Lesson 1 of 4

Native or cross-platform: choosing how to build

2 min read

The options

Approach	Languages	Strengths	Trade-offs
Native Android	Kotlin (Java)	best performance, full platform APIs, first access to new features	Android only
Native iOS	Swift	same, for Apple devices	iOS only; needs a Mac
Flutter	Dart	one codebase, own rendering engine, consistent pixel-perfect UI, fast hot reload	larger app size; platform features through plugins
React Native	JavaScript/TypeScript	one codebase, React skills reused, native UI components	bridge/JSI complexity for heavy native work
Kotlin Multiplatform	Kotlin	shared business logic, native UI on each side	younger ecosystem

India is Android-first (well over 90% of phones), and many devices are budget phones with limited memory, storage and patchy connectivity. Designing for those constraints is a selling point in interviews.

How to choose (an interview-ready answer)

One small team needing both platforms quickly → Flutter or React Native.
Heavy device integration (camera processing, Bluetooth, background services) or top performance → native.
An existing React web team → React Native.
Most real companies are pragmatic: cross-platform for most screens, native modules where needed.

Mobile is different from web

Lifecycle: the OS can pause or kill your app at any time to save memory and battery.
Unreliable networks: offline-first thinking, retries, caching.
Limited resources: memory, battery, storage, CPU on low-end phones.
Permissions: camera, location and notifications must be requested in context and can be denied.
Release process: store review, staged rollouts, and users who don't update for months, so your backend must support old app versions.

Check yourself

When would you choose native over Flutter?
Name three ways mobile development differs from web development.