React Native is one of the most popular and capable mobile app development frameworks available today. Developers often use it across the world to create iOS and Android apps for clients who want to target both platforms without developing two native apps from scratch. However, if you think creating a React Native app from scratch is a piece of cake, think again. It can be a very tedious, time-consuming, and repetitive process.
But worry not, React Native has a solution for this too – React Native Starter Kits. These are generally known as React Native boilerplates. These starter kits are developed by credible React Native developers who would have undergone the pain of working on a project from scratch themselves.
What are React Native Starter Kits?
Starter kits are a set of readymade UI components with a carefully planned design and a well-thought project structure for future apps. It works as a template and guideline for quickly setting up your React Native app with minimum effort or time needed to configure it. These starter kits are generally toolkits with a set of tools for building your app. They aren’t governed by strict rules and work more like guidelines that you can choose to follow or omit as per your project requirements and understanding. When you hire React Native developers for your mobile app project, make sure they know how to use the React Starter Kits mentioned in the list below –
1. React Native Starter by Mcnamee
GitHub Stats – Star (1.9k) | Fork (591) | License – MPL-2.0 License
React Native Starter has an architecture that can be used for creating highly scalable apps. React Native development best practices follow to provide developers with several rich features and a fully functional app starter. It comes with Firebase integration out of the box. Using this React Native Starter Kit, you can get a seamless onboarding flow for React Native apps with Facebook Login, Normal Login, Registration, Persistent Login Credentials, etc.
React Native Starter Kit Includes –
- State Management – Redux
- Routing and Navigation – React Native Router
- UI Design – NativeBase
- Icons – React Native Vector Icons
- REST Servers – Axios
- Testing – Jest Framework
2. Ignite by Infinite Red
GitHub Stats – Star (13.7k) | Fork (1.1k) | License – MIT License
Ignite is one of the most comprehensive and loved to React Native Boilerplate toolkits with component/model generators, CLI, and many more useful React Native development tools. It can be used with Expo and a basic React Native installer out-of-the-box. With Ignite, the default boilerplates install in seconds; it almost acts as a generator for React Native. It comes with many plugins, and you can start one as per your needs.
Unlike many starter kits on this list, this one doesn’t have a runtime as it is a developer tool. It works seamlessly on all platforms like macOS, Windows, and Linux, a major advantage. Ignite can be used to develop a single opinionated component and a starter app. This starter kit comes with component examples, API doc testing, generators CLI, and many others.
Ignite Starter Kit Includes –
- State Management – MobX
- Routing and Navigation – React Navigation
- REST Servers – Apisauce
- Testing – Jest Framework
3. React Native Boilerplate by TheCodingMachine
GitHub Stats – Star (2.9k) | Fork (606) | License – MIT License
React Native Boilerplate is one of the most popularly used React Native starter kits for developing cross-platform mobile apps. It uses separation of concerns between business logic, state management, and the UI. It provides impressive architecture. What stands out the most about this React Native starter kit is its comprehensive documentation so developers can understand all code available in this kit and use it optimally.
React Native Boilerplate extends its separation of concerns concept to separate Presentational components from Containers. As the name suggests, presentational components are concerned with how the app will look, while Containers are more concerned with how everything works.
React Native Boilerplate Starter Kit Includes –
- State Management – Redux
- Routing and Navigation – React Navigation
- REST Servers – Axios
- Testing – Jest Framework
4. ReactNativeSeed by GeekyAnts
GitHub Stats – Star (17.4k) | Fork (2.2k) | License – MIT License
ReactNativeSeed is a repository of various React Native boilerplates provided by GeekyAnts. Developers can choose and pick all the features they would like their boilerplate to have. It provides absolute flexibility for developers to choose between different React libraries for different requirements. Although React Native Starter Kits are designed to be opinionated with decided tools for decided purposes, this tool allows developers some breathing space to make their own decisions and only select the assets they want before downloading the boilerplate. It has a very easy-to-follow website where you are provided with a list of options to select from, after which you can copy the code to paste it directly on the terminal or download it. It also provides an optional emailer option if you want to be updated when their next version arrives. You can toggle between Android and iOS easily as well.
React Native Seed Starter Kit Includes –
- Typing – TypeScript or Flow
- State Management – Redux or MobX
- Stack – CRNA or React Native
- Routing and Navigation – React Navigation
- UI Design – NativeBase
- Icons – React Native Vector Icons
- Testing – Jest Framework
5. React Native Boilerplate by victorkvarghese
GitHub Stats – Star (509) | Fork (196) | License – MIT License
React Native Boilerplate works as a great React Native Starter Kit with a flexible app architecture. It can be seamlessly and efficiently used for all small to medium app projects. One of the unique selling points of this React Native Starter Kit is that it provides routing and navigation with authentication flow.
React Native Boilerplate Starter Kit Includes –
- State Management – Redux
- Routing and Navigation – React Navigation
- UI Design – React Native Paper
- Icons – React Native Vector Icons
- REST Servers – Axios
- Testing – Jest Framework
6. Snowflake by Bartonhammond
GitHub Stats – Star (4.6k) | Fork (644) | License – MIT License
Snowflake is yet another unique React Native Starter Mobile App that can be used as a template or boilerplate for your Android and iOS app with a single codebase, two backend options, and more. The code is written as per JS standard and is validated by ES Lint. It supports multiple languages such as English, Spanish, and French using I18N. Snowflake also supports hot reloading of its state.
Snowflake React Native Starter Kit Includes –
- State Management – Redux
- Routing and Navigation – React Native Router Flux
- Icons – React Native Vector Icons
- REST Servers – Axios
- Testing – Jest Framework
Final Words
These are the top 6 React Native Starter Kits you should use for starting your React Native project and speeding up your overall app development process resulting in a reduction of time-to-market, enabling you to develop and deploy your React Native app on the Google Playstore and Apple App Store quicker. It will also help you focus your time and efforts on strategizing how to make your app better than your competitors instead of worrying about basic coding and project onboarding processes. These kits provide guidelines and suggestions that give developers a sense of clarity about their project and help them select a React Native app development roadmap and structure to follow.
