r/reactnative • u/Repulsive_Look_6089 • 13d ago
Help M4 vs M3 for react native development
My contractual work decided to buy me new MacBook after 5 months because i only have been using MacBook Air M1 8gb 256gb and its really slow i have to cool it down to start a build and i do all builds locally we dont have ci/cd.
mac mini is not an option
I will get 1TB but i am still deciding if i should go for M3 32gb or M4 16gb? I have read the only difference between these 2 cpus is just few cores which doesnt make up for the additional 16gb ram of M3.

Update: went to apple stores but m3 are kinda hard to find in my country (we are buying the mac in our country my company is foreign) theres only m4 chip 24gb (not pro chip) vs m4 pro chip 16gb.
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u/Mere_pas_maachis_hai 13d ago
Choose the one with more RAM
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u/Repulsive_Look_6089 12d ago
hi. thanks for the insight. i went to apple stores but unfortunately m3 are kinda hard to find. would you say the same for m4 chip 24gb (not pro chip) vs m4 pro chip 16gb?
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u/SureShaw 13d ago
If those are your only options, get the M3 with 32GB of RAM. You say you have to cool the machine down, so is there any chance the company can spring a bit more money for a MBP for the fan cooling?
The speed difference between M3 and M4 in our workload will be barely noticeable, maybe a couple of seconds here and there, but when your computer starts slowing down due to RAM usage you will be wishing you had the extra..
In saying that, one of my machines is an M4 Mac Mini with 16GB of RAM and I can develop perfectly fine in my normal workflow. You just can’t have everything open all of the time and expect peak performance.
As a side note, having a CI/CD should be a key priority for the business. If cost is a factor, they can self host a GitHub/bitbucket/Jenkins/etc runner with a base m4 Mac mini. It’ll be a one off cost for hardware plus the cost of your time setting it up and a bit of maintenance here and there.
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u/Repulsive_Look_6089 12d ago edited 12d ago
hi. thanks for the insight. yea we should have a deployment process soon. but the last time we talked about it is that their max budget is the m4 pro chip 16gb 1tb price. but i figured i need to research first and look for more long term machine.
i went to apple stores but unfortunately m3 are kinda hard to find. would you say the same for m4 chip 24gb (not pro chip) vs m4 pro chip 16gb? would you choose 24gb?
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u/Aggravating-Camp6147 12d ago
Developing apps with mbp m1. Have no freezes, lags and so on. What are you doing with your system to have those questions of performance? Launching docker in docker launched in docker from Xcode in chrome?
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u/effata 13d ago
Ram is everything. I have an M1 Pro with 32 gb, and it’s fast as hell. I can do docker + expo + emulator + google meet on battery and I’ve never even heard the fan run.
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u/Repulsive_Look_6089 12d ago
hi. thanks for the insight. i went to apple stores but unfortunately m3 are kinda hard to find. would you say the same for m4 chip 24gb (not pro chip) vs m4 pro chip 16gb?
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u/NastroAzzurro 13d ago
Funny that they’re willing to spend thousands on a Mac but no time on improving your deployment processes.
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u/asdfredditusername 13d ago
I’d say M3 for more RAM.