What's the best way to develop a multiplatform application?

Introduction

Building an application that runs well across multiple platforms (mobile, web, desktop) is a common requirement today — but there is no single “best” way that fits every project. The right approach depends on goals like time-to-market, native performance, developer skillset, maintainability, and the target platforms you must support.

This post walks through the common strategies, highlights trade-offs, and gives a practical checklist to help you choose.

The main approaches

• Write once, run everywhere (Web / PWA): Build a responsive web app or Progressive Web App that works in browsers on every platform. Fastest to iterate and deploy, but limited access to native APIs and sometimes limited offline or performance characteristics compared to native apps.

• Cross-platform UI frameworks (Flutter, React Native): Single codebase for mobile (iOS/Android) and often desktop/web too. Good developer experience and faster delivery than fully native, with near-native performance in many cases. Platform-specific customizations are still necessary for complex native features.

• Multiplatform libraries + native UIs (Kotlin Multiplatform, .NET MAUI, Xamarin): Share business logic between platforms while writing native UI per platform. This gives strong native UX and access to platform APIs, with less duplication of core logic.

• Native per platform: Full control and best performance + UX. Highest development and maintenance cost, suitable when platform-specific capabilities or performance are critical.

Popular framework pros & cons

• Flutter: Excellent for beautiful, consistent UI across platforms; compiles to native code; strong for mobile and increasingly for desktop/web. Learning curve for Dart and the Flutter widget model.

• React Native: Leverages JavaScript/TypeScript and React skillset; good ecosystem and many libraries. UI bridges sometimes introduce performance or maintenance overhead; native modules needed for advanced features.

• Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP): Great for sharing business logic across Android, iOS, desktop, and backend. UI is platform-native (Jetpack Compose / SwiftUI / Compose Multiplatform), so you get native UX but need platform UI work.

• .NET MAUI: Microsoft-backed option for C# developers to target iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS. Good when your team is invested in .NET.

• PWAs / Single Page Apps: Best for rapid distribution, universal availability, and minimal installs. Limited native capabilities (although APIs improve), and app-store presence may be weaker.

How to choose — a practical checklist

1. What platforms must you support? If you only need web + mobile web, a PWA might suffice. If you need App Store presence and native features, consider cross-platform native frameworks.
2. How important is native look-and-feel? If it’s critical, favor native UIs or KMP with native UI. If consistency across platforms is more important than native parity, Flutter or React Native is a solid choice.
3. Team skills: Lean on your team’s strongest language and ecosystem. An experienced React team will be productive in React Native faster than learning Flutter/Dart.
4. Time-to-market: Cross-platform frameworks often win here. But remember technical debt: quick hacks can slow you later.
5. Performance & hardware access: For heavy CPU/graphics work or deep hardware integration, native or frameworks with native bindings are safer.
6. Long-term maintenance: Sharing more code reduces maintenance, but be mindful of dependency stability and platform-specific divergence.

Recommended pragmatic strategies

• If you need rapid delivery across many platforms and a consistent UI: evaluate Flutter first.
• If your team already uses React and you want to share web code: evaluate React Native (with Expo for faster iteration) and consider Next.js for web.
• If you want maximum reuse of business logic but native UI/UX: try Kotlin Multiplatform (share Kotlin for business logic, write native UI with Jetpack Compose and SwiftUI or Compose Multiplatform).
• For content-driven or simple apps where install friction matters less: build a PWA.
• For mission-critical apps with platform-specific features: build native, or a hybrid approach where core logic is shared and UI is native.

Example decision matrix (short)

• Quick prototype: PWA or Flutter (fast dev loop)
• Mobile-first, store presence required: React Native or Flutter
• Desktop + mobile with native UX: KMP or native implementations
• Heavy platform integration (sensors, peripherals): Native or carefully crafted native modules

Final thoughts and checklist before you start

• Define your primary success metrics (e.g., time-to-market, performance, cost).
• Audit your team skills and existing libraries.
• Prototype the most critical flows on your shortlisted approach(s) before committing.
• Consider long-term maintenance and third-party dependency stability.

There is no perfect universal answer — the best choice balances your product goals with your team’s capabilities. Starting with a small proof-of-concept often reveals the real trade-offs faster than long debates.

Conclusion

Choose pragmatically: if you want a fast, consistent UI across platforms and don’t need every native hook, use Flutter or React Native depending on your team’s skills. If native UX or deep platform features matter most, share business logic with Kotlin Multiplatform or go fully native.

If you’d like, I can:

• draft a short proof-of-concept plan for Flutter, React Native, or Kotlin Multiplatform for your project requirements, or
• create a checklist template to run technical spikes and compare prototypes.

Which option should I prepare a POC plan for?”