⚡ FlashList Internals Explained
Why It’s Faster Than FlatList (And When You Should Use It) If you’ve ever replaced FlatList with FlashList and thought: “Why does this feel magically smoother?” The answer is not magic . It’s architecture, predictability, and aggressive recycling . Let’s open the hood and see what actually happens. 🧠 The Core Problem FlashList Solves FlatList tries to answer this question on every scroll : “Which items should I render now?” But it often doesn’t know : Exact item size Layout cost in advance How expensive rendering is So FlatList plays safe: Renders extra items Keeps more views alive Asks JS thread more often FlashList flips this model. 🧩 The FlashList Mental Model (Very Important) FlashList is a recycler first, renderer second Instead of: Creating views → destroying views → recreating views FlashList: Creates a small pool of views Recycles them aggressively Rebinds data instead of re-rendering trees This is the same...