React Native OTA releases you can walk away from

RollPilot is a hosted over-the-air release platform for React Native and Expo apps, built on Expo Updates Protocol v1. Your app keeps the official expo-updates client, unmodified — which is also what lets you leave.

The lock-in problem, and why the protocol solves it

Choosing an OTA vendor means routing your release pipeline — the thing that decides whether you can ship a fix tonight — through someone else's infrastructure. If that vendor raises prices, gets acquired, or simply disappears, you are not just switching tools. You are switching the mechanism your shipped apps use to phone home, which normally means an app store release to change it.

That risk is why most teams either overpay for the incumbent or take on infrastructure they did not want.

Expo Updates Protocol changes the shape of the problem. It is an open contract with several independent implementations, and the client is the standard expo-updates package with no fork and no patched native module. So the answer to "what happens if RollPilot goes away" is not a migration project. It is a URL.

We would rather compete on being worth staying with.

What it is

A hosted release platform for teams who want the update pipeline to work without owning it. We run the object storage, the CDN, the signing key custody, the database and the backups. You publish, watch the rollout, and roll back if it goes wrong.

• The official client, unmodified. No proprietary SDK to adopt, and none to rip out later.
• Releases you can inspect. Immutable artifacts, a client-invisible draft stage, then an atomic publish. Every lifecycle action is idempotent and audited.
• Multiple apps and deployments in one place, rather than one deployment per app.
• Built for agents as well as people. An OpenAPI contract and --output json on every CLI command, so CI and coding agents can drive the whole release path.

If you would rather run it yourself, that is a legitimate choice and there are good options — the reference below covers honestly what it involves.

Get notified

One message when it opens. Nothing else.

Stored to send you a single launch notice, then deleted. Not shared, not used for anything else. Want it removed early, or have a question? hello@rollpilot.dev.

Meanwhile

Self-hosting Expo Updates: what the protocol actually requires — the request contract, the manifest response, code signing, and the infrastructure work that is not the server. Vendor-neutral, and written because nobody else had written it.