Ask HN: React Native or Flutter for a new app in 2023?

Post by joshuawright11 » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

itake wrote: post #13

joshuawright11 wrote: post #6

Purely curious; why not start natively with iOS or Droid (depending on which one your target audience uses more)? You'd have the easiest native API access and fewer headaches. Once you hit PMF & have proven the idea, add the second platform. Is there a benefit to launching on both platforms out of the gate? Unless perhaps there are specific React web assets you'd like to reuse to get up and running faster via React n…

> Purely curious; why not start natively with iOS or Droid (depending on which one your target audience uses more)? For me, React is just easier to use than natively supporting iOS or Droid. No new languages or skills to learn. I also found for social/marketplace apps, Droid users are the supply and iOS is the demand. Can't have one without the other.

Post by cutler » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 6:15 PM UTC

esafak wrote: post #12

sureglymop wrote: post #7

I would use Kotlin multiplatform and Jetpack Compose multiplatform. But mainly because I already know Kotlin. It's definitively nicer than typescript though.

Nicer than Flutter's Dart too. The only problems with Compose Multiplatform are the lack of multiplatform libraries, and documentation, but JetBrains tells me that a new documentation site is due this summer.

Post by cutler » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

keltex wrote: post #10

meitros wrote: post #4

React native imo. Expo is terrific and the library ecosystem, while it might feel like it’s one step down from web JavaScript, is still robust enough for what you need since there are more than enough people out there shipping rn apps.

My only concern with Expo is once you're using it, you're going to get charged per user and per update. It's $0.005 per user per update (plus additional bandwidth and storage charges). So if you have 100K users, that's $500 per update. One update per month would be $6K per year. So you have to factor in the economics of your app.

Post by DANmode » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 6:18 PM UTC

brigadier132 wrote: post #29

Gonna say something controversial, the future of mobile apps is going to be webviews. It's already the case for desktop. iPhones are getting cpus that are close to desktop CPUs from 5 years ago and they can run 3d games.

Post by simlevesque » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 6:19 PM UTC

joshuawright11 wrote: post #36

jconley wrote: post #32

React Native. TypeScript. NestJS backend, NextJS frontend. The ability to easily share code across the full stack is underrated. Of course you need someone that thinks at that high level building it.

Always been interested in the idea of sharing code across the full stack. What do you find you can share the most? APIs / data models?