Native vs Flutter development 2025

Native mobile development uses the officially released development environment and programming language for the mobile platform. The two most popular mobile platforms are:

Flutter is an open-source development framework from Google. It allows you to build cross-platform applications from a single code base that can run on Android, iOS, web and desktop devices. Flutter programming language is based on Dart, which is specifically designed for building modern user interfaces. The first official version was announced in 2018, but thanks to its stability and regular updates, it was already known to 30% of developers in 2019. Google Stadia, Google Ads and Google Pay, among others, were built in Flutter. Today, a third of mobile developers use cross-platform technologies.

Development speed is a critical factor when building mobile applications, especially when working to tight deadlines.

Shared codebase: The main benefit of Flutter is that you can build Android and iOS apps from a single codebase, significantly reducing clean development time by up to half. However, when looking at the entire project, including design, testing and sharpening, our experience shows that this time saving can be around 57-59% compared to a native project.

Hot Reload: Flutter injects the updated code into the running Dart virtual machine, then automatically rebuilds the widget tree and displays the changes. This feature is essential for UI implementation.

Libraries and plugins: Although Flutter is a new technology, it has an extensive library and plugin support that allows you to quickly and easily integrate many features into your project. Flutter's most popular packages in 2025:

Two separate codebases: To build Android and iOS applications, separate codebases must be written. This results in two separate development processes, doubling time and resources. Not to mention the mental capacity required to keep track of the different technical debt in the two projects.

Separate development teams: development is usually done by two development teams, so it takes twice as much time and effort, and inefficient collaboration can also slow down the pace of development.

Team speed and delivery: an additional problem in managing a project can arise when two applications are built at different speeds, making coordination of teams and testing more difficult.

Performance is an important factor in delivering a quality user experience.

Startup: Flutter tends to be a little slower to start up, especially the first time, as both the Dart virtual machine and the Skia graphics engine need to load. This usually means a delay of a few tenths of a second. For larger applications, the difference can be up to 2-3 seconds slower on first load than a native application, but this can vary depending on the device hardware (e.g. processor speed, memory) as well as the application.

Native functions: Flutter also provides access to native functions, but this usually requires the use of various plugins, which are not always of satisfactory quality. For more complex applications, it may be necessary to write native code to improve performance.

UI performance: Although Flutter's performance is close to native, in some cases the animations, scrolling performance or implementation of device-specific features may not reach native levels. This is because, in a native environment, applications have direct access to the hardware, so rendering can be up to 10-20% faster, especially on older devices. However, this is usually only noticeable in Flutter for intensive animations.

Optimised code: Native code is optimised to the maximum as it runs directly on the operating system. This is especially important when developing performance-intensive applications such as games or applications with complex animations.

Native features: Native applications provide direct access to device hardware such as camera, GPS, and Bluetooth, resulting in higher performance and more stable operation, especially for hardware-intensive applications.

Improved memory and resource management: Native applications manage device resources better, so they run more efficiently on devices with less memory.

User experience is one of the most important aspects of a mobile application, as the visual appearance, quality of interaction, speed and smoothness of the application determine user satisfaction.

Consistent design and experience: Flutter allows you to create the same user interface for both platforms, minimising design differences between Android and iOS.

Not always platform-agnostic look and feel: While Flutter provides platform-specific design elements, it can be more difficult to incorporate native components or achieve a native look and feel. In addition, an iOS app may not fully follow the familiar iOS user experience, which may confuse some users.

Platform-specific design: Native apps closely follow the design and interaction guidelines of the platform (Material Design on Android, Human Interface Guidelines on iOS), providing a familiar and expected experience for users. Platform-specific animations and interactions can be smoother and more intuitive because they use platform components directly.

Different UI: Two different UIs must be developed and maintained for Android and iOS, increasing development time and resources. Maintaining consistency between platforms can be difficult if you want the same look and feel on both platforms.

Maintenance and support are important aspects of software development because they determine the long-term success and stability of the application and the optimisation of development costs.

Maintenance: This means that bug fixes and updates are only needed once and can be applied to both platforms simultaneously. This results in significant time savings and easier maintenance.

Support: As a cross-platform framework, Google is quick to integrate new Android updates and attention is also paid to compatibility with Apple's operating system. However, Flutter is still an intermediate layer between native APIs and code, so support for some features may come later, especially on iOS.

Popularity: Flutter is growing in popularity, and community support is steadily increasing, which speeds up bug fixes and the release of new libraries.

Web apps: Flutter can be used to develop apps that work on the web. These have limitations, mainly in terms of functionality, SEO and performance, but can provide a realistic and good alternative for a wide range of applications. In 2025, the flutter_screenutil package will help to build the right responsiveness.

Two separate codebases: Developing native apps requires a separate codebase for iOS and Android, which can make maintenance more complex. Developers have to maintain the iOS (Swift or Objective-C) and Android (Kotlin or Java) versions separately, so if a new feature or bug fix is introduced, it has to be implemented twice.

Supported: Because Android and iOS are supported directly by Google and Apple, new features and updates are immediately available to developers. Android Studio and Xcode are optimised for native development on each platform.

Both approaches have their advantages, and depending on the needs of the project, you can decide which is best for you.