The 10 best React Native UI libraries of 2025

Megan Lee - Feb 25 - - Dev Community

Written by Aman Mittal✏️

When building a React Native app, choosing the right UI components can dramatically speed up development and ensure a polished, platform‐consistent design. This is where React Native UI libraries come in — they provide pre-built, ready-to-use UI elements like buttons, input fields, and modals, helping developers create beautiful and functional interfaces without starting from scratch.

Unlike general component libraries, which may include utilities for animations, forms, or other functionalities, UI libraries focus specifically on visual components that align with platform design guidelines. Popular options like glustack (formerly NativeBase) and React Native UI Kitten offer customizable, production-ready UI kits that streamline the development process.

In this article, we’ll explore the 10 best React Native UI libraries — comparing features, theming support, and use cases — to help you choose the right tools for your next project.


Update history:

  • 21 February 2025: Reviewed by Fimber Elemuwa for currency with the React Native ecosystem in 2025
  • 26 July 2024: Updated by Fimber Elemuwa on 26 July 2024 to add emerging React Native component libraries like Tamagui and gluestack UI

Why use a UI library in React Native?

React Native UI libraries offer predeveloped components that help accelerate project delivery. For example, developers can create icon buttons with react-native-vector-icons. Using a UI library with a complete UI kit eliminates the need to write custom styles for built-in UI elements or install multiple third-party components. UI libraries typically provide a collection of customizable UI elements for building modern apps.

With so many great options available, choosing the right React Native UI library can be challenging. However, understanding each library’s components, features, limitations, and developer support makes it easier to select one based on your design goals.

The best React Native UI libraries (updated Feb. 2025)

The following open source React Native UI libraries can enhance your development process by improving efficiency and ensuring a consistent user experience across platforms like iOS and Android.

Below is a quick comparison table of the libraries covered in this article:

Library Best for Theming support web support Live example Unique features
gluestack UI Highly customizable UI with Tailwind-like styling Uses Tailwind CSS utilities for styling Yes Yes Highly flexible UI components using Tailwind-like styling
Tamagui Performance-focused custom UI components Cross-platform, scalable theming Yes Yes Performance-optimized UI, supports complex designs
React Native Paper Material Design-based UI components Light & Dark themes Yes (React Native Web) Yes Babel plugin to reduce bundle size, Material Design components
React Native Elements General-purpose UI components with customization Custom themes with ThemeProvider Yes (React Native Web) Yes Flexible customization, reduces boilerplate code
React Native UI Kitten Eva Design System-based UI components Light & Dark themes Yes (React Native Web) Yes Supports right-to-left writing system, Eva Design System-based UI
RNUIlib Modern, animated UI components Supports theming Yes Yes Animated components, modern UI elements
Shoutem UI Composable UI components with predefined styles Supports theming with Shoutem Themes Yes Yes CSS-like styling, animation components for complex UI
Lottie for React Native Smooth animations with Lottie N/A N/A Yes Airbnb’s Lottie animations, JSON-based animated graphics
React Native Maps Customizable map components N/A N/A Yes MapView, Polygons, Polylines, Animated map elements
React Native Gifted Chat Pre-built chat component Customizable UI N/A Yes Pre-built chat component with customizable UI, quick replies

gluestack UI

gluestack UI, previously known as NativeBase, is a performance-focused library designed for speed and efficiency across web and mobile apps using React and React Native: Gluestack UI Component Library It offers a collection of 30+ pre-built, customizable components along with styling utilities that accelerate development while ensuring design consistency.

gluestack UI is easy to use—simply copy and paste entire components into your app—yet still allows full control to tailor each UI element to your specifications.

Version 2 of gluestack UI uses Tailwind CSS utility classes in conjunction with NativeWind’s styling engine for unparalleled flexibility.

TL;DR: gluestack UI

Tamagui

Tamagui is a performance-focused, customizable React Native component library and styling solution that offers a unique approach to building performant and scalable React Native applications. Tamagui React Native Component Library Unlike traditional component libraries, Tamagui focuses on providing a foundation for building custom components rather than offering a pre-built set of UI components. This gives developers greater control over the look and feel of their applications. Tamagui is also easy to get started with; you can learn more in the article Tamagui for React Native: Create faster design systems.

Key features of Tamagui include its platform-agnostic nature, allowing developers to write code once and deploy seamlessly across web and mobile platforms.

TL;DR: Tamagui

React Native Paper

React Native Paper is a cross-platform React Native UI library that is based on Google’s Material Design. Developed by the official React Native development partner Callstack, React Native Paper has theming support and offers customizable and production-ready components. React Native Paper UI When using this React Native UI library, you can reduce its bundle size by using a Babel plugin that allows you to optionally require modules. This will exclude all the modules that your app doesn’t use and rewrite the import statements to include only those that are imported in the app’s component files. React Native Paper also supports web using React Native Web.

How do you use React Native Paper themes? Applying themes to a particular component is easy; React Native Paper comes with two default themes, namely light and dark, which you can extend. It uses the react-native-vector-icons library to support and use icons correctly in buttons, floating action buttons, lists, and more.

How do you use React Native Paper themes?

Applying themes to a particular component is easy; React Native Paper comes with two default themes, namely light and dark, which you can extend. It uses the react-native-vector-icons library to support and use icons correctly in buttons, floating action buttons, lists, and more.

TL;DR: React Native Paper

React Native Elements

One of the oldest and easiest libraries to start with, React Native Elements is a cross-platform UI library that implements Material Design. Instead of following an opinionated design system, this toolkit offers a more basic structure through its generalized inbuilt components, meaning you’ll have more control over how you want to customize components. Customization of any component in this library will include a mixture of some custom props, as well as props from the React Native core API. React Native Elements UI Example That being said, when using this React Native UI library, I’ve found that I can write much less boilerplate code than I do when using some of the other libraries covered in this post. The applications built using this UI toolkit also look and feel universal across both iOS and Android platforms.

ThemeProvider offers support for theming. Unlike some of the other libraries, which give you both light and dark themes, you’ll have to define your themes to make them work with React Native Elements. You can also use React Native Elements in web projects by using React Native Web.

TL;DR: React Native Elements

React Native UI Kitten

There are more than 20 essential UI components that you can use with UI Kitten, and it is also one of the few UI libraries that offers support for the right-to-left writing system for all of its components, a fact to be noted for global apps. It also has support for the web. React Native UI Kitten If you set up the UI Kitten library for an existing project, you’ll have to go through some configuration steps. For new projects, you can easily use a pre-developed app template. Make sure to give its design system a read to understand the design principles first.

TL;DR: React Native UI Kitten

RNUIlib: React Native UI Library

Well-maintained and used by Wix, RNUIlib is a library for building amazing React Native apps: React Native UI Library It supports both older and the latest React Native versions, and it provides more than 20 customized components, some of which, like Drawer, can be easily integrated for building modern swipeable lists, like the Gmail app’s inbox. It also has custom animated components, like an animated scanner, which is useful for indicating progress for a card, such as an uploading status, as well as an animated image.

RNUIlib is another UI library that supports the right-to-left writing system, and it includes full accessibility support.

TL;DR: RNUIlib

Shoutem UI

If you’re in the market for a professional-looking React Native UI library for your iOS or Android apps, then the Shoutem UI kit is a great choice: Shoutem UI Example Shoutem UI is an open source library that is a part of the Shoutem UI toolkit.

Shoutem UI consists of more than 25 composable and customizable UI components that come with pre-defined styles that support other components. You can build complex UIs by combining them. You can also apply custom CSS-like styling using the Shoutem themes library and animations using the animation components library like ZoomIn, FadeIn, etc.

TL;DR: Shoutem UI

Lottie for React Native

Lottie React Native is an excellent open source animated graphic library developed by Airbnb for creating beautiful animations: Lottie React Native UI The Lottie community provides featured animations that you can use freely for React Native iOS or Android applications. You can also create custom animations using Adobe After Effects. Lottie then uses the Bodymovin extension to export the custom animations to JSON format and render them in the native mobile app. Because of the JSON export format, your app will have great performance.

The lottie-react-native package includes the Lottie component, which you can use to add Lottie animations in React Native apps. Internally, it uses lottie-android and lottie-ios to render Lottie-formatted files natively on Android and iOS, respectively.

TL;DR: Lottie for React Native

React Native Maps

React Native Maps is another useful library that provides customizable map components for your iOS and Android apps: React Native Maps UI ExampleIts components include:

  • MapView
  • Marker
  • Polygon
  • Polyline
  • Callout
  • Circle
  • HeatMap
  • Geojson
  • Overlay

With these components, you can offer your users many different experiences on the map. Additionally, you can combine the components with the Animated API to give an animated effect for the components. For example, you can animate the zoom, marker views, and marker coordinates, and also render polygons and polylines on the map.

Keep in mind that React Native Maps v1.14.0 and above require React Native ≥v0.74, while versions below 1.14.0 are compatible only with React Native ≥v0.64.3. Be sure to update your React Native version if you plan to use React Native Maps with an older project.

TL;DR: React Native Maps

React Native Gifted Chat

In some development scenarios, React Native developers add chat screens to their mobile apps. For example, integrating a chatbot or implementing an inter-user chat system requires a chat component that includes incoming and outgoing messages with avatars, a text input for typing, and a send button.

The React Native Gifted Chat library offers a pre-developed customizable chat component that you can use without having to build one from scratch:

React Native Gifted Chat Example

This chat component library comes with features like a highly customizable UI, useful event handlers such as onPressAvatar and onInputTextChanged, a typing indicator, quick reply options, and composer actions for attaching photos.

TL;DR: React Native Gifted Chat

UI library vs. component library: What’s the difference?

When discussing UI development in React Native, it’s important to differentiate between a UI library and a component library, as these terms are often used interchangeably.

A UI library in React Native provides a set of prebuilt, ready-to-use components that help developers build apps faster. Instead of creating UI elements like buttons, input fields, or modals from scratch, developers get fully designed and functional components that follow platform-specific styles. This saves time and ensures a consistent app design.

A component library, on the other hand, is a broader category. It includes UI libraries but also encompasses UI kits, form builders, and specialized tools for handling animations, charts, or drag-and-drop interfaces. Examples include libraries for animations, charts, or drag-and-drop interfaces.

Some great examples of React Native UI libraries are NativeBase and UI Kitten, while libraries like Lottie and Tamagui better fit the component library description.

What is the best React Native component library?

The best React Native component library depends on your specific project needs. When multiple component libraries meet your design or development requirements, selecting one with strong developer support, an active development timeline, and comprehensive documentation is key.

All the component libraries in this list are actively maintained and are designed to speed up development by providing efficient, ready-to-use components. As long as you have a clear vision for your UI design, any of these libraries should work well.

You can find more third-party, open source UI component libraries in the awesome-react-native GitHub repository. For additional guidance, check out the official React Native docs or this guide on using React Native components.

Do you have a favorite React Native component library? Let us know in the comments!


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