react-native-modalkit

Modern, Reanimated-first drop-in replacement for react-native-modal. Same props you know, all running on the UI thread, plus an imperative API, queue-aware <ModalProvider>, and gesture v2 swipes.

 

Why?

react-native-modal was great for years, but the project is no longer actively maintained and has no support for the New Architecture (Fabric / TurboModules). It still leans on react-native-animatable, the legacy Animated API, and PanResponder — all of which are showing their age on modern React Native. Apps adopting the New Arch (default in RN 0.76+) hit edge cases the upstream library can't fix.

modalkit picks up where it left off: same API surface so migration is a one-line import change, but the internals are rebuilt on the modern stack.

• 🆕 Built for React Native 0.78+ and the New Architecture (Fabric)
• ⚡ Animations driven by Reanimated 3 worklets — no JS-thread jank
• 👆 Swipes powered by react-native-gesture-handler v2 — plays nicely with nested scrollables
• 🪄 Drop-in API — change one import line, your existing props keep working
• 🧰 New: imperative useModal() hook, global <ModalProvider> + ModalManager for queue / stack-style modals
• 🦴 New: position="bottom" | "top" | "center" | "fullscreen" shortcut
• ♿️ New: respects the OS reduced-motion setting out of the box
• 🔁 New: reliable onModalHide timing — fires only after the native dismiss completes, so chained modals never stack and lock the screen

Install

npm install react-native-modalkit react-native-reanimated react-native-gesture-handler
# or
yarn add react-native-modalkit react-native-reanimated react-native-gesture-handler

Then follow the standard setup steps for the two peers:

• Reanimated installation guide
• Gesture Handler installation guide

Wrap your app in <GestureHandlerRootView> (most templates already do this).

Peer dep matrix

Peer	Required version
react	>=18.3
react-native	>=0.78
react-native-reanimated	>=3.10
react-native-gesture-handler	>=2.16

Quick start

import React, { useState } from "react";
import { View, Text, Button } from "react-native";
import Modal from "react-native-modalkit";

export const MyDialog = () => {
  const [isVisible, setIsVisible] = useState(false);

  return (
    <View>
      <Button title="Open" onPress={() => setIsVisible(true)} />
      <Modal
        isVisible={isVisible}
        onBackdropPress={() => setIsVisible(false)}
        onSwipeComplete={() => setIsVisible(false)}
        swipeDirection="down"
        position="bottom"
      >
        <View
          style={{ padding: 24, backgroundColor: "white", borderRadius: 12 }}
        >
          <Text>Hello modalkit 👋</Text>
        </View>
      </Modal>
    </View>
  );
};

Migrating from react-native-modal

For most projects, this is the entire diff:

- import Modal from "react-native-modal";
+ import Modal from "react-native-modalkit";

Every public prop carries the same name and same shape. Your animationIn="slideInUp", your swipeDirection={["up", "down"]}, your customBackdrop, your onModalHide — all keep working.

A few props that no longer make sense are accepted with a one-time dev warning:

Prop	Status
useNativeDriver	accepted, no-op (Reanimated already runs on UI thread)
useNativeDriverForBackdrop	accepted, no-op

Coming from one of my older modal libraries?

Modalkit supersedes both of these — they're now archived:

• react-native-global-modal-2 — replace <GlobalModal> with <ModalProvider>, and ModalController.show/hide with ModalManager.show/hide. Same imperative shape, plus everything on that library's roadmap (alerts, action sheets, bottom sheets, gestures, accessibility) — and no more react-native-modal peer dep.
• react-native-modal-2 — <Modal visible> becomes <Modal isVisible>, <AnimatedModal> collapses back into the same <Modal> (it's animated by default), and animation strings change from animationType="fade" / animationIn="slide" + animationDirection="up" to standard preset names (fadeIn, slideInUp, bounceIn, zoomIn). Backdrop props pass through unchanged. All animations now run on the UI thread via Reanimated 3.

Custom animations

If you used react-native-animatable's registerAnimation, modalkit ships an equivalent:

import { registerAnimation } from "react-native-modalkit";

registerAnimation("myFancySlide", {
  from: { opacity: 0, translateY: 200 },
  to: { opacity: 1, translateY: 0 },
});

Imperative API

For modals you don't want to wire to your render state:

import { useModal, Modal } from "react-native-modalkit";

const Screen = () => {
  const modal = useModal();

  return (
    <>
      <Button title="Open" onPress={modal.show} />
      <Modal ref={modal.ref} swipeDirection="down" onSwipeComplete={modal.hide}>
        <Sheet onClose={modal.hide} />
      </Modal>
    </>
  );
};

useModal() returns:

• ref — pass to <Modal ref={...} />
• show(), hide(), toggle() — imperative controls
• isVisible — current visibility (synchronous read)
• isVisibleProp — convenience: pass to a controlled <Modal isVisible={...} />

Queueing modals globally

For things like global confirms / alerts, mount a <ModalProvider> at the app root and dispatch via ModalManager:

// App.tsx
import { ModalProvider } from "react-native-modalkit";

export default function App() {
  return (
    <GestureHandlerRootView style={{ flex: 1 }}>
      <ModalProvider>
        <AppNavigator />
      </ModalProvider>
    </GestureHandlerRootView>
  );
}

// anywhere
import { ModalManager, Modal } from "react-native-modalkit";

const id = ModalManager.show(
  <Modal
    isVisible
    position="bottom"
    onBackdropPress={() => ModalManager.hide(id)}
  >
    <ConfirmDialog />
  </Modal>,
);

Animation configs

animationIn / animationOut accept any of:

// 1. Built-in preset name (same names as react-native-modal)
<Modal animationIn="slideInUp" animationOut="slideOutDown" />

// 2. Custom keyframe object (react-native-animatable shape)
<Modal animationIn={{ from: { opacity: 0, scale: 0.7 }, to: { opacity: 1, scale: 1 } }} />

// 3. Reanimated config — full control, springs supported.
//    Pair with `preset` so the physics drives a visible transform.
<Modal animationIn={{ type: "spring", preset: "zoomIn", damping: 11, stiffness: 110 }} />
<Modal animationIn={{ type: "timing", preset: "slideInUp", duration: 250 }} />

// Without `preset`, the config drives the position default's frames
// (fadeIn for `position="center"`), which makes a spring's overshoot
// invisible — set `preset` if you want the boing.

Built-in presets

slideInUp, slideInDown, slideInLeft, slideInRight, slideOutUp, slideOutDown, slideOutLeft, slideOutRight, fadeIn, fadeOut, fadeInUp/Down/Left/Right, fadeOutUp/Down/Left/Right, zoomIn, zoomOut, bounceIn, bounceOut, flipInX/Y, flipOutX/Y, pulse.

Position shortcuts

<Modal position="bottom">…</Modal>   // slideInUp / slideOutDown defaults, edge-to-edge
<Modal position="top">…</Modal>      // slideInDown / slideOutUp, with horizontal padding
<Modal position="center">…</Modal>   // fadeIn / fadeOut, with horizontal padding (default)
<Modal position="fullscreen">…</Modal>

Explicit animationIn / animationOut always override the position default. center and top ship with paddingHorizontal: 16 so dialogs don't reach the screen edges; bottom and fullscreen stay edge-to-edge for sheets and lightboxes.

Styling — wrap your content

The Modal's style prop applies to the outer layout container (matching react-native-modal's convention). For a bottom sheet, dialog, or any non-fullscreen content, wrap your body in a styled <View> so the layout container stays transparent and the backdrop shows through above it:

// ❌ Wrong — paints the whole screen white, content sits at the bottom of it
<Modal isVisible position="bottom" style={{ backgroundColor: "white" }}>
  <Text>Bottom sheet</Text>
</Modal>

// ✅ Right — the layout container stays transparent, only the inner view is white
<Modal isVisible position="bottom">
  <View style={{ backgroundColor: "white", padding: 24, borderTopLeftRadius: 24 }}>
    <Text>Bottom sheet</Text>
  </View>
</Modal>

Lifecycle and chaining modals

Callbacks fire in this order on every close:

1. onModalWillHide — close animation is about to start
2. close animation runs (animationOutTiming)
3. native <Modal> dismisses (iOS plays its dismiss; Android instant)
4. onModalHide and onDismiss — fire only after the native window is fully gone

That last point matters: onModalHide is your "safe to dispatch the next modal" signal. Anything you do inside it — a follow-up alert, navigation, opening another sheet — runs against a clean iOS modal stack, so you don't get the dreaded "screen unresponsive after close" issue:

<Modal
  isVisible={visible}
  onBackdropPress={() => setVisible(false)}
  onModalHide={() => {
    // Safe to dispatch another modal here — the previous is fully gone.
    ModalManager.alert({ title: "Saved!" });
  }}
>
  …
</Modal>

Same guarantee for the promise-based helpers — await chains just work:

const ok = await ModalManager.confirm({
  title: "Delete?",
  destructive: true,
});
if (ok) {
  await ModalManager.alert({ title: "Deleted" }); // safe; no stacking
}

Props reference

All react-native-modal props are supported. modalkit-specific additions:

Prop	Type	Default	Notes
position	"center" | "top" | "bottom" | "fullscreen"	"center"	Layout + animation defaults shortcut
respectReducedMotion	boolean	true	Skip animations when the OS reduced-motion setting is on
modalTestID	string	—	Forwarded to the underlying <Modal> host

See Modal.types.ts for the full surface.

Example app

A minimal Expo app lives in example/:

cd example
npm install
npm run start

Contributing

PRs welcome. The library is built with react-native-builder-bob and tested with Jest + RNTL.

npm install
npm run typecheck
npm run lint
npm test
npm run build

License

MIT © FreakyCoder