React Native apps that feel fast, stable, and worth keeping installed
Your users compare your product to the smoothest apps on their phone. If your React Native or Expo app hesitates on launch, stutters when scrolling, or crashes on mid-range Android, they quietly churn and your KPIs take the hit.
BYBOWU is a Phoenix-based, globally working team that designs, builds, and tunes high-performance React Native apps. We work with founders, product leaders, and operations teams who care about measurable outcomes: faster startup, smoother interactions, lower crash rates, and better conversion on the screens that drive revenue.
You will not get buzzwords and hand-wavy "optimizations". You get a senior team that can show, in metrics and real-device recordings, how your app behaves today and what actually improves.
When this React Native performance service is the right move
This is a focused variant of our broader mobile app development services, aimed at teams that already have or are close to launching a React Native or Expo app.
It is usually time to talk to us when:
- Startup feels slow: cold starts drag past 3 seconds on mid-range Android, or the splash screen hangs before the first interactive screen.
- Scrolling is janky: feeds, catalogs, or dashboards stutter, and your app feels clearly worse than native peers.
- Production is unstable: crash spikes after releases, ANRs on Android, or memory issues during longer sessions.
- Network behavior hurts UX: slow data on cellular networks, duplicate or chatty calls, poor offline behavior.
- The codebase is growing fast: more features, more developers, and no one truly owns performance.
If this sounds familiar, we step in as a senior React Native partner, not just extra hands wiring components.
How we improve React Native and Expo performance
We use a structured, data-driven process so every change is intentional and easy to trace back to user impact and business goals.
1. Performance audit and benchmarks
We start with a short discovery call, then profile your current app on real iOS and Android devices.
- Measure cold and warm start time to first interactive screen.
- Track frame rate and jank on critical flows like onboarding, search, and checkout.
- Analyze memory usage and leaks, including image and media behavior.
- Inspect bundle size, dependencies, and navigation patterns.
- Review crash and ANR data from tools like Sentry or Crashlytics.
Typical tooling includes Flipper plugins, Hermes profiling, Xcode Instruments, Android Studio Profiler, React DevTools, and Expo EAS traces.
2. Prioritized performance plan
We translate findings into a pragmatic roadmap that fits your release schedule and budget.
- A ranked backlog of optimizations with impact vs effort estimates.
- Specific targets per device tier, such as under 2 seconds to usable UI on mid-range Android.
- Decisions around Hermes, Fabric/TurboModules readiness, and navigation strategy.
- A clear focus on money screens: onboarding, search, carts, booking, or internal workflows.
3. Implementation sprints
We work in focused sprints, usually 1–3 weeks, so you see visible improvements regularly instead of a risky big refactor.
- Rendering and navigation: Hermes tuning, Fabric-ready patterns, native-stack navigation when appropriate, route-level code splitting, and memoization to avoid unnecessary re-renders.
- Lists and dense UIs: FlatList tuning (windowing, getItemLayout, keys), lightweight skeleton states, and UI adjustments that keep the GPU and JS thread under control.
- Networking and caching: HTTP tuning, React Query or similar data layers, prefetching, offline-friendly flows, and faster local storage with options like MMKV.
- Images and media: correct sizing, caching strategy, and asset optimization to reduce memory pressure and bandwidth.
- Runtime and memory: deferring non-critical work, trimming polyfills, cleaning up listeners and timers, and optimizing heavy modules such as maps, cameras, or charts.
- Gestures and animations: Reanimated and Gesture Handler patterns that keep animations on the UI thread, away from JS bottlenecks.
4. Guardrails, monitoring, and handover
Performance is not a one-time event. We help you protect the gains as your app and team grow.
- Crash and performance dashboards with useful spans, breadcrumbs, and views for the product team.
- Alerts and budgets for startup time, JS stalls, memory, and ANRs so regressions are caught early.
- Release hygiene with feature flags, staged rollouts, and rollback plans so you can ship confidently.
- Developer playbooks and checklists so new features do not quietly erode performance.
What you get from a BYBOWU engagement
We keep deliverables tangible so you can line them up against what you are investing.
- Performance audit report: metrics, flame charts, bottleneck analysis, and prioritized recommendations.
- Implementation sprints: code changes shipped behind flags, validated on real devices, and reviewed with your team.
- Before/after evidence: videos, screenshots, and metric comparisons for key flows such as startup, lists, and checkout.
- Performance playbook: guidance on lists, images, navigation, and state management tailored to your stack, Expo or bare React Native.
- Guardrails in place: monitoring and basic budgets so you know when a future release regresses.
We can act as a hands-on engineering unit, as senior reviewers guiding your in-house or offshore team, or a mix of both.
What you can order
- React Native performance audit — a 1–2 week engagement where we profile your app, document bottlenecks, and deliver a clear optimization backlog with suggested priorities.
- Startup time and navigation sprint — focused on cold/warm start, navigation architecture, and code splitting so users reach value faster.
- Scrolling and UI smoothness sprint — targeted work on lists, gestures, and animations for catalog-style, social, or content-heavy apps.
- Offline and weak-network optimization — data-layer, caching, and sync improvements for field, logistics, or marketplace apps used on the move.
- React Native + Expo modernization — upgrading React Native/Expo, introducing Hermes and modern libraries, and cleaning legacy patterns without a full rewrite.
- Ongoing React Native performance partner — a recurring engagement where we join planning, review key PRs, and run periodic audits as your app grows.
Proof it works in the real world
Marketplace app with heavy product browsing
For a modern fashion marketplace, we helped a React Native front end feel closer to native by tuning product feeds, images, and navigation. The result was a smoother browsing experience and fewer support complaints about app slowness.
Rental and roommate matching platform
A growing housing platform needed its mobile experience to match web demand. We optimized onboarding and search flows in their app so users could move from search to request without hitting loading walls.
Wholesale and dropshipping operations
For a wholesale and dropshipping product, we focused on making order and catalog screens reliable on real devices in the field, reducing friction for busy operators and support teams.
To see how we think about complex products, explore our portfolio. While many of those projects are web-focused, the same product-first thinking drives our React Native work.
Why choose BYBOWU for high-performance React Native apps
- Senior-only performance work — the people profiling and tuning your app have already lived through slow-start, jank, and crash issues on real products, not just sample apps.
- Product and engineering under one roof — we understand that improving FPS only matters if it also improves conversion, retention, or team efficiency, and we frame work in those terms.
- Process built for busy teams — you get clear scopes, timelines, and before/after reports, so you can defend the investment internally.
- Comfortable with complex stacks — we are used to React Native apps that talk to Laravel, Node, or Python backends and web dashboards, and can coordinate with your web or backend teams.
- Long-term partners, not one-off coders — from Phoenix, AZ to clients across the US and abroad, we stay available for maintenance and future sprints as your roadmap evolves.
How working together usually looks
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Intro call (30–45 minutes)
You walk us through your app, stack (Expo or bare), and the flows that feel slow or fragile. We align on business goals, target devices, and timelines.
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Lightweight audit and proposal
We run initial profiling on your current build and return with a plan: focus areas, suggested packages, and estimated timelines. This usually happens within 48 hours.
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Performance sprint or package
We execute the agreed package in short sprints. You get progress updates, demo builds, and visibility into the tradeoffs we are making.
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Review and handoff
We review before/after data with your team, walk through code changes, and hand over documentation and playbooks.
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Ongoing support if needed
If you want a long-term partner, we can continue with periodic audits, code reviews, and joint planning on your mobile roadmap.
Questions founders usually ask
What budget range should we expect?
A focused audit and recommendations typically start in the low five figures. Implementation sprints depend on scope and current app health. On our first call we will give a realistic range and, if needed, suggest a smaller starting package that still produces visible gains.
Will performance work slow down our feature roadmap?
We prefer to work alongside your roadmap, not against it. We use feature flags, small PRs, and staged rollouts so you can keep shipping features while we remove bottlenecks. When a short freeze makes sense, we explain why and keep it contained.
Is Expo fast enough for serious production apps?
Yes. With current Expo SDKs, Hermes, and EAS Build, Expo apps can be very fast. When you need performance-critical native modules, we plan a safe prebuild or bare migration path so you keep Expo where it helps and drop it where it blocks you.
Can you work with our existing in-house or offshore team?
Absolutely. Many clients already have internal or external teams. We plug in through code reviews, architecture sessions, and pairing, so your team can maintain and extend the improvements after our engagement.
Do you also help with design and product improvements?
Yes. If UX is part of the performance problem (for example, overcomplicated screens or flows), we can bring in our UI/UX design team or React Native UI/UX specialists to simplify interactions while we tune the code.
Can you also build new React Native apps from scratch?
Yes. If you are earlier in the journey, our custom React Native app development services and rapid React Native and Expo packages are a better fit. We can plan a new build with performance best practices baked in from day one.
Talk to a senior React Native team
If your React Native or Expo app feels slower than it should, we can help you quantify the problem and ship improvements your users and metrics will notice.
- Email [email protected] with your stack (Expo or bare), a short description of your app, and your top three problem flows.
- We typically respond within 1–2 business days with a suggested audit scope, timeline, and budget range.
- Prefer a quick form? Reach out via our contact page and mention "React Native performance".
Whether you are near Phoenix or operating across multiple regions, we are ready to help you ship a faster, more reliable app.
