Framework · 2015–now · Platform Wars
React Native
React components on native views. Share logic with web until platform differences ruin your sprint.
React Native stuck because web teams could ship mobile without learning two platform religions. Bridge pain and upgrade churn are real taxes. Still cheaper than twin native teams for many product shapes.
Case studies
Context
Frameworks fought for the runtime
Front-end frameworks consolidated power; TypeScript became table stakes; Next and friends absorbed routing, data, and deploy gravity. Serverless and Jamstack rebranded old ideas with better CDNs, then cooled when auth and personalization refused to stay static. Blockchain-for-CRUD and big-bang rewrites collected dumb budgets. The winners were boring platforms with ecosystems — React gravity, Rust where systems care, Vite for greenfield bundling. The losers were narratives that skipped product-market fit or treated every App Router rewrite as destiny.
Compare with
Related
Framework · 2013–now
React
Components and unidirectional data. Won the front-end by being good enough and having a gravitational ecosystem.
Framework · 2017–now
Flutter
Paint your own pixels on iOS and Android from one codebase. Google's bet against native UI fragmentation.
Practice · 2010–now
Mobile-first / Responsive
Design for the small screen first. Became table stakes, not a differentiator.