React Native Desktop

  • Immature Project
    React Native Desktop is still a relatively young project compared to its mobile counterpart. It may lack some stability, advanced features, and support that are available in more mature frameworks.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers familiar with only web development might find it challenging to adapt to React Native's paradigms and native coding patterns required for desktop applications.
  • Limited macOS-Specific Components
    There might be fewer out-of-the-box components and libraries tailored for macOS when compared to those available for mobile, requiring more custom implementation work.
  • No Official Support
    As an open-source project, React Native Desktop doesn't have official support from Facebook or a large organization, which might lead to slower updates and a greater reliance on community contributions.

esbuild features and specs

  • Speed
    esbuild is known for its blazing-fast performance because it is written in Go and optimized for efficiency. This makes it significantly faster than many other popular build tools.
  • Simplicity
    esbuild has a minimalistic and straightforward configuration, making it easy to set up and use without needing to navigate through complex configuration files.
  • Tree Shaking
    esbuild supports tree shaking, which helps in eliminating dead code, thereby resulting in smaller bundle sizes and improved performance.
  • TypeScript Support
    esbuild has built-in support for TypeScript, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate TypeScript into their build process without needing additional configuration.
  • CommonJS and ES Module Support
    esbuild supports both CommonJS and ES modules, providing flexibility in how modules are imported and exported.
  • Bundling
    esbuild can bundle multiple JavaScript files, resolving dependencies and optimizing the output, which is beneficial for production-ready applications.

Possible disadvantages of esbuild

  • Limited Plugin Ecosystem
    Compared to more mature tools like Webpack or Rollup, esbuild has a relatively smaller ecosystem of plugins, which might limit some advanced customization and integration capabilities.
  • Less Mature
    As a newer tool, esbuild might have less extensive community support and fewer resources such as tutorials and documentation compared to older and more established build tools.
  • Feature Parity
    While esbuild covers many essential features, it may lack some advanced features found in other build tools, potentially requiring additional tools or workarounds for complex scenarios.
  • Non-Configurable Output
    esbuild's approach to simplicity sometimes means less configurability compared to other tools. This might be restrictive for projects that require highly customized or specific build outputs.
  • Source Map Support
    While esbuild does support source maps, its support might be less comprehensive compared to some other build tools, potentially causing issues during debugging.

React Native Desktop videos

No React Native Desktop videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

esbuild videos

ESBuild and SWC: Worth your time?

More videos:

  • Review - Let's talk about esbuild
  • Tutorial - Introduction to ESBuild tutorial for React / JavaScript and Typescript bundling. Bye bye Webpack

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to React Native Desktop and esbuild)
Developer Tools
42 42%
58% 58
JS Build Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Development Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Design Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using React Native Desktop and esbuild. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, esbuild seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 142 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

React Native Desktop mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of React Native Desktop yet. Tracking of React Native Desktop recommendations started around Mar 2021.

esbuild mentions (142)

  • Understanding how Vite deals with your node_modules
    Pre-bundle all the dependencies on the "optimization boundary" list into node_modules/.vite/deps/ folder. This step is done by esbuild. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Show HN: Nue – Apps lighter than a React button
    5. Show me metrics: https://esbuild.github.io/ nailed this one. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Extensible WASM Applications with Go
    ESBuild is a bundler. The subtitle on the website is literally “An extremely fast bundler for the web”. To bundle, pass —-bundle flag. https://esbuild.github.io/. - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • How I Built a SpeedtestTracker with Raspberry PI and AWS Lambda
    Esbuild for bunding both the client and server separately. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Custom builder for Angular: My way
    Micro-frontend has always aroused my curiosity: I wanted to understand how they work, how to build them, what their pros and cons are. In 2018, inspired by this topic, I tried to build something similar to single-spa in one of the pet projects. At that time, there was no Webpack Module Federation (WMF), and Webpack itself seemed inconvenient. The choice fell on ESBuild and importmap. Browser support for importmap... - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing React Native Desktop and esbuild, you can also consider the following products

React Native - A framework for building native apps with React

Vite - Next Generation Frontend Tooling

Deco IDE - Best IDE for building React Native apps

Webpack - Webpack is a module bundler. Its main purpose is to bundle JavaScript files for usage in a browser, yet it is also capable of transforming, bundling, or packaging just about any resource or asset.

NativeBase - Experience the awesomeness of React Native without the pain

rollup.js - Rollup is a module bundler for JavaScript which compiles small pieces of code into a larger piece such as application.