Flutter vs Native — ROI & performance

If you’re just getting started with Flutter (by Google) or Native mobile app development, take a look at our earlier article where we explain what Flutter is and introduce it from a business perspective.

Whether you are building a startup or growing an existing SaaS product, your choice between Flutter and Native can have a substantial impact on your costs, time to market, and long-term success. In this article, we won’t be comparing those two based on code. Instead, we’ll focus on what really matters to most product owners and founders: performance and return on investment (ROI). So, if you’ve ever wondered:

• What’s the biggest mistake founders make when choosing between Flutter and Native,
• Want a real-world take from our lead developer
• Or just need to know when Native app development is actually worth the extra money Stick with us, as we’re breaking it all down in the next few sections.

Why Flutter Boosts Your ROI?

A key advantage of using Flutter: you don’t need two separate developer teams for iOS and Android. With Flutter, one team builds for both, resulting in lower development costs up front. Think of it like a company merger — instead of having two separate accounting teams or marketing departments doing the same work, you consolidate resources and minimize duplication. Flutter brings that same kind of synergy to your app development, meaning:

• fewer developers
• faster delivery
• significantly lower costs The same applies to your product as bug fixes, feature updates, UI changes, are done once, not twice.

ROI in Practice

Consequently, that brings us to one of the most important business metrics: return on investment (ROI). By spending less to build and launch an app, companies reduce their spending from day one, not just on development, but also on long-term software maintenance. Plus, they can get to market faster, test their ideas on both iOS and Android at once, gather feedback earlier, and make improvements sooner. This makes Flutter a strong match for early-stage startups, digital agencies and even enterprise mobile app projects.
The result? A shorter path to growth — and potentially, faster revenue gains.

Expert view: How much faster do we really deliver with Flutter, compared to Native?

“The time difference can be as much as twice as fast. But that is a perfect world scenario which rarely happens. In reality we’re looking at about 1.5x faster.”

The speed is mostly related to the fact that there is a single team working in a unified cross-platform environment. Different teams have different habits, sometimes Native teams tend to deviate from unified patterns based on platform needs. This adds complexity and increases development time. The value is there, but you need engineers that are experienced enough to know why to do this or not. This is a whole another topic, but the fact is that developing your mobile project in Flutter is cheaper and faster.

One Caveat: It Depends…

“In my experience Native implementations are able to achieve a minimum working application in faster time. Flutter needs a little tinkering around to have it working for both platforms, but then it picks up the slack — making new features around a stable core becomes more trivial especially if you’re working in a reusable visual environment where data flows are managed properly and do not interfere with one another.”

Case Studies: Flutter in Action

Beyond expert insights, one example from our own experience with Flutter, is Evntly — an event management platform based in New York. Before we stepped in, the app was built using Kotlin Multiplatform with a Kotlin-based backend. The previous multiplatform framework introduced noticeable inefficiencies that impacted the overall user experience. Here, at Chili we recommended rebuilding the app on Flutter because of its rich UI capabilities, flexibility and a single codebase.

The results in just 7 months:

• 14x increase in total users
• Over 40,000 downloads
• +120% professional users

While not built by us, Wolt is among those smart companies that have successfully adopted Flutter just in the moment when they needed to scale from restaurant delivery into retail. Their goal was to build one unified mobile application that could run on any screen, in any location. With just two Flutter developers and a single codebase, they built the app and integrated Native features like barcode scanning and Bluetooth printing — all of that in just one and a half months.

When Native Wins on Performance — and Why It Matters

While Flutter is an excellent solution for most app needs, it would not be correct to say that it is a universal safe haven that will fit every request. Native implementations still exist for a reason and not necessarily because Flutter is lacking — it is because some apps have unique, highly specialized requirements. For such apps performance is key. Although Flutter offers near-Native performance in most of the cases, there are some aspects to consider. For instance, Native is far more advantageous in getting immediate access to the latest platform-specific features. Meaning if your app depends on hardware and software features such as:

• Apple Pay
• WidgetKit or Dynamic Island on iOS
• Advanced design updates like the new Liquid Glass UI in iOS 18
• Nearby Share/ Bluetooth APIs —

Or IoT services like smart sensors, connected devices, or wearable tech — these capabilities will often arrive first to Native apps, while it can take time to fully support them in Flutter. Some features, like Biometric Authentication, are supported in Flutter and easy to integrate, but more advanced or UI-specific features still require native development knowledge (e.g. SwiftUI for iOS). In most typical apps, Flutter’s mobile performance, such as scrolling, screen transitions, and load speed, is nearly identical to Native. But in mobile apps that push the hardware to its limits (e.g., real-time video, AR, or advanced animations), Native development still has the upper hand. So in case your app relies heavily on visual performance as a main part of the user experience, again, Native development might still be the better long-term investment.

Expert view: When does Native development actually justify the extra cost?

“Flutter can do an incredible amount of things very well and some near perfect, but there are a lot of nuances that need to be considered when making a decision of going Native or cross-platform.”

When Flutter Wins

“Starting out if we’re looking at basic or more likely standard mobile applications - logins, profiles, forms, lists of items, some implementation of messaging functionality, cool designs, basic media functionality — Flutter offers a very efficient development experience. Dart is easy to understand, and the Flutter team has done a great job making the widget structure simple and usable. From our experience, building one Flutter app can deliver results comparable to developing two separate native apps — one in SwiftUI for iOS and one in Jetpack Compose for Android. That said, it really depends on the developer’s experience. A strong native developer can build just as efficiently. But if you're aiming for cross-platform consistency and speed, Flutter is a very practical and capable choice.”

Main pros for Flutter in our expert’s opinion are:

• Faster time to market
• One developer/team across the mobile project
• Change management is more trivial
• MVP iterations are easier to handle — Making Flutter ideal for startup tech stacks, MVPs, and companies wanting to validate quickly.

Where Native Shines

“Native has a mature, time-tested development ecosystem from both Apple and Google. While Flutter can achieve pixel-perfect design, Native still handles motion, transitions, and platform-specific animations more smoothly and consistently.”

Most users won’t notice the difference between Flutter and Native — as long as the app performs well. But if your business cares about visual polish, low-level device access, or cutting-edge API support, Native is the way to go.

Main advantages of Native:

• Isolated, platform-specific environments
• Better for low-level tasks and hardware interaction
• Immediate access to new platform APIs
• Superior for high-performance visuals and animations

Flutter can do, but it’s not trivial anymore - Native beats out such tasks almost every time. And if it is important to be market leader with the latest APIs Apple or Google offers, going Native is key.

So, does that justify the cost?

“That completely depends on your business needs and goals. If you’re striving for absolute perfection and cost is of no issue - Native is your play. If you’re looking for the best cost-to-value ratio, Flutter is the way to go.”

Costs are completely justified if you are looking for fluid perfection, need to interact heavily with device hardware or platform specific features, or your business cares about milliseconds.

Matching Tech to Your Business Stage

It is important to remember that it’s about choosing the tech stack that best supports your business model, growth phase, and product vision to maximize returns and scale effectively.

• For early-stage startups and MVPs where time required to enter the market is key, with Flutter you will be able to launch an app faster, pivot and experiment without doubling your budget.
• For small to medium-sized businesses, it gets slightly more tricky, especially if your app requires deep CRM system or ERP company integrations, or if you rely on cloud solutions to support infrastructure and scale. Since the choice now depends on the complexity of the app and whether platform-specific integration is required.

In reality, cases may get more complex and so can the choice between Flutter and Native development. But what do our experts think? We were curious, too — so we asked them one more question.

Expert view: What’s the #1 mistake founders or product owners make when choosing between Flutter and Native?

“In my opinion it’s not understanding their mobile product goals and needs.”

Development is expensive either way. Yes, the cost will be higher for Native development just for the basic fact of having at least one engineer on each platform. But the real question is: Do you truly understand what your app is trying to achieve?

Start by asking yourself:

• Will it use device-to-device connection tech with Native-only APIs?
• Will it need camera control, audio/video processing, or involve a visually intensive experience, like a game?
• Or is it something more standard — like a messaging board, location-based app, or a university portal? All of these questions have a hundred follow-up questions that need to be answered to know which approach to choose.

In conclusion:

• Know your product needs.
• Explain those needs clearly to experienced mobile app developers.
• Listen to their advice.
• And make an informed decision that is not only based on the initial cost of having 1 vs 2 engineers.

Special thanks to our Development Leads, Rihards Baumanis and Maksims Peļņa, for sharing his insights and helping shape this article with his hands-on experience in both Flutter and Native development.