Why React Native Audio API?
React Native Audio API and Expo Audio both play and record audio, but they solve different problems. React Native Audio API is an audio engine: you build a graph of nodes that generate, process, and analyze sound in real time. Expo Audio is a media player: you give it a file or URL and control playback.
Feature comparison
Playback
| Expo Audio | React Native Audio API | |
|---|---|---|
| File and URL playback | ✅ | ✅ |
| Raw PCM playback | ❌ | ✅ |
| Lock screen controls and background playback | ✅ | ✅ |
| Mixing and syncing many sounds | ❌ | ✅ |
| Sample-accurate scheduling | ❌ | ✅ |
| Animating UI from audio without the JS thread | ❌ | ✅ WorkletNode runs your callback on the UI runtime, where it can update Reanimated shared values directly |
| Built-in playlist | ✅ | ❌ |
| Playing chunked audio, for example from a text-to-speech API | ❌ | ✅ AudioBufferQueueSourceNode plays buffers as you enqueue them gapless |
| Playback rate and pitch correction | ✅ | ✅ |
Recording
| Expo Audio | React Native Audio API | |
|---|---|---|
| Long recordings | ✅ One large file per recording | ✅ File rotation chunks recording, which limits data loss if the app is killed. |
| Background recording and notification | ✅ | ✅ |
| Live access to recorded data | ✅ | ✅ |
| Echo cancellation | ❌ | ✅ |
| Animating UI from microphone input without the JS thread | ❌ | ✅ WorkletNode runs your callback on the UI runtime, where it can update Reanimated shared values directly |
Sound processing and analysis
| Expo Audio | React Native Audio API | |
|---|---|---|
| Effects (filters, delay, reverb, panning, distortion) | ❌ | ✅ e.g. BiquadFilterNode |
| Synthesis (oscillators, generated buffers) | ❌ | ✅ |
| Real-time analysis (FFT, waveform) | ❌ Raw PCM samples of a player | ✅ e.g. AnalyserNode |
| Offline rendering | ❌ | ✅ |
| Custom processing in JavaScript on the audio thread | ❌ | ✅ e.g. WorkletProcessingNode |
System integration
| Expo Audio | React Native Audio API | |
|---|---|---|
| Audio session configuration | ✅ | ✅ |
| Interruption and route change events | ❌ | ✅ |
| System volume | ❌ | ✅ |
| Audio devices | ✅ | ✅ |
When to choose Expo Audio
- Simple playback. Music, podcasts, audiobooks, or sound effects played as they are, without changing the sound.
- Playlists. A ready-made queue with looping, and next and previous controls.
- Simple recording. Voice memos or similar clips recorded with standard quality settings.
- Quick prototypes. Trying ideas in Expo Go without making a development build.
When to choose React Native Audio API
- Music apps and games. Instruments, drum machines, sequencers, DJ apps, or games where sounds must start at an exact moment.
- Multitrack playback. Stems, music practice apps, or layered soundscapes where many sounds play in sync, each with its own volume and routing.
- Sound design. Effects, filters, spatial audio, or sound generated in code instead of loaded from files.
- Voice and AI apps. Playing text-to-speech that arrives in chunks, sending microphone audio to a speech or AI service at the sample rate it expects, or full-duplex voice chat with echo cancellation.
- Audio-reactive UI. Visualizers, waveforms, and animations driven by audio on the UI thread, without waiting for the JS thread.
- Long or critical recordings. Meetings, lectures, interviews, or field recordings that must survive the app being killed, with a notification the user can pause and resume from on Android.
- Control over system audio. Your own audio session setup, handling of interruptions and route changes, or UI that follows the system volume.
If you only need simple playback today but expect to add effects or visualization later, start with the <Audio> component.
You can route it into an audio graph with MediaElementAudioSourceNode when you need more.