this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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Oh, but it absolutely is true. Microsoft really did decide to use React Native for parts of the Windows 11 Start menu. They're also using it in sections of the Settings app.
The technical reality is even more absurd than the meme suggests. Microsoft is currently maintaining eight different UI frameworks for Windows, including their own .NET MAUI and WinUI 3 that were specifically built for their OS. Yet somehow they thought, "You know what this native operating system needs? A JavaScript framework originally designed for mobile apps."
The CPU usage spikes aren't necessarily from React Native itself being particularly heavyweight, but rather from the fundamental architectural choice of running a web-based rendering engine for core system UI elements. Every time you click Start, you're essentially launching a mini web application just to display a menu.
What's particularly galling is that Microsoft has acknowledged WinUI's performance issues for years, to the point where they recommend their partners use the older WPF for performance-critical applications. So instead of fixing their native framework, they decided to add another layer of abstraction.
This is what happens when corporate development teams prioritize "developer experience" and trendy frameworks over system efficiency. Richard Stallman's expression in that image perfectly captures the appropriate level of technical horror at this decision.
The old world built operating systems. The new world builds web apps that pretend to be operating systems.
Can't they extract more data from a mobile set-up? I'm assuming that's why they did it, they're trying to take it to a phone experience for the corporations.
Nope.
The reason you do react native is because it's easier to hire react native devs. Further, there's a plethora of react native libraries that make it easier to make UXes above other UX frameworks.
The problem MS has is they have spent decades making platform locked UX frameworks because they were deathly afraid someone would use Linux instead of Windows.
Browser tech won because every major platform needs a browser and basically no organization was investing in multiplatform UX libraries. The likes of both Microsoft and Apple are openly hostile to such frameworks (QT and GTK come to mind).
Funny thing, the OneDrive client app that ships with Windows, uses Qt