10 Best Cross-Platform App Development in 2026, Compared

Flutter is the default pick for a team starting fresh because it removes the most decisions: one language, Dart, one UI toolkit, and one codebase that Google ships to iOS and Android, plus web and desktop when you need them. The widget system draws every screen itself, so a design looks identical on an iPhone and a Pixel, and hot reload makes trying a change nearly instant.

The price is $0 and the licence is open source, so the budget goes to developers, store fees and a backend, not the framework. The trade-off is Dart: your team learns a new language, and apps run heavier than native ones. If your team already writes JavaScript, React Native may be the cheaper hire; for everyone else, Flutter is the safest first framework.

React Native is the pragmatic pick for a team that already ships React on the web: the same developers, the same language, and components that render as genuine native controls on iOS and Android. Meta maintains it, the community is the largest in cross-platform, and most features your app needs already exist as a maintained library.

It costs nothing and the licence is open source, so the spend is people and store fees. The honest cost is maintenance: upgrades and library compatibility can stall a sprint, and performance tuning takes native knowledge. Pair it with Expo for the smoothest start, and budget a native developer for the weeks when the bridge bites.

Expo is not a rival to React Native; it is the toolkit that makes React Native pleasant. It wraps the framework with managed builds, file-based routing, a library of device APIs and over-the-air updates, so a small team ships an iOS and Android app without owning a Mac or writing native build scripts.

The framework and the EAS Free tier cost $0, with 15 cloud builds per platform a month and updates for up to 1,000 monthly users. Once the app grows, EAS Starter is $19 a month and Production is $199, both plus usage, so price the build volume before you lean on it. For a first React Native app, start here.

.NET MAUI is the successor to Xamarin.Forms, which Microsoft retired in May 2024, and it is the natural choice for a team that already lives in C# and .NET. One project builds native iOS and Android apps, plus Windows and macOS desktop versions, and it shares libraries directly with a .NET backend, so the same developers cover the app and the server.

It is free and open source under the MIT licence, bundled with the free .NET SDK. The catch is ecosystem size: the community and the control market are smaller than Flutter's or React Native's, so unusual UI work may mean building a control yourself. Pick it when the team is already .NET; do not switch languages to use it.

Kotlin Multiplatform takes a different bet from Flutter and React Native: share the logic — networking, storage, validation — in Kotlin, and build each screen with the platform's own native UI. The result feels exactly like a native app on both phones, because the interface is native, and an existing Android team can reuse the Kotlin it already writes.

It is free and open source, stable since November 2023, and Google officially supports it for sharing logic between Android and iOS. Compose Multiplatform adds shared UI when you want it. The price is expertise: you need Kotlin and Swift skills in the team, and the library shelf is thinner than the bigger frameworks. Choose it to modernise native apps, not to avoid learning a platform.

FlutterFlow is the fastest route in this list for someone who does not write code: a visual builder for Flutter apps with templates, a drag-and-drop editor, and integrations for Firebase and Supabase that cover login, data and notifications. It generates genuine Flutter and Dart code, and from the Basic plan you can download that code and deploy to both stores in one click.

Basic costs $39 a month, or $29.25 a month billed annually, and the free plan covers two projects with no code download. The bill grows with the team: Growth is $80 a month for the first seat, with a second seat at $55. Use it to ship a real product without hiring developers; switch to hand-written Flutter when the app outgrows the visual editor.

Ionic is the shortest path from a web app to a mobile app: the same HTML, CSS and TypeScript, the same team, and a component library that adapts to iOS and Android design patterns on its own. The same codebase also ships as a progressive web app, so a team with a working web product can be on both app stores without learning a mobile framework.

The framework is free and open source under the MIT licence, and Capacitor wraps it in a native shell with access to device features. The trade-off is the WebView: animation-heavy screens will never feel quite native, and Ionic's own cloud service, Appflow, stopped taking new customers in February 2025. Pick Ionic when the web app already exists; for a new app, Flutter or React Native usually feel better.

Capacitor is the quiet workhorse behind Ionic apps, and it stands alone: a free, open-source native runtime that takes a finished web app and runs it as a native iOS and Android app, with a JavaScript bridge to device features such as the camera, GPS and notifications. Unlike its predecessor Cordova, the native projects are real source files your team owns and edits.

It costs $0 under the MIT licence, and it accepts any web framework, so the team keeps the stack it already ships. The limit is the WebView itself: the interface is web technology, not compiled native controls, so animation-heavy apps will feel it. Choose Capacitor to put an existing web app in the stores fast; choose a compiled framework when the interface is the product.

Bubble is the no-code option for a founder with no developers: a visual editor, a hosted database, user accounts, workflows and payments in one subscription, with native iOS and Android apps now built in the same editor as the web version. The free plan covers building and testing, and Starter at $59 a month billed annually puts a live app on a custom domain.

The cost to watch is workload units: Starter includes 175,000 a month, and overage runs about $0.30 per 1,000, so a popular app pays more than the plan price. There is also no code export, so the app lives on Bubble for good. Pick it to validate an idea fast; plan a rebuild if the app becomes the business.

OutSystems is the enterprise end of low-code: a visual platform for building web and mobile apps with AI generation, shared components, governance and compliance built in, aimed at large organisations replacing slow internal development. The Personal Edition is free for learning and prototyping, with hosting for up to 100 internal users.

Production pricing is not published — quotes come from sales, and public listings put the entry package near $36,300 a year, which is why this post does not print a starting price. Test apps cannot go live on the free edition, and there is no export path off the platform. Choose OutSystems when governance matters more than price; a small team should not pay enterprise money for it.