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Android with Kotlin, iOS with Swift, Kotlin Native, flutter.io, React Native, PWA, Xamarin, Hybrid - which way to go?

Currently there are tons of frameworks how to get your business model to the user... and in the app store
  • Full Native
    • Android with Kotlin, iOS with Swift
    • Deepest integration
    • Single way to make sure that you have no lock-in effect with a framework, and you are f**ed, when Apple or Google disallows the usage of a specific technology...
    • Two teams required
    • 2x code
  • PWA (Progressive Web App)
    • Write offline- and push-capable PWA with web-technologies only
    • Some native features might require hybrid native development and bridging (like In-App purchases, AR, ...)
    • In best case:
      • One web team only for website and app
      • Maybe some native specialists for special features
  • Kotlin Native
    • Develop a shared framework with or without UI using Kotlin Native
    • Additional native code will most probably be required
    • Big Android team, small iOS specialists
  • flutter.io (React Native | Xamarin | ... )
    • One codebase (flutter: Dart, React Native: JavaScript, Xamarin: C#)
      • Additional native code will most probably be required
    • flutter.io is supposed to be the next default development platform for upcoming Android-successor Fuchsia - and has a good hype at the moment 
    • Big flutter team with some iOS and Android specialists
      • Or enthusiastic native developers that want to jump on flutter
  • Hybrid
    • Mix of PWA, Web and Full Native where you choose e.g. on a screen or feature-wise level what to use with which technology
    • Mix of Web, Android and iOS specialists
How to make a decision from here?
There is no simple answer to this - the longer you are working with the technologies and teams, the more the context gets into focus rather than the technology itself. You should ask yourself: What is the most suitable technology for my context?
  • What are the planned features and which technologies are mandatory?
  • How can I standout from my competitors?
  • Which skills are in my team?
  • What budget do I have at hands?
  • How fast do I need to move - how much risk can I take (lock-in effect, dropped technology, development speed, quality, ...)?
  • How long-term do I have to plan?
  • Which crew/teams do I have at hands with which skills... and which commitment?
    • Freelance/internal?
    • Technical skills?
  • Do I have an app-only use-case or do I have to maintain a website as well?
After having answered those questions for yourself, head back to the stacks presented above - and choose your weapon.

What do we do at WELT?
Well, we have a full native team staffed already and our native apps have excellent ratings.

For Edition (iOS and Android) we have chosen to go for the (local) hybrid way - so the main application is native code but most of the views are WebViews, showing local HTML for performance and synergy reasons.

For News (iOS and Android) we went fully native, following the Server-driven UI principle:
  • We defined a design language with pre-defined, multi-purpose bricks, having the backend defining the screens and data
  • We shift as much as possible of the business logic to the backend, to avoid double implementation and staying flexible for changes without requiring to do another app release in the App Stores
  • We have a slighty bigger Android/Kotlin crew that takes care not only of the Android client, but also of the backend implementation using Kotlin with Spring Boot
    • We share a Kotlin lib with the Android Client and the backend
    • We are also trying to share the lib with iOS using Kotlin/Native but are not there yet
For us this works out quite nicely and we can move fast, adding more and more flexibility by shifting more and more dynamic logic to the backend.

For you it most probably is a question of your context
😊

Thanks to Anton Averin and Pawl Polanski for your input!

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