Native vs cross-platform: how we actually decide
The honest framework we use when a client asks whether their app should be native — it rarely comes down to performance.
"Should we go native or cross-platform?" is usually asked as a performance question. In 2025 it rarely is — React Native and Flutter run circles around most use cases. The real questions are different.
Question one: what does your team look like in three years? A single codebase means one team maintains both stores. If you'll never staff separate iOS and Android teams, that alone settles it.
Question two: how deep are your platform integrations? Bluetooth peripherals, background tracking, store-specific compliance flows — the more platform-specific surface area, the more a shared codebase starts paying a tax in bridges and edge cases.
Question three: what's the cost of being wrong? If the app is the business, paying twice for native might be insurance. If it's one channel among several, cross-platform ships faster and iterates cheaper.
Our default for business apps is cross-platform — it's what we shipped for most of our mobile work. Native earns its cost when the product lives on platform-specific capability. The honest answer is almost never "it depends" — it's a checklist, and we run it with every client.