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Discussion on: Why did you (or not) choose cross-platform mobile technology?

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kayis profile image
K

I choose React-Native, a cross-platform technology, because of multiple reasons.

My customers want to save money when porting apps from one platform to another.

I only read bad things about cross-platform technologies like Xamarin and Cordova/PhoneGap.

I know JavaScript in and out, so I'd prefer not to work with Java, Kotlin, Objective-C or Swift.

I already used React for two years, when a customer asked if I could build them a native app, so React-Native was the natural next step for me.

I read that the React-Native approach brings good UI performance, because it uses native UI widgets.

I think, I would use a different technology for complex apps with custom UI interactions etc.

React-Native UIs can look very much the same on different platforms and many component libraries try to get rid of all the platform idiosyncrasies, but when the UI gets really custom (think "expert systems" like Ableton Live, Fruity Loops, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) it's better to render your own components that are the same on all platforms.

For such custom UIs I'd use something like Revery or Flutter.

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piannaf profile image
Justin Mancinelli

Fantastic explanation, thank you.