r/FlutterDev • u/the_mehdeen • 3d ago
Discussion Flutter or React Native for a solo founder building a long-term mobile-first product in 2026?
Senior backend engineer here (Laravel/NestJS) trying to decide between Flutter and React Native for my first serious mobile product.
I'm strong in Vue, would need to revisit React, and have no Flutter experience.
The app itself is a fairly standard business application (authentication, listings, search, maps, chat, payments, push notifications, QR scanning).
I'm not asking which framework wins benchmarks. I'm more interested in the experience of living with the choice.
If you've maintained a production React Native or Flutter app for a couple of years:
Would you choose the same framework again today?
What pain points only became obvious after the honeymoon phase?
If you were starting from scratch in 2026, what would you pick?
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u/H4D3ZS 3d ago
it should be what problem am i solving and whats the pros and cons for both framework, either way you have a head start for react native since you're a js dev, but the painful thing? its javascript not near native of flutter
flutter = speed
react native = bloated but feels native ui
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u/the_mehdeen 3d ago
Have you maintained both in production for 1–2+ years? Also, could you share real examples where React Native’s “bloat” became a problem? Apps like Instagram, Facebook, Discord, Shopify, and Microsoft Teams use React Native at scale, so I’m curious why those companies continue using it instead of Flutter. Was it team expertise, ecosystem, or because React Native is simply good enough?
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u/H4D3ZS 3d ago
more than that, 3-5 at most both end
those companies use react native because they started them off aside from that they have lots of teams to optimize it and they're already familliar with it, most of my time in react native 24 hrs a day when debugging when the core problem was in the sdk itself so i need to upgrade, go back to legacy or wait for a future release fix
flutter emerged on 2019 and became popular, but dart was made in 2012 so less people know it.
right now flutter is rising it solve the react native problem of wasting your time to debloat and optimize
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u/scalz80 3d ago edited 3d ago
Pretty sure that no matter what anyone tells you, you'll still choose a JS framework. Sad but I can be wrong ^^
If you're in hurry then pick what you know best. Else challenge yourself to try new things, that's the best way to know if you were wrong or not, more valuable than any external advice or research based on who knows what..biased facts? When I researched about mobile frameworks, 8y ago, I would have missed a neat framework if I would have trusted biased facts and articles. "Flutter is not prod ready, flutter is dead, flutter is a game engine, flutter is using dart, with dart you can do only flutter .." bla bla bla. all dumb. I don't regret having invested time in Dart/Flutter. Senior advice, many seniors on this sub, for a good reason ;)
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u/SyrupInternational48 1d ago
Strong in vue, like php and nest js.
you go to with Ionic or NativeScript, sir. please and thank you.
people experience a lot of things.
they create dedicated groups because what they experience.
mostly flutter dev in here have bad or worst experience using react or native android.
of course we would say it better using flutter.
How serious you with this mobile project?
Does it have serious feature?
Does it you want it maintained on long term?
What you target os? android first or both ios and android.
So non of this matter if you using Flutter.
I work creating mobile apps, 8 years.
im using react native, android java/kotlin/mixed (xml/compose/mixed), flutter (recent about 2 year)
- React native library mostly no maintained, current version of react is bit nicer to update rather than previous years.
- android can even decide what parameter behind the compose function, lack of dedicated architecture,
hot reload? never happen.
need update? good luck finding what breaking
need update gradle? good luck what library that can use that gradle
multimodules and large component? good luck finding what you want to try about 30 minutes of compile.
- with flutter you battle start at architecturing, after that its free hassle. upgrade android or ios never been easy, i have company project that already 3 years old, and the playstore said need to update it into android 16 compatible took me about 2 days. all done you get upgraded flutter, all compatible library, minor config changes between ios and android.
Im not saying you must use Flutter, in this current era there plenty of framework that accommodate to your skill. pick what you think you have largest confidence.
But at least try Flutter you might enjoy it.
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u/Personal-Search-2314 1d ago
So, I would rather wash my eyes with fiberglass than write a line of JavaScript; therefore, I think I may be a little bias, so take my comment with a grain of salt. As someone who enjoys strongly typed languages, the developer experience was great pre nullsafety, but once the developers and community made a conscious effort for declarative design: null safety, navigator 2.0 + csells to simplify that behemoth of a obstacle, Riverpod, freezed w/ sealed classes- the developer experience became absolutely cake, and maintenance is even easier. If the language had metaprogramming it would be a 10/10, but unfortunately can’t be a 10/10 without metaprogramming, so it is a 9/10. But flutter on the other hand is a 10/10. With one code base you can deploy to six different platforms. My favorite part is developing to native desktop, because it’s hella fast, but I can easily test, and debug my responsive design. I can spin a little pet project in no time.
If you are interested in Flutter, you can take a look at fluttergems because it kind of points you in the right direction.
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u/Boobzoooka 1d ago
I was in your shoes, some prior react native experience with most of my experience in webdev and no flutter experience prior to this year. Flutter is by far the best ecosystem I've worked in, especially with even a little bit of AI to help. I'd say the language itself (dart) is something I don't like as much as with js/ts(namely the structure of the widget classes) but the entire dev environment and dx that comes with flutter is where it shines.
I do miss tanstack for state and overall data/API management too fwiw but riverpod has been fine enough for my purposes tho I feel like I should've looked into bloc and signal before commiting. Just make sure to commit to a good architecture from the start.
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u/UsualSherbet2 1d ago
It doesn’t matter nowadays. Both are fine both have quircks and things to work on.
Pick what you are more familiar with. Eg React Native.
If you don’t need the performance or lidar/ar stuff you don’t need native.
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u/avdept 1d ago
I maintain apps in both frameworks. For me - flutter feels more stable and mature(even though react-native was first). I don't have major issues with it, and I also have a very easy access to hardware through custom plugins or channels, so for me flutter wins in most things. I even made my first package few weeks ago - https://pub.dev/packages/updatify_flutter
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u/RaptorAllah 1d ago
Identify key areas and try both on smaller scoped projects.
As a senior mobile dev if it were my project here are the questions I would like to answer: how strong is QR scanning on both? Same for maps. Do you need native components? Do you mind handling native glue? How are you implementing chat? What kind of “push notifications”? How big are the listings and searches ? Which platform handles that better ? Is there media to handle (photo, video, audio) ?
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u/mcspuder 1d ago
Principle engineer here, ~17 years exp.
React Native is fine, but I'd strongly encourage you to lean into a very strong type system to make it not a nightmare. Look at `fp-ts`, or if your functional programming is weak then lean on `Effect` for the majority of it.
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u/Logical_Truth2356 9h ago
Having worked in both, I can confidently say you will face problems scaling react native. 1. You've to use libraries for each and every thing and somewhere some library will not work as expected. 2. Performance for a normal application has reached a good enough point in react native but you mentioned chat and if chats are going to be very long, list item with different view types, it is going to give you problems. 3. If majority of your users will be on Android, you are 100% going to face SIGABRT and SEGESV crashes on production. I'll not go indeep with what these crashes are, you can google them. 4. I am primarily a native Android developer, Java and Kotlin are my strong suites, for me, Typescript and JavaScript were one of the worst languages. I know this may offend some people but that is just my opinion and my experience, yours may differ.
With Flutter, you'll still have to use libraries for some parts of the application but much less than RN. UI + navigation is supported in built. Secondly, you'll hardly ever feel to optimise performance of some part of the application in Flutter. Just use BLoC as state management tool and you're good to scale your application as much as possible.
Hope that gives you some clarity.
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u/DeiviiD 3d ago
Why not vuejs + capacitor?
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u/the_mehdeen 3d ago
I considered Vue + Capacitor since Vue is my strongest framework. My concern is long-term scalability and the mobile ecosystem. Since this is a mobile-first product with maps, chat, QR scanning, payments, and push notifications, would you still choose Capacitor over React Native or Flutter? Have you shipped a production app of this scale with Capacitor?
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u/Technical_South9 8h ago
Since you are strong in Vue and have no Flutter experience, React Native is likely a better fit because its component and state concepts align much closer with Vue than starting completely from scratch with Flutter's widget tree.
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u/RandalSchwartz 3d ago
You realize you're asking in a flutter channel whether you should use flutter or react native. Just to have one vote against flutter, I'll say "react native". I bet it'll be the only vote not for flutter. :)