Storage in React Native

Storage is essential to any desktop, web, or mobile application. Choosing the right storage system for an application is a major requirement for creating a high-performing and secure application.

This article will discuss the storage devices available when developing an application using React-Native.

Most Used Storage Systems for React-Native Applications

Below we listed some of the most popular storage systems used when developing React-Native applications. Let’s take a look at them.

1. AsyncStorage

   This storage can be accessed globally on the app. It is an unencrypted, persistent, key-value, and asynchronous storage system.

   For the IOS-based systems, it stores values in two different methods. The small values are stored in a serialized dictionary, and the large values use separate files.

   On the other hand, on Android, this storage system uses either SQLite or RocksDB based on availability.

   On Android, this storage supports only 6MB, and on IOS, it supports a limitless amount of data. For developing cross-platform apps, 6 MB is a fixed limit.

2. Secure Storage

   To store encrypted data, we use secure storage. Frameworks like React-Native don’t contain any special storage system for storing sensitive data like passwords, Notes, Certs and identities, keys, etc.

   In IOS-based systems, the Keychain Service allows us to store sensitive data of the app in a small amount.

   In Android, the Shared Preferences is used as secure storage to store sensitive data of the app. Android also contains Android Keystore, which is used to store Cryptographic Keys.

   To use the Android Keystore, a package available in React-Native is react-native-sensitive-info.

3. MMKV Storage

   This storage system uses MMAP to sync memory with files. It is a framework of small mobile key-value storage and is efficient.

4. SQLite Storage

   It is one of the most popular storage systems for any native application because of its small, fast, high reliability, efficiency, and self-contained feature. This storage mainly uses to store databases.

   All mobile phone system has this storage system built-in. The file format for this storage is stable, backward compatible, and cross-platform.

5. Firebase Storage

   Firebase is mainly used to store databases but also provides cloud services to store images, videos, audio, and other system-generated files and contents. It is simple, powerful, and cost-efficient.

6. Realm

   If you are looking for a database storage system that directly runs on a phone or other devices, Realm can be the right choice for you. In this storage system, data is stored as an object and queryable by code.

   It is faster than raw SQLite and can be used as an alternative to the SQLite and Key-Value stores.

   We have discussed the most used and popular storage system above, and you can choose the best one based on your needs. But, choosing a perfect storage system for an application is based on important factors like application category, performance requirements, cost, etc.

   So to choose the best-suited storage system for your application, you must understand your requirements first. Otherwise, this may affect your application performance.