This week, we have a lot of interesting content about Next.js, with a new major release dropping just before their flagship conf. But also fair criticisms showing that not everyone is satisfied with the framework.
On the mobile side, React Native developers will enjoy improved support for iOS 26 and the ability to provide native iOS header items. BottomTabs is now v1, and Solito v5 dropped with a paradigm change.
Letโs also welcome a new co-author of this newsletter: Armand Petit helped me on the React Native section.
As always, thanks for supporting us on your favorite platform:
The new major version of Next.js just dropped as a stable release, just before Next.js Conf 2025, which is currently taking place. Weโll cover the conf announcements next week, in particular the new Cache Components features that is quite an important piece to explore.
The beta was already out 2 weeks ago with the following highlights:
Turbopack (stable): enabled by default. Promises up to 5-10x faster Fast Refresh, and 2-5x faster builds
Turbopack file system caching (beta): Faster startup and compile times
React Compiler Support (stable): need to be manually enabled
Optimized navigations and prefetching: Prefetching multiple URLs that share a layout now downloads that layout only once which cuts down on network transfer size.
Improved Caching APIs: New updateTag() and refined revalidateTag()
Build Adapters API (alpha): Create custom adapters to modify the build process
React 19.2: , View Transitions, useEffectEvent
Since the beta, they have also introduced new exciting features:
Cache Components: New model using Partial Pre-Rendering (PPR) and โuse cacheโ for instant navigation.
Next.js Devtools MCP: Model Context Protocol integration for improved debugging and workflow
Proxy: Middleware replaced by proxy.ts to clarify the network boundary
DX: Improved logging for builds and development requests
๐ Async React demo: The code and demo app of Rick Hanlonโs talk at React Conf, showing how to leverage async React features to obtain a great UX no matter the network conditions.
๐ shadcn/ui Forms documentation: shadcn/ui introduced new guides to build forms with various frameworks. It recently introduced a new component that you should now prefer over the component (not actively developed anymore). See also this deep dive video on the new Field component by Web Dev Simplified.
๐ TanStack DevTools - Plugin Marketplace docs: TanStack DevTools is offering first-party plugins but also let you contribute third-party plugins to a marketplace that users can install (see also this tweet)
๐ RNLConf - ๐ฌ๐ง London - 13-14 Nov. First speakers announced: Saad Najmi (Microsoft), Kadi Kraman (Expo), Jay Meistrich (Bravely), and Enzo Manuel Mangano (Reactive). Get a 10% discount with code "TWIR".
๐ React Server Components: Do They Really Improve Performance?: A comprehensive and data-driven comparison of CSR, SSR, and RSC using the same app and test setup. The RSC version only improved performance by refactoring the app and introducing Suspense boundaries, and despite the optimizations, the client-side app still takes a long time to become interactive.
๐ One Year with Next.js App Router โ Why We're Moving On: The dev who implemented RSC bundling in Bun expresses his frustration using Next.js and RSC in a well-documented and fair criticism, and how/why he migrated his companyโs frontend to TanStack Start.
๐ Remix Jam 2025 Recap: Another official summary of the Remix conf. It introduces Remix v3 (not based on React anymore), but also covers React Router talks.
๐ Running Next.js inside ChatGPT: A deep dive into native app integration: Vercel engineers figured out how to bridge the gap to get Next.js working inside ChatGPT through the new OpenAI Apps SDK, despite the triple-layer iframe protection. Many steps are involved, but they provide a template to get started asap.
๐ The killer feature of Web Components: TIL about Custom Elements Manifest that gives the ability to automatically generate React wrapper components for using custom elements. A bit late, since this is mostly useful for React < 19.
๐ซStop burning the budget on basic data grid features! LyteNyte Grid Core is a free React data grid with the capabilities and performance youโd expect from a paid library.
At just 36kb gzipped, LyteNyte unlocks the premium features other grids lock behind a paywall, such as aggregation, row grouping, data export, and more. Built in React for React, it can be headless or pre-styled, and our clean, declarative API means no more awkward integrations or workarounds.
If youโre not looking for an invoice, start with LyteNyte Grid Core today.
Solito, the library that connects React Native and Next.js navigation, has reached its fifth version and further simplifies life for cross-platform developers.
This major upgrade removes the dependency on react-native-web: on the web side, Solito components now return native Next.js components, with direct support for DOM props. The goal is to let you write pure Next.js for the web, while maintaining an identical API on the mobile side, without any special configuration.
This new version also includes:
No more react-native-web โ Solito components such as , or directly re-export Next.js components and accept className, style, etc.
Headless components on the web โ no default styles; it's up to you to use Tailwind/CSS.
Support for Next.js 16 & Expo SDK 54 โ the monorepo examples have been updated with Turbopack and the new versions of Next.js and Expo.
Fixes & improvements โ the useSearchParams hook now works correctly on mobile, and .web.tsx files are being phased out in favour of .native.tsx for native code.
โ
๐ฌ RFC: Strip Flow Types - community proposal to remove all Flow annotations from React Nativeโs core codebase. This would simplify maintenance, reduce build complexity, and mark a full transition toward a TypeScript-first ecosystem.
๐ฆ React ImGui Demo - Tzvetan Mikov shows a native app built with React and Dear ImGui using Static Hermes
๐ฆ Expo Skia Template - starter for using Skia with Expo Router using Suspense to load Skia on web - โnpx create-expo -e with skiaโ
๐ Read Online Hi everyone! Filip and Krzysztof from Software Mansion here! ๐ Itโs been another challenging week for the React ecosystem. Developers worldwide have been rushing to update their React versions to patch two new vulnerabilities. This serves as a good reminder for all of us to prioritize security during testing. Fortunately, React Native remains mostly unaffected by these threats, as Server Components arenโt yet widely used in the mobile environment. We are taking a well-deserved...
๐ Read Online Hi everyone! This week, it remains important for me to raise awareness about the React Server Components vulnerability, since an exploit is now widely available. Thankfully, we also have more positive React content to check with Fate, TanStack Alpha, React Grab, and more. Itโs even hotter on the React Native side. We were patiently waiting for 0.83 to publish ๐ and itโs now out. You can now use <Activity> in React Native ๐ฅ. Reanimated 4.2 is also out with Shared Elements...
๐ Read Online Hi everyone! A major React 19 Server Functions vulnerability has just been disclosed. Make sure to upgrade your React 19 or meta-framework ASAP! On the mobile side, we have more positive news: RNRepo should speed up our React Native builds even more, and Shared Elements Transitions are coming soon! (unlike React Native 1.0 ๐ ) Donโt forget to answer the State of React 2025 survey while itโs still open! As always, thanks for supporting us on your favorite platform: ๐ฆ Bluesky โ๏ธ X...
