List of Blog Posts and Sections in them about Recent ChatGPT Chats on Mobile (React Native) and Web Tech Stacks
Last updated on 7 Sep. 2025
Now I have completed code-along for over half of a tutorial on a cross-platform (mobile and web) Edu app using React Native and Expo for web: (YT video) Simon Grimm: Build Your Own MASTERCLASS clone in React Native, 4 hrs. 42 mins, Mar. 2025. My blog post with notes for that tutorial.
In the process, I am now getting more comfortable with using React Native and Expo for Web as a cross-platform mobile and web (Android/iOS/Web) solution for small to medium sized apps. Note that in such a tech stack approach, there will be some amount of platform-specific (Android/iOS/Web) code but large part of the code will be shared across platforms and all the code will be in one project.
But a question popped up in my mind: Progressive Web App (PWA) using React also claims to provide a mobile and web app solution. PWA React app seems to be easier to do than React Native and Expo for Web for such cross platform apps. While I knew that React Native app on mobile would have some advantages over PWA React app running on mobile, I wanted to have a clearer picture of the comparison between these two stacks and specifically about when it would make sense to go with the simpler PWA React app option and when to go with the React Native and Expo for web option.
That started my series of very interesting chats with ChatGPT on:
- JavaScript language mobile and web development tech stacks (mainly React related) including how they compare with some other tech stacks
and some other topics like:
- Education apps tech stacks
- Plain React SPA vs Next.js Hybrid for web apps
- React Native for mobile and React/Next.js for web being the pattern in most production apps
- Deeper dive into Moodle web and mobile tech stacks
- WebView component provided by Android/iOS/Windows/macOS/Linux and used by web wrapper software to provide mobile/desktop apps with website like UI.
- React Native for Windows providing pathway for migrating/enhancing React Native app to Windows (and macOS) desktop app.
Now ChatGPT does make mistakes. So there could be some mistakes in the views it provided. However, a lot of what it said made sense to me and so I got the impression that at the top-level, most of what it said must be correct. If and when I need to dig into some specific area and be sure of the information, I can go to the related reference documentation and (other) reputed tech sites/literature but which will surely suck up much more of my time.
Primarily as an easy way for me to reference these chat sessions and topics within them, I spent fair amount of time to organize the required material from these chat sessions as a set of blog posts and one PDF/Word document, with the contents of each divided into sections.
For most of the blog posts/document, I invested time in creating relatively shorter section summaries. So when I (or perhaps some readers who) want to look up/read a particular topic, I/reader can first go through the associated section summary and if required view that section's details. As a later update, I used an extension I wrote with Gemini's help to create internal links for Blogger posts (and pages), and used it to create internal links in the posts listed below for the sections (summaries or details) contained in them. Note that manually creating such internal links in Blogger is quite time-consuming.
I have given below the list of the blog posts and the sections contained in them or in linked PDF/Word document. While the secions below could be manually linked directly to their summary and detailed sections in the associated post, that means quite a lot of manual work and so I have not done that. Reader can go to the post and then use internal links for sections in that post.
Recent ChatGPT Chats on Mobile and Web Tech Stacks: Blog Posts and Sections
A) React Native and Expo vs React PWA/Web and related topics - Detailed exchange with ChatGPT
Post created on August 26, 2025
Sections:
1 Introduction
2 React Native & Expo vs React PWA vs React Web
3 Education Apps: Recommended Tech Stack; Tech Stacks used by Khan Academy, Duolingo, Moodle
4 Web app support in React Native through react-native-web and Expo
5 React PWA/Web on mobile runs in browser engine (WebView) and so is slower than Native UI
6 DOM is expensive vs Native View which is leaner
7 Virtualization libraries in React (Web) to tackle DOM reflow/scrolling problem for large lists
8 Definition of “native” and its variations (e.g. pure native, near native) for mobile and desktop
9 Core value proposition of React Native: One codebase for two major mobile platforms (Android/iOS)
10 React Native animations are usually faster than React PWA/Web animations on mobile (GPU-accelerated vs CPU-bound animations)
11 Gesture handling efficiency and development effort on mobile: React Native vs React PWA/Web
12 App target audience (mobile-first or web-first) helps decide suitable tech stack - React Native or React PWA/Web
13 [Perhaps outdated] Twitter Lite (PWA) vs Twitter Native apps (iOS/Android)
14 React PWA/Web goes through more layers than Native for UI interactions on mobile
15 User/stakeholder expectations issue when promoting React PWA/Web app as "mobile + web" or even as "web + mobile" app
16 For React Native and Expo app (mobile + web), Web app can presume minimum tablet width (~780px)
17 React PWA/Web app that does not handle mobile portrait width should not claim to be usable in mobile browser
18 For content-heavy apps that have to handle mobile portrait width, React Native and Expo may be better than React PWA/Web
19 Safe Expectations Language for React Native & Expo app, and for React PWA/Web app
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B) Discussion on performance comparison of Timestamp Tracker Android app and web app on mobile, with ChatGPT
Post created on August 27, 2025
Sections:
1. Speed Comparison of React Native Android app vs. React (Expo) PWA/Web app on Android mobile
2. Tech stack for mobile + Web App: 'React Native + Expo for Web' vs 'React PWA/Web'
3. PWA for Desktop Web App is used by Devs Only in Specific Cases
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C) Notes on React Native for Windows and web wrapper frameworks for Windows Desktop like Electron - ChatGPT
Post created on August 28, 2025
Sections
1. React Native for Windows (and macOS)
2. "Web Wrapped" Windows Desktop App
3. Performance Comparison between React Native Windows and Electron/Tauri/PWA
4. Porting/Upgrading React Native and Expo for Web app to React Native for Windows (Desktop app)
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D) Notes on Web Dev Architecture: SPA (React), SSR/SSG (Next.js), pure SSR (MPA ASP.NET/PHP) - ChatGPT
Post created on August 28, 2025
Sections
1. Comparing Architectures: Pure SPA vs Pure SSR vs Next.js Hybrid
2. What is hydration in Next.js (Hybrid SPA using React)?
3. Why does a React app have SEO issues? Why does Next.js not have these SEO issues?
4. Page loading in Pure SSR vs Next.js/Streaming SSR
5. React SPA: First load, browser caches JS bundle; Later loads are faster
6. React/Next.js: How deployment changes are detected
7. React/Next.js: After the JS bundle loads, React in the browser controls the page
8. React SPA vs Next.js — Comparison
9. Plain React app: Ways to fix weaker SEO
10. React Native / Expo for Web and SEO
11. React Native for mobile and React/Next.js for web — Pattern in most production apps
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E) Notes on WebView - ChatGPT
Post created on August 29, 2025
Sections
1. WebView
2. WebView vs Native (React Native) Performance (perceived)
3. Expo 'use dom' Directive
4. React Native for Windows + react-native-webview
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F) Notes on Moodle Web App and Mobile App; Migrating old PHP sites to REST with Mobile App - ChatGPT
Post created on August 31, 2025
Sections
1. Moodle Mobile + Web App Tech. Stacks
2. Providing REST API in PHP
3. Migrating traditional PHP website (pure SSR, no API) to Modern Mobile + Web + REST API App
4. Expanding on API load/performance issues between SSR web app and API mobile app
5. React and React Native were new/not around yet when Moodle picked AngularJS for its mobile app
6. React vs Angular (2025)
7. Performance comparison between PHP backend and Node Express backend
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G) Notes on MPA vs SPA Web Dev Arch; Timeline of Web Stacks & React Native Mobile Stack - ChatGPT
Post created on September 2, 2025
Sections
1. Advantages of MPA (ASP.NET MVC/Razor, PHP, Django, Rails, etc.) over SPA
2. MPA, SPA, Hybrid (SSR/SSG + SPA) - Trends in Popularity (2025)
3. React does not support pure MPA; JS Ecosystem Options for Pure MPA Not Mainstream
4. Mature MPA stacks are Tied to non-JS Languages (C#/VB.NET, PHP, Ruby, Java, Python)
5. Next.js + React + React Native Preferred Today for Small–Medium apps
6. Classic MPA stacks (ASP.NET, PHP, Rails) - Limited/No Migration Path to Mobile Front-Ends
7. Origins and Timeline of ASP.NET, PHP, Rails, React/Next.js and React Native stacks
8. ASP.NET (classic, pre-Core) vs ASP.NET Core (2016 → now default ASP.NET)
9. Timeline of Popular Web Frameworks
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