React Native Architecture: 8 Folder Structures for Scalable Apps

A team-lead's breakdown of 8 real React Native project architectures — what each one actually solves, where the "Domain-Driven" and "Micro-Frontend" labels get misused, and how to pick one without over-engineering an MVP. The house-building analogy When you build a house, the labor that lays the bricks gets paid well. The architect who drew the blueprint gets paid more — because the architect already accounted for the second floor you'll add next year, and made sure the foundation could take the load without anyone tearing down a wall later. React Native codebases work the same way. The folder structure you pick on day one either lets your app absorb 10 more features and 40 more engineers, or it collapses under its own weight and someone gets hired specifically to rewrite it. This is also, almost word for word, what a React Native team lead interview is probing for: "Walk me through how you'd structure a project" or "What's your folder structure and why?" Nobody wants your code in that answer — they want to hear you reason about trade-offs. So here are eight real folder structures, what each one actually solves, and two places where the common naming gets sloppy. 1. Flat Structure — for prototypes and MVPs src/ ├── App.js ├── HomeScreen.js ├── ProfileScreen.js ├── Button.js ├── Card.js └── api.js Everything in one src/ folder, no categorization. When to use it: a client demo, a hackathon build, a single-screen proof of concept — anything with a short shelf life, or code you expect a bigger team to re-architect later. Where it breaks: past 10–15 files you're scrolling through an undifferentiated pile with no signal about what belongs together. 2. Feature-Based Structure — the industry default src/ └── features/ ├── auth/ │ ├── components/ │ ├── screens/ │ └── services/ ├── profile/ │ ├── components/ │ ├── screens/ │ └── services/ └── feed/ ├── components/ ├── screens/ └── services/ This is the most common structure in production RN apps. Each product area — auth, pro