Native or cross-platform: how we actually choose
We default to Flutter for cross-platform work and go native when the project earns it. The decision comes from constraints, not fashion.
Teams often arrive having already picked a side, usually because of an article or a previous contractor. We would rather start from the constraints, because the right answer changes from project to project — and occasionally changes within one.
Our default is Flutter
When an app ships on both iOS and Android and the interface is substantially the same on each, one Flutter codebase is the pragmatic choice. You get a pixel-identical interface on both platforms, one set of business logic to test, and one team rather than two. For most products this is the cheaper path to the same result.
When we go native instead
The app needs platform depth a bridge cannot reach: deep camera control, background processing, or a system integration that only exists in the native SDK.
Performance is the product. If the app lives or dies on frame-perfect rendering or heavy on-device computation, the native runtime removes a layer of doubt.
You already have a native team. The best stack is often the one your people can maintain after we leave.
What does not decide it
App size differences, the language a framework is written in, and benchmark charts comparing list scrolling almost never matter at the scale most products operate. Neither does our own convenience. If cross-platform would save us time but cost you the feature your product depends on, it is the wrong choice and we will say so.
The hybrid case
Some products are best served by a shared codebase with one or two native modules behind a platform channel. This is more work than it looks and we do not reach for it early, but for an app that is ninety per cent ordinary screens and ten per cent hardware access it is often the honest answer.
Decide it during discovery
This choice belongs in the first few days of a project, not after design. It shapes the architecture, the hiring you will do later, and the cost of the second platform. We write the decision and the reasons down, so that in a year nobody has to guess why the project went the way it did.
Keep reading
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What an MVP should actually contain
Most MVPs fail because they are either too small to prove anything or too large to ship. Here is how we decide what goes in.