App.js 2026 recap

Fewer people, better experience

I wrote a recap of last year's App.js conference in Poland, and it started to feel weird not to write one this year as well, since this year was quite different on my part, and also really highlighted the new trends in React Native, AI-driven development, and going under the surface with native code.

In this recap, I want to highlight the conference experience from the perspectives of a sponsor, a speaker, and, of course, a participant. RevenueCat sponsored the conference this year, and I spent most of my time on the booth, so I missed almost all of the talks. For that reason, I've collected the talks I enjoyed to the end of the recap with my thoughts on them, if you want to jump ahead.

The sponsor experience

As mentioned, my employer, RevenueCat, was one of the sponsors of this year's conference. We have not been a sponsor in previous years, and this might have been one of our first React Native conferences. Long story short: it was definitely worth it.

Part of our sponsorship deal was a booth, which we had nice and close to the stage. We brought excellent swag (caps, cups, socks, plushies, stickers, and pins) with us, and over the two days, we pretty much swagmogged the conference, with the booth insanely busy at all times when there wasn't any ongoing talk. You should really come by our booth in one of the several conferences we are doing this year.

I think the conference was insanely valuable for both the company and us. I don't think I've talked to as many big and small RevenueCat customers at any conference before. By the end of day one, I had almost lost my voice due to the conversations I had. When your job is to help developers make more money, unblocking a developer that was stuck with consumables, or brainstorming solutions with a potential new customer for their unorthodox IAP setup, really feels like winning.

The next React Native conference you most definitely will catch is Chain React in Portland, Oregon. I'll be there, both at a booth and also giving a talk on how to get your React Native app ready for Siri AI. So get them tickets while they still have them!

So yeah we are most definitely going to sponsor next year as well if it's up to me. If I can voice a tiny piece of feedback it's bringing all the sponsor booths to the same place. This year I completely missed that Expo had a booth because I didn't think of going to the balcony (I thought they were only serving coffee there).

The speaker's experience

This year, I gave a talk that I had no idea how it would be received titled "Is AI making React Native obsolete". One might think that the answer is pretty evident, since it's a talk at a React Native conference, duh. But honestly, when I submitted the talk, I didn't yet know the answer to that question.

You see, to get this question answered, I ran a small experiment, where I took an app I had originally built in SwiftUI, then rebuilt it in React Native and Kotlin. By doing this I wanted to get measurable experience on whether the cross-platform nature of React Native matters anymore, since you can now just use agents to convert from SwiftUI to Kotlin. I'm not spoiling the answer to that question, you can watch the talk recording since they are now live on YouTube. The article version is also available here on my blog.

This was my second time giving a talk at App.js, and I've enjoyed the experience a lot on both times. Everything runs very well, communication is great, the conference hotel is great (it has a sauna, so 10/10). The moment you check in to your hotel and there's a swag bag waiting for you, you just know you've come to a conference that values its speakers.

The participant experience

App.js is one of the most fun conferences there is. You get to meet a lot of developers, both by manning the booth and by just randomly striking up conversation with someone. People being so willing to talk probably comes down to the fact that the conference is so great (and the fact that there's beer readily available).

Last time I recapped App.js I mentioned a few talks I particularly found interesting. During the conference I didn't really have time to watch them since I was at the booth all the time except when I was giving my own talk. I've looked at the talks now that they are on YouTube, but honestly, it's really difficult to pick three favorite ones. They are honestly all so good that you should probably watch all of them. Plus they kinda capture where React Native is at this point, so what a disservice to skip them and remain a luddite.

So yeah, great conference from all sides. Definitely going next year as well. You should too. Book a room in Puro hotel next to the conference, the sauna there is decent.