Every mobile engagement starts with the same question, usually asked with a hopeful glance at the budget line: do we need two native apps, or will cross-platform do?
Three questions that actually decide it
First: where does your product live on the device? If you are deep in camera pipelines, background audio or platform widgets, native pays for itself. If your app is fundamentally interface over API — most commerce and service apps are — a shared codebase ships faster and stays consistent.
Second: who maintains it? Two native codebases mean two release trains and two sets of platform bugs. A team of three cannot run them honestly.
Third: what does the first year look like? Cross-platform buys speed at the start; native buys headroom at the end. Products with a clear ceiling — internal tools, campaign apps — rarely need the headroom.
Choose the stack your team can still love in eighteen months.
We build both, which keeps us honest: the recommendation is about your product, not our comfort zone.
— THE WEB ADDICTS / BEIRUT · DUBAI