Cross-Platform Strategy

Choose the right cross-platform approach for your mobile project.

Usage

1. List your hard requirements: performance needs, native API access, team expertise, timeline
2. Evaluate frameworks against your requirements using the decision matrix below
3. Consider code sharing percentage vs native experience trade-offs
4. Plan your architecture for maximum code reuse while allowing platform-specific UI
5. Set up CI/CD that builds and tests both platforms from a single codebase

Examples

• Content-heavy app (news, social): Flutter or React Native — most UI is lists, images, and text that render identically cross-platform. 90%+ code sharing achievable
• Hardware-intensive app (camera, AR, Bluetooth): Native (Swift/Kotlin) or Kotlin Multiplatform — share business logic but keep platform-specific UI and hardware access
• Internal business app: React Native with Expo — fastest development, largest talent pool (JavaScript), acceptable performance for CRUD apps
• High-performance game or graphics: Unity or native — no cross-platform UI framework matches native rendering for 60fps graphics-heavy apps

Guidelines

• React Native: largest community, JavaScript ecosystem, but bridge overhead for heavy native interactions. Best for teams with web developers
• Flutter: best rendering consistency across platforms, Dart learning curve, growing ecosystem. Best for pixel-perfect custom UI
• Kotlin Multiplatform: share business logic only, native UI on each platform. Best when native look-and-feel is critical
• PWA: no app store needed, limited native API access, works everywhere. Best for simple apps that don't need push notifications or offline
• Never choose based on benchmarks alone — developer productivity and hiring pipeline matter more for most projects
• Plan for platform-specific 10-20% of code regardless of framework choice