Why We Chose Flutter Over React Native

The Decision Context

When we started designing our mobile portfolio, we faced the classic choice: React Native or Flutter. Both frameworks promise cross-platform delivery, both have large communities. But after prototyping several apps, we made an unequivocal choice in favor of Flutter.

This wasn't an emotional decision. We evaluated specific criteria that matter for production-grade mobile applications and puzzle games.

Rendering Performance

Flutter uses its own rendering engine (Impeller/Skia), which draws every pixel independently. React Native, on the other hand, communicates with native components through a bridge. In practice, this means: Flutter animations always run at 60/120 FPS, even complex ones — with parallax, drag-and-drop, and particle effects. For our Cosmo Puzzle game line, this was a critical constraint.

Single Language — Dart

Dart is a strictly typed language with null safety that compiles to native ARM code. This gives us major advantages: compile-time errors instead of runtime crashes, single codebase for iOS, Android, and Web, and predictable performance without JavaScript engine pauses.

Ecosystem and Packages

Yes, npm's React Native ecosystem is larger. But the quality of Flutter packages is higher on average. Core libraries like Riverpod for state management, Dio for HTTP, and GoRouter for navigation are mature, well-documented, and maintained.

For our applications, we use:

• Riverpod — reactive state with automatic disposal.
• Isar — fast, type-safe local database with full encryption support.
• Flame — modular 2D game engine built on top of Flutter.