When we download apps from the play store or AppStore, there is a high possibility that the app will have the inbuilt camera feature. Many apps use it now the days for the purpose of setting a user profile. And, to set the profile picture of the user, camera and image picker features are vital. Not only that, commerce and social media apps are gaining much more popular nowadays and these apps definitely make use of device camera and gallery options with advanced features as well. Many popular apps like Facebook, Instagram built using React Native use the advanced type of camera options for taking pictures as well as video recording and calling. This means that the camera feature in React Native is pretty advanced and if you are trying to integrate one you should have knowledge about the available resources.

Here, we review some of the most popular React Native Camera libraries providing basic as well as additional features to make camera integration in your React Native app easier and efficient:

1.react-native-camera

If you are looking for the heavyweight module for a camera that provides maximum features in terms of camera operation, then this is just the package you want to use. This camera module for React Native has more than 8.7k stars. Hence, it is a well-established module and reliable as well. This camera module supports basic features such as photographs and video recordings. In addition, the module offers special features of face detection, barcode scanning, and text recognition. This package would be great for those React Native application that provides support for camera feature and eCommerce apps as well for scanning barcodes and all. Since the module also houses text recognition, it can be used as a photographic search engine apps as well.

2.react-native-camera-kit

This camera kit package for React Native is designed to provide high-performance advanced camera options for your React Native app. The package is optimized for performance and high photo capture rate. It also provides support for QR code and Barcode scanning. Hence, this camera plugin is optimized specially for capturing the image only and does not support video recording. Great for apps that require camera image capturing option with gallery image selection feature as well as apps requiring barcode or QR code scanning. This package exhibits an overall of 1.1k stars in it’s GitHub repo. This package is highly recommended for those to React Native apps in need of a lightweight camera module with high performance.

3.react-native-camera-roll-picker

Now if you are looking for a lightweight React Native library that offers the functionality of image selection from the gallery then, this package might be the best one for you. It is a comprehensive module that offers a Camera roll picker component in React Native. It supports single as well as multiple image selection. The overall features work smoothly with high-performance benefits. It provides overall control of the picker component where you can set the maximum number of images to be selected, a maximum number of images to be shown in the picker component, width, height, selected marker in the camera roll, etc. Overall, a highly customizable camera roll picker component for React Native apps. The package rates the overall of 380+ stars in it’s GitHub repo.

4.react-native-photos-framework

This package offers a modern and comprehensive CameraRoll/iCloud-library-API for React Native applications. You should be clear that this is not a UI component built for React Native instead it is an API that loads photos, videos, etc. from the camera roll and iCloud. This library uses the Apple photos framework to provide the resources. It also offers some advanced options for loading and filtering the image resources. There is also support for showcasing the images and videos in the app itself. It provides CRUD operation features for images, videos, and albums. It also allows the uploading of images to the server and also deals with changes to the image collection. The package is comparatively new and already has a rating of 180+ stars in its GitHub repo.

5.react-native-image-picker

This is the most popular package when it comes to an Image Picker library available for React Native. Rated more than 6.6k stars in it’s GitHub repo, this module enables us to use native UI to select media from the device library or directly from the camera. Hence, you can take the photo directly from the camera and display it in your app or select the image from the gallery. This is the best lightweight image picker component available for React Native apps. Easy to install, configure, and use. The complex image manipulation features are not available in this package. Hence, the features provided are simple and straightforward.

Conclusion

Now, you know which packages to look into if you are trying to integrate camera or image picker features into your React Native app. The features offered by the above-mentioned packages are scalable as well as customizable based on your needs. The suggestion is to use a lightweight module for better performance. But, if you want a camera feature with complex functions then, you can choose the heavyweight package that provides it all. The packages not only provide features to click images or select images from the gallery but also some extra features of scanning the barcode, text recognition, etc. which can be highly beneficial in some e-commerce based React Native application. Hence, it is vital to learn about each resource that is available and choose the best one that suits your needs.