We are excited to announce that the React Native VSCode extension we’ve been developing under the name React Native IDE is being renamed to Radon IDE. While this is just a name change and we don’t want to make a huge deal out of it, we felt it deserved a few words of explanation.

TL;DR: It’s just a name change (see reasoning below), and we remain committed to our main roadmap — providing a best-in-class IDE experience for individuals and organizations building with React Native and Expo. You don’t need to take any action if you’re already using the IDE; the next update will reflect the new name. You’re welcome to start using the packages published under the new name, but the old ones will continue to work. The license remains unchanged. While Radon IDE is in beta, it is free to use. If you like to support the project, you can still purchase our Supporter’s license.

Practical Reasons

The primary reason for this change is not to be associated exclusively with React Native. Recently, the React Native core team introduced the concept of frameworks and started recommending Expo as the preferred approach for developing React Native apps.

Our IDE has first-class support for Expo. For example, Expo Go apps don’t need to be built locally. We have EAS (Expo Application Services) support ready to be published in the next release, and we have more framework-specific add-ons planned for the future. Going forward, we plan to support different types of projects — whether they’re using bare React Native, Expo, or internal frameworks your company might be using.

Nerdy Reasons

Now that you understand why we’re changing the name, you might be curious why we chose Radon IDE instead of something like The Coding Collider or JavaScriptonite — there are actually a couple of reasons:

1. Radon is a chemical element making it a good reference to the “atomic” nature of the React ecosystem. Its chemical symbol is Rn, which makes it the most “React Native-y” element in the periodic table!
2. On top of that, it is a noble gas making it align perfectly with our noble aspirations of elevating the most demanding area of React Native development — developer experience and tooling.
3. Furthermore, the atomic reference in the new name lets us keep our logo unchanged 🙂.
4. Finally, Radon is radioactive and naturally decays into Polonium, an element named after Poland — the homeland of its discoverer and the home base of Software Mansion 🇵🇱.

What Does This Mean for You?

You don’t need to do anything. With the most recent update, you’ll start seeing the new name in VSCode or Cursor within the IDE panel tab. We are republishing the associated packages under the new name, but the old ones will continue to function as usual.

— The react-native-ide package, which provides the preview functionality, is now available as radon-ide on NPM. You can install it under the new name if you wish but may as well continue using the previous one.

— We’re updating configuration schema names. If you’ve been using custom configurations, you can migrate to the new names. However, we still support the old configuration names, so unless you really want to, there’s no need to change anything.

Apart from the name change, we are not making any changes to the license. While Radon IDE is in beta, it will continue to be free to use. If you’d like to support the project, consider purchasing our Supporter’s license. If you already have the license, no further action is required.

Looking Ahead

We’re pumped about the future and have big plans for Radon IDE. Thanks to everyone participating in our Supporter’s program, and to everyone else trying it out and sharing your feedback. We’re thrilled to keep improving the tool under the Radon IDE name.

The Radon IDE Team