🧑💻 If you’d start your own mobile app tomorrow, what technology would you pick? (+ what I’d pick after 11 years of app development)
I’ve been building mobile apps since 2015, and here’s how my answer changed over the years:
1. Native iOS
That’s what I started with, what I knew best. However, it made sense, because despite having fewer users than Android, iOS users were more willing to pay 💰 for premium features.
So, for a personal app aiming to bring some side income, iOS was the easy pick.
2. Flutter
I learned native Android after iOS, and I loved it, but building 2 separate apps would’ve taken almost 2x the work 🧑💻 so the natural upgrade was either Flutter or React Native.
After countless comparison videos and articles, I decided to learn Flutter. It was well documented, had better UI performance, and Dart + the Flutter APIs were more similar to Swift/Kotlin (native iOS/Android) than React Native.
3. Kotlin / Compose Multiplatform
This was the best route for native developers, especially Android devs 📲 Same language, environment, plus the possibility to build iOS UI in SwiftUI, for that native iOS experience. Not 100% code reusability, but still better than with separate apps.
In 2025, Compose Multiplatform became stable for iOS too, so we had the best of both worlds: shared logic, shared UI, and easy access to native features whenever needed. However, the iOS UI wasn’t exactly native anymore.
Now - Native apps again?!
Now I’m contemplating if it’s worth it again to make 2 separate native apps, since AI speeds up development so much 🤔
This removes the dependencies headaches and the interoperability problems, but we’re left again with 2 apps to build and maintain. This costs at least 2x the tokens + keeping them in sync all the time.
What do you think? What would you pick (or have you picked if you started already)?
#mobileappdevelopment #programming #ios #android #flutter
I’ve been building mobile apps since 2015, and here’s how my answer changed over the years:
1. Native iOS
That’s what I started with, what I knew best. However, it made sense, because despite having fewer users than Android, iOS users were more willing to pay 💰 for premium features.
So, for a personal app aiming to bring some side income, iOS was the easy pick.
2. Flutter
I learned native Android after iOS, and I loved it, but building 2 separate apps would’ve taken almost 2x the work 🧑💻 so the natural upgrade was either Flutter or React Native.
After countless comparison videos and articles, I decided to learn Flutter. It was well documented, had better UI performance, and Dart + the Flutter APIs were more similar to Swift/Kotlin (native iOS/Android) than React Native.
3. Kotlin / Compose Multiplatform
This was the best route for native developers, especially Android devs 📲 Same language, environment, plus the possibility to build iOS UI in SwiftUI, for that native iOS experience. Not 100% code reusability, but still better than with separate apps.
In 2025, Compose Multiplatform became stable for iOS too, so we had the best of both worlds: shared logic, shared UI, and easy access to native features whenever needed. However, the iOS UI wasn’t exactly native anymore.
Now - Native apps again?!
Now I’m contemplating if it’s worth it again to make 2 separate native apps, since AI speeds up development so much 🤔
This removes the dependencies headaches and the interoperability problems, but we’re left again with 2 apps to build and maintain. This costs at least 2x the tokens + keeping them in sync all the time.
What do you think? What would you pick (or have you picked if you started already)?
#mobileappdevelopment #programming #ios #android #flutter
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