The Gap Has Closed
With hardware acceleration and compiled runtimes, user perception differences between optimised React Native/Flutter and Native are negligible for 95% of apps.
When to Choose Native
Heavy AR/VR, 3D Gaming, deep system integration (Home Screen widgets, obscure Bluetooth protocols), or wearing "Apple Design Award" ambitions.
When to Choose Cross-Platform
B2B apps, E-commerce, content apps, startups needing speed. One codebase for two platforms is a massive budget advantage.
The Rise of Kotlin Multiplatform
KMP offers a middle ground. Share business logic (Kotlin) but keep UI native (SwiftUI/Compose). Best of both worlds?
Developer Availability
React Native devs (JS) are plentiful. Good Swift/Kotlin engineers are expensive and harder to find.
Maintenance Costs
Cross-platform has dependency hell (npm packages rotting). Native has OS update churn. Pick your poison.
The Future
Declarative UI (SwiftUI, Compose, Flutter, RN) has unified the *way* we build. The underlying engine matters less than the paradigm.