Which development approach do you prefer when building mobile apps? 1) Native (writing separate code for iOS/Android), 2) Cross-platform (single codebase like Flutter or React Native), or 3) Web-based PWA (browser-based apps). Which option works best for you in terms of efficiency and sustainability? Share your reasoning briefly—your experience could help others. I’m especially interested in your thoughts on performance and development time.
Which approach do you prefer in mobile app development?
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I prefer cross-platform development with Flutter because it strikes a good balance between performance and development speed, especially for small to medium-sized projects. In my experience, the performance is close to native, but the development time is significantly reduced.
In my latest smart home project, I started by developing native apps for both iOS and Android because I wanted maximum performance for the lighting control panel and scenarios. The results were excellent in terms of speed, but every change required separate updates, which clearly delayed releases. After three months of maintaining two codebases, I decided to try Flutter. With a single codebase, we were able to add a new feature (voice control) in just one week, and the performance remained close to native, especially on modern devices. Only in specific cases involving iOS-specific APIs did we have to write a small bridge, but maintenance costs dropped significantly.
As for PWA, we tested it as a trial version for users who didn’t want to install the app, and the user experience was acceptable on older phones. However, the performance gap—especially in animations and background services—made it unsuitable for critical functions in the smart home system.
In short, if performance is a priority and you need direct access to sensors, I’d still prefer native or Flutter depending on team size. For simple interfaces or quick experiments, PWA remains a good choice to reduce development time and cover a wide range of browsers.
Thanks for the question! Personally, I prefer cross-platform solutions like Flutter because they speed up development time with good performance and lower costs. Have you tried React Native, and did you notice a significant difference in app size?