One codebase, both app stores

React Native builds apps for iOS and Android from one JavaScript codebase, rendering real native components rather than a web view.

What that buys you. One team, one codebase, and roughly one set of work for two platforms. For a small team or an agency, that is frequently the difference between building a mobile app and not.

Who it suits. Teams that already know React, because the concepts transfer directly. Applications that are mostly screens, lists, forms and API calls, which is most business applications. And anybody who needs both platforms with limited resources.

Who it does not suit. Anything heavily graphical such as a game, anything needing deep platform integration, and anything where the last ten percent of platform polish is the product.

Against Flutter, which the other course in this catalogue covers. Flutter draws its own components, which gives consistency across platforms and a different look from native. React Native uses the platform's own components, which feels native and behaves slightly differently on each. If your team knows React, React Native is the shorter path; if starting fresh, Flutter is arguably more coherent.

The macOS requirement still applies for building and submitting the iOS version, which the Swift course covers in detail. You can develop on Windows and you cannot ship to the App Store from it.

And you will still meet native code occasionally, for a library that needs configuring or a platform specific behaviour, so some familiarity with both platforms is part of the job.