When a client asks for a mobile app, the first real decision is not features — it is architecture. Native (separate Android and iOS codebases) or cross-platform?
The honest math
Two native apps means two codebases, two release pipelines, and roughly 1.8× the cost of a single Flutter codebase — forever, because every future change is made twice.
When native is worth it
Heavy 3D games, cutting-edge AR, or apps squeezing every millisecond from the GPU. In eight years, fewer than 5% of SME projects we've scoped genuinely needed this.
When Flutter wins
- Business apps: forms, lists, dashboards, payments
- Field-work tools with offline sync
- Customer apps where speed-to-market matters
Our default recommendation
Start with Flutter, ship to both stores in half the time, and spend the saved budget on the thing that actually retains users: polish and iteration.