Cross-Platform Mobile App Frameworks: 6 Options Compared

React Native suits teams with JavaScript or TypeScript skills and apps that should feel native. Flutter suits apps with a strongly branded, custom UI and teams willing to learn Dart. Kotlin Multiplatform suits teams that want to share business logic but keep native UI, or share UI with Compose Multiplatform. .NET MAUI suits C# teams. Ionic with Capacitor suits web teams building content or internal apps. A progressive web app suits cases where an install from the store is not essential.

This comparison is for founders and technical leads choosing how to build for iOS and Android. ZSpace Labs usually builds with React Native plus native Swift or Kotlin where needed, so weigh our view accordingly. Version facts were checked on 28 October 2026. For the prior question, whether to go cross-platform at all, see native vs cross-platform app development.

React Native, maintained by Meta and the community, lets you write apps in JavaScript or TypeScript with React, rendering real native components. Since version 0.82 (October 2025) it runs only on the New Architecture, which reduces the overhead of communicating between JavaScript and native code. Expo provides tooling, a library of native modules and cloud builds, and is the starting point the React Native docs recommend.

Fits: teams with web React skills, apps that share logic with a React website, and products that need a native look. Trade-off: complex native features still need Swift or Kotlin code, and upgrades take care. More in React Native app development.

Flutter, from Google, uses the Dart language and draws its own UI rather than using native components, so the app looks the same on every platform. It targets iOS, Android, web and desktop (Windows, macOS and Linux) from one codebase.

Fits: apps with a custom, brand-led design, and teams willing to adopt Dart. Trade-off: Dart is less common than JavaScript, and matching each platform's native conventions takes deliberate work. See Flutter app development and Flutter vs React Native.

Kotlin Multiplatform, from JetBrains, shares Kotlin code, typically networking, data and business logic, across Android, iOS and other targets, while each platform can keep its own native UI. Compose Multiplatform adds shared UI; JetBrains declared its iOS support stable in version 1.8.0 in May 2025.

Fits: teams with Android and Kotlin skills, and existing native apps that want to share logic gradually rather than rewrite. Trade-off: iOS developers need to work with Kotlin-generated code, and the library ecosystem is smaller than React Native's or Flutter's.

.NET Multi-platform App UI is Microsoft's framework for building Android, iOS, macOS and Windows apps in C# and XAML. It is the successor to Xamarin.Forms; Microsoft ended Xamarin support on 1 May 2024.

Fits: organisations with C# and .NET teams, especially for business apps that also run on Windows. Trade-off: a smaller community and fewer third-party libraries for consumer mobile apps than the two leaders, so check support for each device feature you need before committing.

Capacitor wraps a web app (built with Angular, React, Vue or plain web code) in a native shell with access to device features through plugins. Ionic provides mobile-styled UI components for it.

Fits: web teams, content-heavy or form-based apps, and internal business apps where native performance is not critical. Trade-off: animation-heavy or graphics-intensive apps can feel less smooth than native or React Native and Flutter apps.

A PWA is a website that can be installed to the home screen, work partly offline and, on supported platforms, send notifications. It is not a framework but an alternative to store apps altogether, built with any web framework.

Fits: tools used occasionally, internal apps, and products where reach through a link matters more than store presence. Trade-off: less access to device features, especially on iOS, and no store discovery. See PWA vs native app.

For most business and consumer apps the realistic choice is between React Native and Flutter, decided by team skills and design approach. Kotlin Multiplatform is the strongest option for sharing logic in native apps, .NET MAUI for C# organisations, Capacitor for web teams, and a PWA when store presence is optional. Once the framework is settled, the feature list matters more; see the features a startup MVP app needs.

React Native blog, React Native 0.82 (October 2025) and 0.84 (February 2026); Flutter documentation, supported platforms; JetBrains Kotlin blog, Compose Multiplatform 1.8.0 (May 2025); Microsoft .NET, Xamarin support policy; .NET MAUI documentation; Capacitor and Ionic documentation. Accessed 28 October 2026.