Deco, the React Native IDE—Now free and open source!

Posted on May 25, 2016 by Devin Abbott

What is Deco?

Deco is an IDE for React Native. It's an all-in-one solution for writing React Native apps that you can download and use without any environment setup. Deco improves the React Native development workflow by focusing on component reuse and enabling you to edit your UI in real time.

Over 15,000 people have registered for the Deco beta which we launched in March. Thanks to the support and feedback from our beta testers, we've been able to build a tool that's fun and easy to use, and we're ready to share it with the world!



Download Deco for Mac here







Deco Highlights

Deco is great for prototyping and visual work, thanks to the speed of inserting and tweaking components. Instant "new project" creation makes building individual components and libraries for publishing on npm much more convenient. Deco is also very useful for learning React Native, since you can play with the built-in components without first reading up on their APIs.

When you try Deco, make sure you check out:

Component Search & Insert Search a collection of zero-setup components (sourced from this registry). The component's code and import statements are generated automatically when you drag the component into your code. Dependencies are installed automatically. You can access this same feature directly from the text editor with the cmd+i hotkey.

Real-Time Tweaking Change any value in your code in real-time. Just alt+click a literal value (number, string, boolean) in your code to add it to the inspector, where you can then tweak it easily. Don't forget to turn on hot-reload in your simulator with cmd+D.

New File Scaffolds Writing boilerplate sucks! Create new React Components instantly!



What's Next?

We plan to double down on stability and improve support for other platforms. Deco lacks the robustness and plugin ecosystem of the long-standing incumbent developer tools: Xcode, Atom, etc. It's missing some key features around building and launching your app. It doesn't support Windows yet, and you have to run your emulator manually if you want to test on Android.

We intend to continue to improve the developer experience by building bold, experimental features in Deco. To pave the way for radical improvements, we are willing to deviate from the path many existing IDEs have taken.

Getting Involved

Want to get involved? Here are a few ways:

Download Deco, play with it, and give us feedback.





Join our Slack to ask and answer questions.





Contribute code! We have a modern tech stack: Electron, React + Redux, and Babel. There are plenty of simple things that would help a lot (and plenty of big things too!).





Contribute ideas. How can we supercharge your React Native workflow?





Thanks for all your support! We love being part of the React Native community and look forward to continuing to innovate and improve the developer experience. Follow us on Twitter and we'll keep you up-to-date with our new projects and releases.

Devin, David, and Gavin