comparison
React Buoy vs Flipper
Updated July 2026
Flipper is no longer a realistic choice for React Native debugging: Meta deprecated its React Native integration in RN 0.73, and React Native DevTools became the built-in debugger in 0.76. If Flipper's network inspector, storage viewer, and plugin dashboard were your daily drivers, React Buoy is the closest modern replacement — it puts the same class of tools inside your app, works with Expo, and also runs in staging and production, which Flipper never did.
What happened to Flipper?
Flipper was Meta's extensible desktop debugging platform for mobile apps. For years it shipped as the default React Native debugging experience — until the React Native team announced its deprecation as part of RN 0.73 (late 2023) and replaced it with React Native DevTools, which became the default debugger in RN 0.76 (2024). Flipper the desktop app still exists, but its React Native integration is unmaintained: new architecture support lagged, the native build hooks caused upgrade pain, and it never worked with Expo Go.
React Native DevTools took over the JS-debugging half of Flipper's job well — console, breakpoints, the React component tree, and the profiler. What it did not replace is the other half: network inspection, storage browsing, and the pluggable per-domain tool dashboard. That's the gap this comparison is about.
React Buoy vs Flipper, feature by feature
| Capability | React Buoy | Flipper |
|---|---|---|
| Maintained for React Native | Yes | No |
| Works with Expo (incl. Expo Go) | Yes | No |
| Network inspector | Yes | Yes |
| AsyncStorage / MMKV browser | Yes | Via plugins |
| React Query / Redux / Zustand / Jotai tools | Yes | Via plugins |
| Runs on the device itself (no cable/desktop needed) | Yes | No |
| Works in staging & production builds | Yes | No |
| Desktop dashboard | Yes | Yes |
| AI agent access (MCP for Claude/Cursor) | Yes | No |
| Native (non-RN) iOS/Android app support | No | Yes |
| JS breakpoints & source debugging | No | Via Hermes debugger |
| Price | Free core · Pro for desktop/MCP | Free |
The honest summary: Flipper was free and covered native apps too, and for breakpoint debugging you should use React Native DevTools — Buoy doesn't try to replace that. Buoy's job is the inspection layer: seeing what your app actually did — every request, state change, storage write, render, and log — wherever the app is running.
The architectural difference that matters
Flipper lived on your desktop and reached into the app over a cable and a native SDK — which is exactly why it broke on new architecture releases, never supported Expo Go, and could never run against a production build. React Buoy inverts that: the tools are JavaScript that ships inside your app behind a floating menu. Dev, staging, and production builds all carry them; QA and support can open the same tools on their own devices with no setup. The optional desktop dashboard and the MCP server (for Claude Code and Cursor) connect to the same in-app tools when you want a bigger screen or an AI agent driving the debugging.
Migrating from Flipper: what maps to what
Flipper's network plugin maps to Buoy Network; the shared-preferences/databases plugins map to Storage (AsyncStorage, MMKV, SecureStore); crash/log viewing maps to Console and Events; React DevTools stays with React Native DevTools, and Buoy adds render highlighting and on-device benchmarks on top. Each tool is its own npm package, so you install only what you used in Flipper.
Frequently asked questions
Is Flipper still supported in React Native?
What replaced Flipper in React Native?
Can React Buoy debug production builds like Flipper?
Does React Buoy work with Expo?
Replace your Flipper workflow in one install
Free for on-device debugging. Two-minute install, no native code.
npm i @buoy-gg/core