Shopify spent years on React Native — then rebuilt everything in 12 weeks
In 2020, Shopify made a bet that resonated across the developer world by writing mobile code once in React Native The post Shopify spent years on React Native — then rebuilt everything in 12 weeks appeared first on The New Stack .
In 2020, Shopify adopted React Native for mobile app development, avoiding the need to duplicate code in Swift and Kotlin. Recently, the company announced a major shift back to full native development for its consumer app, Shop, which took just 12 weeks to move from a proof of concept to a fully native production release. The merchant app, a complex 300-plus screen application, will follow suit.
Despite initially viewing React Native as a successful bet, Shopify CEO Mustafa Ali revealed that advances in AI agents have made cross-platform development less necessary. By late 2025, Shopify found that agents could automatically convert features between iOS and Android, or vice versa, enabling engineers to work on unfamiliar platforms more easily.
This shift in capabilities influenced Shopify's decision to prioritize native development. Companies like Bun creator Jarred Sumner have also harnessed AI agents, using 64 parallel Claude Fable 5 instances to port JavaScript from Zig to Rust in just 11 days. However, the use of AI agents has its challenges. While they can speed up certain tasks, they can also introduce new complexities and costs.
Shopify's solution is Helix, an internal system that breaks the migration process into manageable pieces, reviews the agent's output, and ensures the code remains maintainable. This approach allows Shopify to leverage AI agents while minimizing potential downsides.
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