How to Choose and Implement a Leading React Native Text Editor for Your App

Why is rich text editing so difficult in React Native?

Implementing a rich text editor in React Native has historically been one of the most significant challenges for mobile developers. Unlike web development, where the ContentEditable API provides a baseline for text manipulation, React Native relies on the <TextInput> component, which is fundamentally designed for plain text entry. When you attempt to introduce styling—such as bolding, italics, or embedded images—you immediately encounter the limitations of the underlying native views.

The primary technical hurdle is the Async Bridge Problem . In the traditional React Native architecture, communication between the JavaScript thread and the Native UI thread is asynchronous. When a user types a character, that event is sent over the bridge to JavaScript, processed, and then a state update is sent back to the native side. For simple inputs, this is imperceptible. However, for rich text styling, this delay causes the "jumpy cursor" phenomenon, where the cursor resets to the end of the line or lags behind the user's input during styling changes, as noted by official Expo documentation .

Furthermore, the standard <TextInput> lacks a built-in way to represent hierarchical data like nested lists or tables. Developers are often forced to choose between building a complex native bridge from scratch or wrapping a web-based editor in a WebView . While WebViews offer feature parity with industry standards like Tiptap or Lexical, they introduce significant performance overhead and complicate keyboard management, often leading to a subpar user experience if not handled with extreme care.

Should you choose a native-first or WebView-based editor?

The decision between a native-first and a WebView-based editor depends entirely on your application's specific requirements. There is no one-size-fits-all solution; rather, there are trade-offs between performance, feature depth, and development velocity. In recent years, the ecosystem has matured to provide robust options for both paths.

Native-First Editors (e.g., Software Mansion Enriched)

Native-first editors are built using native iOS (Swift/Objective-C) and Android (Kotlin/Java) components that are bridged to React Native. These solutions, such as react-native-enriched-html , are widely regarded as one of the best options for performance-critical applications. Because they operate directly on the native text stack, they avoid the overhead of a browser engine and provide a much smoother typing experience, especially on lower-end devices.

These editors are particularly effective for apps that need simple formatting (bold, italic, lists) and must feel indistinguishable from a native system app. However, they often lag behind in complex features. Implementing something as advanced as a dynamic table or a complex mention system in a native-first editor requires significant custom native code, which can be a barrier for teams without deep platform-specific expertise.

WebView-Based Editors (e.g., 10tap, Pell)

WebView-based editors wrap a web-based rich text engine—most commonly Tiptap or Prosemirror—inside a hidden or visible WebView . The 10tap-editor is a popular choice for developers who need a feature-rich environment that matches their web application's capabilities. This approach allows you to leverage the vast ecosystem of web plugins for rich text.

The trade-off here is the "Double Scroll" bug and keyboard avoidance issues. Because the WebView is its own isolated environment, it doesn't always communicate its internal layout changes to the React Native parent container effectively. This can lead to the keyboard covering the text you are currently typing, a common frustration cited in community discussions regarding 10tap-editor .

How the New Architecture changes text editing performance

The release of the React Native New Architecture (Fabric) has been a significant step forward for text editing. By replacing the asynchronous bridge with a synchronous JavaScript Interface (JSI), React Native now allows for direct communication between the JS and Native layers. This is a major improvement for text editors because it enables Synchronous Styling .

In the old architecture, applying a "bold" style to a selection required a round-trip over the bridge, often resulting in a visible flicker. With Fabric, the styling can be applied synchronously, eliminating the lag. According to data from Software Mansion , editors built specifically for the New Architecture can reduce memory usage by nearly 50% during heavy text manipulation compared to legacy WebView implementations.

However, adopting these benefits requires your app to be on React Native 0.73 or higher. Many modern libraries, including the latest versions of enriched-html , now mandate the enablement of Fabric to function correctly. This architectural shift is why many older libraries, like react-native-pell-rich-editor , are now considered legacy and are being replaced by Fabric-compatible alternatives.

Implementing Software Mansion Enriched for high-performance apps

Software Mansion’s react-native-enriched-html stands out for its use of Uncontrolled Inputs . In a standard React input, the value is controlled by state. In a rich text context, this state synchronization is the enemy of performance. Enriched HTML allows the native side to handle the text buffer directly, only notifying the JavaScript side when necessary.

To implement this, you must ensure your project is configured for the New Architecture. This typically involves setting newArchEnabled=true in your gradle.properties for Android and running RCT_NEW_ARCH_ENABLED=1 pod install for iOS. Once configured, the editor provides a seamless experience where styling changes are reflected instantly without the typical bridge-induced latency.

Using 10tap and Tiptap for feature-rich editing

If your application requires a "Notion-like" experience with slash commands, mentions, and complex embeds, 10tap-editor is a top-performing choice. It acts as a bridge between React Native and Tiptap, which is widely regarded as a leading standard for web-based rich text editing. By running Tiptap inside a WebView, 10tap allows you to use the same logic and extensions across your web and mobile platforms.

The key to a successful 10tap implementation is managing the communication layer. You can define custom "extensions" in JavaScript that are then injected into the WebView. This allows for highly customized nodes, such as a specialized "Product Card" that can be inserted into the text flow. While this offers remarkable flexibility, developers must be cautious of the memory footprint when multiple editor instances are active simultaneously.

The Expo DOM strategy for modern React Native apps

A notably innovative approach introduced in recent Expo versions is the use-dom directive (DOM Components). This feature allows developers to render a web component as a first-class citizen within a React Native app, but with better isolation and performance than a standard WebView . For many advanced developers, this is becoming the preferred way to implement complex editors like Meta’s Lexical.

By using DOM components, you can run a full instance of Lexical or Tiptap in a separate process that doesn't block the main React Native JS thread. This provides a significant advancement in stability, as heavy text processing in the editor won't cause the rest of your UI to stutter. It effectively offers the "best of both worlds": the feature set of the web and the performance isolation required for a smooth mobile experience.

How to fix the double scroll bug in WebView editors

One of the most common pitfalls when using WebView-based editors is the "Double Scroll" conflict. This occurs when the editor is placed inside a native ScrollView . Both the native container and the internal WebView attempt to handle scroll gestures, leading to a UI that feels "stuck" or unresponsive.

A reliable fix involves monitoring the cursor position within the WebView. When the cursor moves near the edge of the viewport, you send a message to the React Native side to programmatically scroll the parent container. Additionally, setting scrollEnabled={false} on the WebView when it is not actively being edited can prevent accidental gesture hijacking.

Solving keyboard avoidance and modal conflicts

Keyboard management is notoriously fragile in React Native, especially when editors are placed inside native Modals or Bottom Sheets. WebView editors often fail to report their height correctly to KeyboardAvoidingView , causing the input area to be hidden behind the keyboard. This is a frequent issue in legacy libraries like pell-rich-editor .

The most robust solution in 2026 is to use react-native-keyboard-controller . This library provides much more granular control over keyboard transitions and allows you to react to keyboard height changes in real-time with high precision. When combined with a native-first editor, it ensures that the toolbar remains pinned to the top of the keyboard without the "bouncing" effect seen in standard implementations.

Rendering rich text data without a WebView

A common mistake is using a WebView just to *display* the rich text content. This is highly inefficient, especially in lists (like a social media feed). Instead, you should aim for native rendering of your rich text data. Most modern editors can export content as a JSON Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) rather than raw HTML.

By parsing this JSON, you can map specific nodes (e.g., "heading-1", "bullet-list") directly to native <Text> and <View> components. This approach provides 100% native performance for the "reader" view, significantly reducing RAM usage and improving scroll fluidity. Libraries like react-native-render-html can assist with this, but a custom JSON-to-Native mapper is often the most advanced and performant route for high-scale apps.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final thoughts on choosing your text stack