FAQ draft

TL;DR

It's not production ready: the lack of most important features, documentation is missing, there are no benchmarks and completed examples. It's also only for OS X at the moment.

Since it's a fork of React Native, you could follow the same steps to run Examples or your own app. Do not hesitate to write on #react-native-desktop channel if you run into problems (and you will).

Why not vanilla AppKit?

• "Learn once, run everywhere" (c). Write only low-level parts in Objective-C and use the power of React-ecosystem: React Router for navigation, Relay for data-fetching, AppHub for updates, etc.
• ClojureScript, Elm, Whatever-to-js-compiles.
• Developer experience: hot reloading, linters, unit tests, static type checking.

Why not Electron?

• RND's footprint is relatively small (only about 1.3MB for Examples/SimpleChatClient) and could be configured.
• RND is just a small unstable subset of Electron: there is no DOM, CSS, browser APIs. Potentially it could be useful if you don't need a whole browser for you app. Until the new nextgen parallel browser engines become real.

Can I help somehow?

If you are into React.js please help to make examples looks clean and idiomatic. If you can give an advice on Windows or Linux bindings or just have an idea for an awesome app which you always wanted, please feel free to reach me out on #react-native-desktop.