Flutter
One codebase that paints its own pixels — iOS and Android that look identical, ship together.
What it is, and why we use it.
Flutter is Google's UI toolkit for building natively-compiled apps from a single Dart codebase. Unlike frameworks that wrap native components, Flutter renders every pixel itself with its own engine (Impeller) — which is why a Flutter app looks and animates exactly the same on a three-year-old Android phone as on the newest iPhone.
We reach for Flutter when a single codebase is the right call for the product — and go fully native when it isn't. Where we do use it, we pair it with native Swift/Kotlin modules when a package falls short — payments SDKs, background audio, IoT bridges — so clients get cross-platform economics without cross-platform compromises.
Flutter vs React Native vs Native (Swift / Kotlin).
The real question is never "is Flutter good?" — it's Flutter against React Native against going fully native. Here's how we draw the line.
| Dimension | Flutter | React Native | Native (Swift / Kotlin) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Dart | JavaScript / TypeScript | Swift & Kotlin |
| How UI is drawn | Own rendering engine — pixel-identical on every device | Translates to real native components per platform | The platform's own components, directly |
| Performance | Compiled to machine code; 60–120fps animation is the norm | Fast, but the JS bridge can stutter under heavy load | The ceiling — nothing between you and the metal |
| Code shared across platforms | ~95% — UI included | ~85% — UI mostly shared, platform quirks remain | 0% — two codebases, two teams |
| Platform look & feel | Consistent brand-first UI; mimics platform where needed | Closest to native feel out of the box | Perfectly native, always |
| Hiring & ecosystem | Smaller talent pool, very strong first-party packages | Huge — any React developer can contribute | Deep but split across two specialised teams |
| Cost of two platforms | ≈ 1.1× a single app | ≈ 1.2× a single app | ≈ 1.9× a single app |
Flutter wins when
- Design-heavy, brand-first products where both platforms must look identical
- Animation-rich consumer apps on a startup budget
- Markets full of low-end Android devices — its renderer doesn't care
React Native wins when
- Your team already lives in React and TypeScript
- You want over-the-air updates without store review
- The app should feel strictly platform-native
Native wins when
- You need bleeding-edge OS features the day they ship
- Hardware-intensive work: AR, advanced camera, ultra-low-latency audio
- Budget allows two dedicated teams and you're optimising the last 5%
For 8 out of 10 briefs we see, Flutter is the right call: one team, one release train, no visual drift between platforms. We reach past it only when an app lives or dies on a native-only capability.
Thinking about Flutter?
Tell us what you're building — we'll tell you honestly whether Flutter is the right tool for it.