I’m about to start development and I’m unsure whether I should build two separate native apps (Java/Kotlin for Android, Swift for iOS), try to convert one to the other somehow, or use a cross-platform framework like Flutter.
What do most developers usually prefer? Any insights or personal experiences would be really helpful.
Hi,
In my last role at a fintech startup, we went with separate native development for Android and iOS. It gave us better performance, platform-specific UI/UX, and deeper integration with hardware features.
But it came at a cost, twice the development effort and separate codebases to maintain. If you’ve got the budget and a team for both platforms, native is still the gold standard, especially for apps with complex animations or native interactions.
Otherwise, the maintenance overhead can become a nightmare pretty quickly.
I’ve been using Flutter for the last couple of years, and it’s been great for building apps that run on both Android and iOS. One codebase, fast development, and consistent UI across platforms. I used it in a health app project recently and delivered both versions in nearly half the time.
But here’s where it gets even better, for testing, we integrated LambdaTest, which offers Android and iOS emulators directly in the browser. It helped us test the Flutter builds across different devices and OS versions without needing to set up local emulators or physical phones.
The real device cloud support from LambdaTest made it easy to spot layout glitches and compatibility issues early, especially for edge-case devices. If you’re going with a cross-platform stack, pairing it with LambdaTest can seriously smooth out your QA process.
In one of my side projects, I built the core experience as a progressive web app (PWA), then wrapped it using Capacitor to publish it on both the Play Store and App Store. It was a simple app, so this approach worked great.
If your app is mostly content-driven or doesn’t require deep native features, this is probably the fastest and most budget-friendly way to go live on both platforms. Just be aware that performance and native feel might not match that of Flutter or full native apps.