React Native New Architecture: Fabric, JSI, and Turbo Modules

The New Architecture replaces the older asynchronous bridge with synchronous, type-safe native calls where appropriate. Understanding Fabric, JSI, and Turbo Modules helps you reason about performance and adopt libraries that are “New Arch ready.”

JSI: JavaScript meets native directly

JSI exposes C++ host objects to JavaScript so the JS runtime can invoke native methods without serializing large JSON payloads through a bridge queue. That lowers latency for hot paths and unlocks synchronous reads when the API allows.

Fabric: the new renderer

Fabric is React Native’s concurrent-friendly rendering system. It interoperates with native layout and improves consistency between platforms. UI updates can be prioritized more predictably, which matters for animations and lists.

Turbo Modules: lazy, typed native modules

Turbo Modules load on demand and use codegen from TypeScript or Flow specs to generate bindings. When upgrading dependencies, prefer modules that ship Turbo Module support to avoid bridge bottlenecks.

Practical advice

Enable the New Architecture when your stack allows, test on real devices, and watch third-party native modules for compatibility. The official New Architecture docs remain the source of truth for flags and migration steps.