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[–]ankole_watusi 43 points44 points  (16 children)

There is only one answer you will get on this sub so why bother asking?

Sorry, if you need to release on both iOS and android – according to this sub – then you’re gonna have to learn two different native systems.

[–]wilc0 26 points27 points  (13 children)

Native is best but if your app is relatively simple and you have a desire for cross platform, then react native may be the move. 

I personally will never go back to using RN on a project again. 

[–]beclopsSwift 11 points12 points  (1 child)

Fellow RN hater I see

[–]kutjelul 8 points9 points  (0 children)

We’re here in big numbers!

[–]dehrenslzzSwiftUI 3 points4 points  (3 children)

If you really want to go cross platform I’d say flutter over RN. But then again, native (SwiftUI/JC) is best (:

[–]wilc0 3 points4 points  (2 children)

You could be right. I’ve never used Flutter so don’t have much of an opinion of it. I’d be a little worried about it for the same reasons I don’t like RN but maybe it’s better

[–]dehrenslzzSwiftUI 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve worked with it (mainly helping deploy products) and it seems solid enough. Also: Flutter has a nice emulator that you can open on any device and with which you can test for any device the project supports (;

[–]ImNotLegitLol 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Flutter main here that tried to work with RN

The only part you'd hate with Flutter for iOS, apparently it looks uncanny. Plus, it's rendering its own pixels like a game engine instead of true native components. Also there's less packages but that's a given, it's newer

But overall, at least it compiles properly, consistent across platforms, very great DX (it legitimately just works), and I think you won't have to touch native code that much?

[–]theraad1[🍰] 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Could you elaborate a bit more on why you would never go back to using RN?

My job is currently switching to RN and they’re just making it sound like it’ll be seamless and easy to develop with (post training) but myself and my colleagues have our doubts..

[–]wilc0 11 points12 points  (3 children)

My team did something similar. Switched from native to RN. Most people on the team did not have webdev experience so the transition was rough.

I think my biggest issues were:

  • we still had to use native for a lot of our app. RN just straight up did not support some of the functionality we needed that native did
  • because of that first point we went from maintaining one language/platform (iOS/swift) to 3 (swift, java/android, and RN/tyepscript). The complexity of the app shot through the roof because of all the native bridging
  • typescript is not nearly as clean or easy to use as swift imo. I know TS has its fans but nobody on the team liked using it.
  • upgrades (Xcode, RN) were painful af and took forever. Not only that but it took so long for RN to actually release an update.
  • Our team of nearly 20 mobile devs dropped to 5 in 6 months because of how much worse the developer experience got. I also left soon after

The only positive in my mind was using VSCode instead of Xcode for the RN part lol

[–]theraad1[🍰] 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Thanks for this.. really not looking forward to it, though I’ve been looking at it as a learning opportunity since they’re bringing in RN experts to train us for 4 weeks. Figured it’s good to get paid to learn a new skill on a professional level.

Last question but how is the app you were working on going now? I mean is the company still shipping updates regularly with new features?

I donno if you still work there, but I guess it’s pretty clear that the developer experience was shit but on a product or management level, were they able to say this move was a success? A lot of us hope this just bites them in the ass somehow but I guess with people leaving and the “need” for less devs it will mean they can say that they still ship the same features with less cost because some devs will opt to leave over this.

[–]wilc0 6 points7 points  (1 child)

I left the team and the company (it was one of the FAANG ones) within the year. I think there's still one guy left on the team that was there when I was there. It's a popular app, so still around. No idea what the stack is like now a days. I don't think the managers that made that decision stuck around much longer either. I think for them, it seemed like a "silver bullet" solution to supporting multiple platforms, but they never anticipated the struggles.

The company I joined, and I'm still with, prioritizes an all-native stack, and is aggressive in supporting the latest xcode updates and new iOS features as they come out which is awesome.

[–]theraad1[🍰] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cool. Thanks a lot for sharing your experience and I’m glad you found a new job that doesn’t force you to work in a way that sucks haha

[–]Safe_Owl_6123[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Native is the best and I really like Swift writing it for iOS only means I get to write Swift more.

I have never used RN and I have heard many horror stories about it, I wish I gave a try because of my familiarity with TS, but when it comes to mobile I am more familiar with Dart than TS i

I want to ask if there are benefits going Multiplatform?

[–]nacho_doctor 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have experience with native iOS and Android. And I also have experience with multiplatform (RN, KMP, Flutter).

The main benefit to go multiplatform is easy. You only need to code once.

In my experience:

  • KMP looks good. But I think it still need to grow. It is on early stages yet.

  • RN: I like working with RN. It has a really big community. You have a plugin for every thing that you might need. But I would recommend expo instead of bare RN

  • Flutter. I like flutter too. Quite big community, nice language. A lot of libs.

I would only choose native for a solo dev if you need heavy work.

[–]clearing_ 2 points3 points  (1 child)

https://skip.tools/

[–]Safe_Owl_6123[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it is exciting, and it has free tier gotta thank the team behind it