Prothes Barai
Founder & Engineer, PSBM Labs
We build production apps in both Flutter and native Kotlin, so this isn't an argument for one over the other — it's the framework we actually use internally when scoping a new mobile project.
When Flutter is the better fit
- You need Android and iOS from one codebase — Flutter's single codebase genuinely reduces cost and keeps both platforms in sync feature-for-feature.
- The UI is custom and animation-heavy — Flutter's rendering engine handles custom, highly designed interfaces very well.
- Timeline matters more than platform-specific polish — shipping to both stores faster usually outweighs small platform inconsistencies for an MVP.
When native is the better fit
- Deep hardware or OS integration — apps leaning heavily on background services, specific sensors, or platform-exclusive APIs are usually smoother in native code.
- Android-only, long-term product — if you know you're not building for iOS for the foreseeable future, native Kotlin avoids the overhead of a cross-platform framework you don't need.
- Performance-critical apps — certain graphics- or compute-heavy use cases still favor native, though the gap with Flutter has narrowed considerably.
Cost and timeline, roughly
| Factor | Flutter | Native (per platform) |
|---|---|---|
| Codebases to maintain | One | Two (Android + iOS) |
| Typical MVP timeline | Faster to both stores | Faster per single platform |
| Long-term maintenance | Lower, shared logic | Higher, duplicated effort |
What we actually recommend most often
For the majority of business apps — marketplaces, service apps, internal tools — we recommend Flutter, because most products need both platforms and most teams benefit from one team maintaining one codebase. We reach for native Kotlin specifically when a client already knows they're Android-first indefinitely, or the app depends on something Flutter doesn't handle cleanly yet.