Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 days ago
Some animations do not need a full animation engine. Sometimes you just want a view to fade in, translate, or move slowly without burning frame budget every time the UI thread gets busy.
Łukasz Chludziński talks with Janic Duplessis from App & Flow about React Native Ease, a small animation library built around platform-native primitives. They cover early React Native days, why Reanimated is still the right tool for complex interactions, and where a simpler React-like API can make sense.
Key takeaways:
- Why React Native Ease was created and what problem it solves
- How Core Animation can run animations outside the UI thread on iOS
- Why simple transitions do not always need Reanimated’s full flexibility
- Where Reanimated remains the right tool, especially for gestures and complex interactions
- How animation performance relates to frame budget, not just visible frame drops
- Why React Native’s maturity shifts more innovation into third-party libraries
- How focused open-source tools can push the whole ecosystem forward
Janic Duplessis is a developer at App & Flow and the creator of React Native Ease. He has been working with React Native since the early iOS-only days and has contributed to React Native Core, including work around animation internals and native-driver concepts.
Check out episode resources on our website 📚
Catch more React Universe On Air episodes 🎧 callstack.com/podcast
Sign up for our newsletter ✉️ callstack.com/newsletter
Follow us on X 🐦 https://x.com/callstackio
00:00 Intro
01:08 Starting React Native when it was iOS-only
02:11 WebView apps, Cordova, and early mobile work
03:00 Why React Native felt like a jump forward
04:04 Finding and fixing early React Native bugs
05:22 Why contributing to React Native Core is harder now
06:23 Where third-party libraries drive the ecosystem today
07:39 The animation gap React Native Ease is built to fill
08:33 Animated, native driver, and the pre-Reanimated era
10:15 Core Animation on iOS
12:16 Why platform knowledge still matters in React Native
13:59 What React Native Ease is
15:18 What the library supports and what it avoids
16:58 A simple component API for transitions
19:05 State changes as animation triggers
21:38 Lists, shared values, and overhead
24:40 What the benchmark variants measure
25:26 Frame budget and UI-thread cost
26:41 Why iOS can do almost no UI-thread work here
28:50 Android and fairer benchmark comparisons
30:22 Reanimated as the flexible workhorse
31:38 Why React Native Ease started as a separate library
32:22 Core Animation ideas coming back into Reanimated
32:49 The client onboarding animation that started it
35:04 From internal module to open source
36:17 Why slow motion makes dropped frames obvious
37:57 When to use React Native Ease
40:01 What comes next for the library
Some animations do not need a full animation engine. Sometimes you just want a view to fade in, translate, or move slowly without burning frame budget every time the UI thread gets busy.
Łukasz Chludziński talks with Janic Duplessis from App & Flow about React Native Ease, a small animation library built around platform-native primitives. They cover early React Native days, why Reanimated is still the right tool for complex interactions, and where a simpler React-like API can make sense.
Key takeaways:
- Why React Native Ease was created and what problem it solves
- How Core Animation can run animations outside the UI thread on iOS
- Why simple transitions do not always need Reanimated’s full flexibility
- Where Reanimated remains the right tool, especially for gestures and complex interactions
- How animation performance relates to frame budget, not just visible frame drops
- Why React Native’s maturity shifts more innovation into third-party libraries
- How focused open-source tools can push the whole ecosystem forward
Janic Duplessis is a developer at App & Flow and the creator of React Native Ease. He has been working with React Native since the early iOS-only days and has contributed to React Native Core, including work around animation internals and native-driver concepts.
Check out episode resources on our website 📚
Catch more React Universe On Air episodes 🎧 callstack.com/podcast
Sign up for our newsletter ✉️ callstack.com/newsletter
Follow us on X 🐦 https://x.com/callstackio
00:00 Intro
01:08 Starting React Native when it was iOS-only
02:11 WebView apps, Cordova, and early mobile work
03:00 Why React Native felt like a jump forward
04:04 Finding and fixing early React Native bugs
05:22 Why contributing to React Native Core is harder now
06:23 Where third-party libraries drive the ecosystem today
07:39 The animation gap React Native Ease is built to fill
08:33 Animated, native driver, and the pre-Reanimated era
10:15 Core Animation on iOS
12:16 Why platform knowledge still matters in React Native
13:59 What React Native Ease is
15:18 What the library supports and what it avoids
16:58 A simple component API for transitions
19:05 State changes as animation triggers
21:38 Lists, shared values, and overhead
24:40 What the benchmark variants measure
25:26 Frame budget and UI-thread cost
26:41 Why iOS can do almost no UI-thread work here
28:50 Android and fairer benchmark comparisons
30:22 Reanimated as the flexible workhorse
31:38 Why React Native Ease started as a separate library
32:22 Core Animation ideas coming back into Reanimated
32:49 The client onboarding animation that started it
35:04 From internal module to open source
36:17 Why slow motion makes dropped frames obvious
37:57 When to use React Native Ease
40:01 What comes next for the library
