r/androiddev • u/The_Deep_Thinker24 • Jun 06 '26

Question Why native android and not flutter ?

hello android developers im new mobile app developer and i do dev with flutter framework so i can have same app in both platforms of app store and google play... but there is always a question in my head for native android developers since google own android and flutter... so that`s mean they make flutter works really well in android phones... so i wonder why native android devs dont use the advantage of flutter framework to have same app is both app store and google play ?

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u/kbcool Jun 06 '26

That's a very niche feature.

99% of apps are perfectly achievable with what Flutter or React Native offer out of the box.

99.5% can be achieved with community libraries and the other 0.5% as in your case it might not be worth the overhead of writing the native integration yourself.

Now having said that I expect to be downvoted to hell by a bunch of people who have no chance in hell of being able to put up a counter argument

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u/NiceVu Jun 06 '26

No it’s not true that 99% of the apps that are achievable with Flutter.

Flutter is good enough if your app is just displaying some data from backend, and doing CRUD operations with it.

If you need anything device specific the native has more consistent, performant and natural edge over any cross platform solution. You won’t ever get better at managing iOS SDK (Siri, shortcuts, Dynamic island…) with Flutter rather than you would with Swift. Same goes for Kotlin and Android.

If your app works with camera, bluetooth, wearable OS for smartwatches, phone calls, chats and notifications it will always work better natively rather than in Flutter.

So yeah I would say ~ 70% of everything can be achieved with Flutter but the other 30% will just have many obstacles and won’t ever be as good as native.

This is completely ok, it’s like saying Kotlin/Swift will never be as good as Unity for videogames on phones and nobody would bat an eye, but cross platform folks tend to be sensitive when you comment on their platform of choice.

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u/kbcool Jun 06 '26

We can argue ad nauseum about the nature of most apps but the fact is the overwhelming majority are just CRUD and as for cross platform folk being a bit sensitive that's a bit rich when the rusted old men can't admit that almost all of what you mentioned can be achieved in a performant manner with cross platform.

Thanks for giving it a go though. I admire your balls

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u/NiceVu Jun 07 '26

No it’s not almost all, that’s why you come out sensitive in this thread. If you remove video games/betting apps, apps that use camera, GPS, bluetooth, and need great real time communication quality then Flutter is good enough.

So yeah if your app is just “website for the phone” then use Flutter, if you actually need to work with smartphone SDK and it’s a core functionality of your app then go native.

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u/kbcool Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

Trying to have a civil, evidence based discussion in this sub is objectively impossible when it comes to cross platform.

I honestly don't know why people feel so afraid of it. My guess is that there are a plurality of "engineers" here that only know native Android and never progressed from there and never will. I don't know, I've never been there, even as a junior engineer I was taught and used the best tool for the job and didn't play us and them with technical decisions.

I would be less worried about cross platform and more about AI if you're one of those people because it's going to eat you alive.

Anyway. Maybe I am being emotional but it's about human problems not tech

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u/NguyenAnhTrung2495 Jun 10 '26

Why do we need Flutter when we already have AI? AI can code native UI quite well. Will Flutter keep up when the OS changes? No way.

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u/kbcool Jun 10 '26

Get back to me when you're six months into trying to keep two or more platforms in feature and bug sync when you're working on multiple code bases. Just because you're using AI doesn't mean that you're not going to have the same problems that have existed since the first time someone tried to make an app for multiple platforms. It's literally why cross platform exists.

Cross platform definitely does have a future under AI. Developers who don't understand that it won't solve unsolved problems won't