React Native vs Flutter: how we decide
Our internal flow chart for the only mobile-stack question that actually matters at kickoff.
Both stacks ship native-feeling apps. Both have real production users. The decision is rarely about technical merit. It's about everything around the technology.
We pick React Native when
The team already knows React. Hiring will be Web-developer-shaped. The app needs to share logic with a web product. The brand has design opinions that lean toward platform-native conventions.
We pick Flutter when
The team has no JS background and is willing to learn Dart. The app needs identical look-and-feel across platforms (Flutter renders its own widgets, which gives pixel parity). Performance budgets are tight in ways that benefit from a tighter rendering pipeline.
When the answer is "neither"
The product is a content site that someone called an "app" because that sounded better. A mobile-friendly website, installed via the browser, often beats either choice for content-only experiences.
What we don't argue about
Which one is "better." They're different tools. A team good at one of them will ship better than a team mediocre at the other. The team's existing skills usually decide more than any benchmark.