Why use react-native-edge-to-edge dependency instead of the newer edgeToEdgeEnabled=true?

[DragomirAndrei19]

I was wondering about the motivations for not using this property yet, and whether there are any plans to replace the react-native-edge-to-edge dependency with the newer edgeToEdgeEnabled=true introduced by the React Native team.

The author of the library actually recommends using an alternative library he developed if you’re on React Native >= 0.81:

If you're running React Native 0.81 or later, consider using the built-in edgeToEdgeEnabled=true Gradle property along with @zoontek/react-native-navigation-bar instead.

However, because edgeToEdgeEnabled is only applied programmatically while the library leverages Android themes, there is an issue with the modal component not covering the full screen when a system navigation bar is present.

This is basically why I haven’t switched to edgeToEdgeEnabled=true yet, but the library developer plans to fix this issue upstream in React Native, so things might change in the future.

[jpudysz]

I supported react-native-edge-edge since day one. I think it's more than a year now.

I will retire it in Unistyles 4.0.

[thiago-ribeiro1]

react-native-edge-to-edge is still used because it relies on theme-based configuration, which behaves more consistently across activities and modals.

While edgeToEdgeEnabled=true (RN ≥ 0.81) is promising, it’s applied programmatically and currently has gaps compared to the theme-based approach — most notably modals not covering the full screen when a system navigation bar is present.

Until that upstream React Native issue is resolved, keeping react-native-edge-to-edge remains the safer option. Once it’s fixed, migrating to edgeToEdgeEnabled=true becomes much more viable.