I looked at my simulator yesterday and realized my news feed layout was broken on the iPad target. Again. Styling cross-platform lists in React Native has always been that one task I dread. You get the margins perfect on an iPhone 15, and suddenly the Android layout looks like a compressed accordion. I spent three hours debugging Flexbox properties before I decided to scrap the custom stylesheet approach and refactor the entire list using NativeBase. The difference in development speed was immediate.
If you are building a content-heavy application—specifically something like a news reader where typography, spacing, and image alignment are critical—you need a component library that handles the heavy lifting of accessibility and responsiveness. That is where I find NativeBase News implementations shine. Instead of writing separate style objects for every headline and byline, I use utility props to structure the visual hierarchy directly in the JSX.
I want to walk you through exactly how I build a responsive news feed using NativeBase in late 2025. We aren’t just slapping text on a screen; we are building a system that handles API data, loading states, and responsive layouts for both phones and tablets.
Why Utility Props Beat Stylesheets for News Apps
When I work on React Native News applications, the layout often changes based on the data. A “breaking news” card needs different padding and background colors than a standard article row. Managing this with StyleSheet.create leads to a lot of conditional logic inside the style prop, which gets messy fast.
With NativeBase, I use the Box, HStack, and VStack components. These act as my layout primitives. If I need more padding on a featured article, I just pass p={4} instead of p={2}. It sounds simple, but when you are iterating on a design, this speed matters.
Here is the basic setup I use for a single news card item. This component needs to handle a thumbnail image, a headline, a summary, and a timestamp.
import React from 'react';
import { Box, Heading, AspectRatio, Image, Text, Center, HStack, Stack, NativeBaseProvider } from "native-base";
const NewsCard = ({ article }) => {
return (
{article.source.name}
{article.title}
{article.author || "Unknown Author"}
{article.description}
{new Date(article.publishedAt).toLocaleDateString()}
);
};
export default NewsCard;Notice the _dark and _light props? This is my favorite feature. I don’t need to manually hook into a theme context to switch colors. NativeBase handles the dark mode toggle internally. For a React Native News app where users often read at night, dark mode support is mandatory, not optional.
Fetching Data with React Query
A pretty UI is useless without data. I used to rely on Redux for everything, but for server state like a news feed, React Query News patterns are superior. It handles caching, background refetching, and loading states out of the box. If you were building a Redux News app in 2020, you wrote a lot of boilerplate. Today, I just want the data.
I combine TanStack Query (React Query) with NativeBase’s FlatList. NativeBase wraps the standard React Native FlatList but allows you to pass utility props to the container itself.
import React from 'react';
import { FlatList, Spinner, Center, Text, View } from "native-base";
import { useQuery } from '@tanstack/react-query';
import NewsCard from './NewsCard';
const fetchNews = async () => {
const response = await fetch('https://newsapi.org/v2/top-headlines?country=us&apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY');
if (!response.ok) {
throw new Error('Network response was not ok');
}
return response.json();
};
const NewsFeed = () => {
const { data, isLoading, error } = useQuery({
queryKey: ['topHeadlines'],
queryFn: fetchNews
});
if (isLoading) {
return (
);
}
if (error) {
return (
Error loading news feed
);
}
return (
);
};
export default NewsFeed;This implementation is clean. I am not worrying about loading spinners manually; I just use the Spinner component from NativeBase when isLoading is true. This aligns perfectly with modern Expo News development practices, where we prioritize developer experience and speed.
Navigation and Architecture
Once you have the feed, you need to navigate to the details. I use React Navigation News patterns here. The NewsCard should be wrapped in a Pressable (also from NativeBase) that triggers the navigation stack.
When architecting this, I usually keep my navigation logic separate from the UI components. I see a lot of developers coupling their routing logic directly into their display components, which makes testing harder. Speaking of testing, if you are running Jest News tests or using React Testing Library News utilities, having decoupled components like NewsCard makes it much easier to verify that your props are rendering the correct headlines without mocking the entire navigation stack.
Comparing UI Libraries: NativeBase vs. The Rest
I often get asked why I don’t use Tamagui News tutorials or React Native Paper News guides instead. Here is my honest take.
Tamagui News apps are incredibly performant. If I were building a high-frequency trading app or something with complex animations using React Native Reanimated News libraries, I might lean that way. But Tamagui has a steeper learning curve. For a standard content app, NativeBase offers a syntax that feels very close to standard CSS-in-JS, which makes onboarding new team members easier.
On the other hand, React Native Elements News components often feel a bit dated to me in terms of design language out of the box. NativeBase provides a more “modern” look by default, which saves me time on customization. I have also tried React Native Paper News implementations, and while Material Design is great, it can feel restrictive if you want your app to have a unique brand identity that doesn’t scream “Google.”
Handling State Management
While React Query handles the server state (the actual news articles), you often need local state for things like “Read Later” bookmarks or user preferences. For this, I prefer Zustand News patterns over Redux. It is lighter and requires less boilerplate.
Here is a quick example of a store for saving articles, which integrates seamlessly with our NativeBase UI:
import { create } from 'zustand';
const useBookmarkStore = create((set) => ({
bookmarks: [],
addBookmark: (article) => set((state) => ({
bookmarks: [...state.bookmarks, article]
})),
removeBookmark: (url) => set((state) => ({
bookmarks: state.bookmarks.filter(a => a.url !== url)
})),
}));
export default useBookmarkStore;You can then add a bookmark icon button to the NewsCard HStack that triggers these actions. It creates a fluid user experience without the complexity of a massive Redux News boilerplate setup.
Performance Considerations in 2025
I have to address the elephant in the room: performance. NativeBase relies on a runtime style calculation engine. In the past, this caused frame drops on lower-end Android devices when scrolling through long lists. However, with the advancements in the React Native architecture (Fabric) and optimizations in recent library versions, this is less of an issue for standard news feeds.
However, if you are rendering thousands of items, you should optimize. I ensure that my images are cached properly using FastImage (or the Expo equivalent) rather than the default Image component if the list is heavy. I also make sure to use memo on the NewsCard component so it doesn’t re-render unnecessarily when the parent feed updates.
If you are building for the web using Next.js News or Remix News frameworks with React Native Web, NativeBase works, but be aware of the CSS injection overhead. In those cases, I sometimes swap to a more web-first library, but for a mobile-first Expo News app, NativeBase remains my go-to.
Integrating Other Tools
A modern news app isn’t just text. You might want charts for financial news. I have successfully integrated Victory News charts and Recharts News components (on web) within NativeBase containers. The Box component acts as a perfect wrapper for these third-party libraries, allowing you to control margins and responsiveness without fighting the chart library’s internal styles.
For forms—say, a “Submit a Tip” screen—I pair NativeBase inputs with React Hook Form News libraries. The controlled components from NativeBase play very nicely with the Controller pattern in React Hook Form.
Final Thoughts
Building a news app looks easy on the surface, but the devil is in the details of the layout. You have variable headline lengths, missing images, and different device sizes to contend with. Using NativeBase News components has saved me countless hours of CSS debugging.
While the ecosystem is vast—from Vite News setups for web to Detox News for end-to-end testing—choosing the right UI primitive is the most impactful decision you make early on. For me, the speed of iteration with NativeBase outweighs the minor performance overhead for 95% of the apps I build. If you haven’t tried refactoring your FlatList items with VStack and HStack yet, give it a shot on your next project.
