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July 26, 2026
Every version of this article is written by someone with a side in it. Here is mine, stated up front: I ship React Native, and I would still tell some teams to use Flutter.
It compares the frameworks. That is the least important axis, because both are good enough. Both render at 60fps when written competently. Both have mature routing, state and testing stories. Both have shipped apps you have used this week without noticing.
Arguing rendering architecture is a way of avoiding the question that actually decides projects.
Who maintains this after I leave?
That is it. That is the whole thing.
A codebase nobody on the team can confidently modify is a liability regardless of how it renders.
Flutter wins on: pixel-identical UI across platforms, a richer built-in component set, and a compile-time story that catches more before runtime. If your design team hands you one spec and expects it honoured exactly on both platforms, Flutter fights you less.
React Native wins on: code sharing with an existing web product, hiring from a far larger pool, and using platform-native components so the app feels like the OS rather than like itself. It also wins on OTA updates, which is not a small thing when a bug is in review.
"Flutter is faster" is repeated far past where the evidence supports it. With the New Architecture — Fabric and TurboModules — the bridge that caused React Native's worst historical performance problems is gone. In practice, an app that drops frames in either framework is dropping them because someone re-rendered a list on every keystroke, not because of the framework.
I have fixed that bug in both. It is the same bug.
If you have a React web app, use React Native. If you do not, and you are hiring mobile-first, Flutter is a defensible choice and I will not argue with it.
If someone tells you the answer without asking what your team already knows, they are selling something.
I build the React Native side of this. See what that looks like in practice, or ask me about your specific case.