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Comment by dikaiosune | Hacker News Reader

Hi! Expo is definitely a private entity, but the tools used by CRNA are also definitely open source:

https://github.com/exponent/exponent-sdk

Also, the RN packager runs locally on your machine, there is no dependency on Expo's build services when working with Create React Native App.

The concerns you raised were front and center when we were working on this project, and we worked hard to make sure that CRNA has no service dependency, it works completely offline.

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What about the build server?

Which build server? If you have an Expo account you can create a "standalone app" with our service, but that's not a part of CRNA's workflow and it's certainly not required to use this tool.

Okay I assumed that it followed the same workflow as the Expo service. I'll edit my comments to state that.

Sorry for piling on! This is definitely something we could be clearer on in the docs.

No worries. I understand that you want to get the story straight. I do think you should specifically state in the blog update that this is a new tool and not a reuse of Expo's tools.

Can i create a standalone app without Expo account?

You do need an Expo account to create a standalone app. If you want to create an app for the App or Play Stores yourself (i.e. without an account), then you'll need Xcode and/or Android Studio.

(I work on Expo)

CRNA doesn't use our app building service (which is free) or integrate with it, though you can take a CRNA project and use it with the rest of our tools like the app building service.

Also, CRNA does support ejecting which gives you an Xcode project and an Android Studio project. You can really control everything you want to control here.

Like dikaiosune said, the standalone app workflow isn't part of CRNA. The scripts used by the build servers are open sourced though: https://github.com/exponent/exponent#standalone-apps

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