Incremental adoption

[bacarybruno]

Heyo team 👋

I’m currently exploring ways to achieve native build caching in our bare React Native project. Before discovering your React Native Enterprise Framework, I had started experimenting manually (fingerprinting, bundling, then replacing the JS bundle).

A couple of questions came up while looking into RNEF / Rock:

1. Selective and incremental adoption

• Is it possible to use Rock more like a library rather than fully adopting the framework, so we could reuse only the parts we’re most interested in (e.g. caching)?
• Can Rock be adopted gradually? For example, keeping the React Native CLI in place but running a parallel Rock setup so we can test both side by side and assess the impact (RN migrations, compatibility etc) before committing.

2. Comparison with Expo
   I know this has probably been asked before, but I cannot find the answers:

• How does Rock compare to Expo in terms of goals and workflows?
• Are the two compatible in any way, in case we consider migrating to Expo later on?

3. Roadmap

• Is there a public roadmap so that we can better acticipate future features?

Thanks for the amazing work, as always 👏

[thymikee]

1. Theoretically you can keep both Rock and RNC CLI, but you'll need to pick one in your native build scripts (cliFile in build.gradle and CLI_PATH in Xcode project). To enable remote caching you'll need to use rock CLI. You can migrate gradually per platform if you like, keeping RNC CLI on Android and moving to Rock on iOS or vice-versa.
2. Rock is a relatively new framework that aims to:
   • bring modern DX to large, enterprise setups that have either hard time migrating to Expo CLI or can't do it due to legal constraints; with npm create rock we aim at few seconds migrations for most of the projects out there (excluding setting up remote cache for now)
   • provide the easiest way to introduce React Native to existing iOS and Android apps through Rock Brownfield
   • enable mobile microfrontends and super apps through Module Federation with Re.Pack
   • provide support for as many platforms as possible
     With Rock you can use Expo Modules, Expo Updates (with some hacks even Expo Router) because Expo designed those to be compatible with bare React Native apps. You can't make it work with Expo CLI (and therefore Expo CNG, Expo Prebuild), not sure about EAS.
     You can also use Rock as an intermediate state between RNC CLI and full Expo experience.
3. There's no public roadmap currently, but I can share that we're working on our own router, CNG compatibility layer, support for out-of-tree platforms (tvOS, AndroidTV, macOS, visionOS, Windows, and more to come)