4 Hidden Costs of Cross-Platform App Development
What exactly is cross-platform app development? Cross-platform (sometimes called hybrid) development uses a shared codebase to build apps for multiple platforms simultaneously, using frameworks like Flutter or React Native. The main advantage is that developers can target both iOS and Android from one codebase, reducing initial development time and cost.
In this article we are going to outline some of the costs that are not immediately notable when deciding to develop your mobile application using a cross-platform solution.
1. Learning Costs
The first major cost, one that might not be immediately apparent, is that of time and money spent learning a cross-platform framework. Often when estimating the amount of time to develop an app, teams will dismiss the amount of time required to learn the intricacies of a framework like Flutter (which uses Dart) or React Native (which uses JavaScript/TypeScript). The idea of "one codebase for several platforms" can be all the convincing a team needs to go down the cross-platform route.
It is important to understand whether the investment of learning a cross-platform tool is worth it. Some questions like "how mature is this framework's ecosystem?", "how many limitations will I have to work around?", and "how good is the developer experience compared to Google's Android Studio or Apple's Xcode?" should be of top importance when determining if a cross-platform solution is appropriate.
Moreover, time spent learning a specific framework might not be a good investment. For example, are you likely to use this particular tool in the future with another project? If not, it's important to note the skills learned by using this tool may not help you in developing natively for either iOS or Android further down the road.
2. Performance
Performance is an important consideration when using a cross-platform solution. Modern frameworks like Flutter and React Native have significantly narrowed the performance gap with native development, but differences still exist. For apps that require highly demanding graphics, complex animations, or real-time processing, a cross-platform solution may introduce overhead that a native app would avoid.
Depending on the particular framework, access to all of the hardware (such as the camera or various sensors, or low-level APIs) may require third-party plugins or custom native modules. While the ecosystems for major frameworks are mature, edge cases can still arise where a cross-platform solution doesn't have the same level of access as a fully native one.
It is important to determine early on what your app's performance requirements are. For most business and consumer apps, a cross-platform solution will perform well. For performance-critical apps, it might make more sense to go down the native development path.
3. Cross-Platform Limitations
Another area of potential cost is in making the cross-platform app feel native on each platform. There are a number of differences between iOS and Android. For example, navigation patterns, gesture conventions, and default UI components differ between the two. On Android, Material Design is the standard design language. On iOS, Apple has its own Human Interface Guidelines.
Since the two platforms differ in terms of UI and UX, time must be spent making the app fit with its platform. While frameworks like Flutter and React Native provide platform-adaptive components to help with this, the details still require attention. Depending on the complexity of your app, the time spent on platform-specific polish may be more than initially expected.
4. Maintenance
While it is true that only one code base needs to be managed when using a cross-platform solution, platform-specific adjustments may add complexity over time. For example, some particular changes you make for the iOS version of your code might become obsoleted by a change in the framework itself or by an OS update. In this case, you would need to update all of the platform-specific customizations you made, which may be difficult if you haven't tracked these.
Additionally, if one of the platforms changes their design guidelines, you must be willing to invest time and money into updating the look and feel of your app.
While established frameworks like Flutter and React Native have strong backing from Google and Meta respectively, the broader cross-platform ecosystem has seen tools come and go. Choosing a less established framework could be risky for an app that needs to be maintained long-term. If a framework loses support, you may have to migrate to a different tool or develop natively after all. Android Studio and Xcode, in contrast, will always support Google and Apple's newest operating system updates, respectively.
--- Not All Negative ---
While this article points out many of the costs associated with developing a cross-platform app, it's important to note that there are many cases where a cross-platform approach is the right choice. For apps with standard UI requirements that need to be offered on both iOS and Android, the financial and time savings of a shared codebase can be significant. The key is understanding the trade-offs upfront so you can make an informed decision for your specific project.