I ship apps with both frameworks, and the debate is usually framed wrong. Raw performance stopped being the deciding factor years ago — both render at 60fps for the apps most of us build. The real question is: what does your team already know, and what does your product need at the edges?

Where React Native wins

• Your team writes TypeScript. The ecosystem overlap with web is enormous — one hiring pool, shared utilities, sometimes shared business logic.
• Over-the-air updates matter. Pushing a fix without a store review is a business feature, not a technical one.
• Deep native look-and-feel per platform, since you compose real platform primitives.

// The same mental model your web team already has
export function PriceTag({ amount }: { amount: number }) {
  return <Text style={styles.price}>{formatCurrency(amount)}</Text>;
}

Where Flutter wins

• Pixel-perfect custom design. If the designer's vision ignores platform conventions, Flutter's own renderer makes consistency trivial.
• A single, cohesive toolkit. Batteries included: navigation, animation, theming, testing — no dependency roulette.
• Dart's tooling — hot reload that almost never breaks, and ahead-of-time compilation for release builds.

class PriceTag extends StatelessWidget {
  const PriceTag({super.key, required this.amount});
  final double amount;
 
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Text(formatCurrency(amount), style: Theme.of(context).textTheme.titleLarge);
  }
}

My actual heuristic

1. Web-heavy team or OTA updates required → React Native.
2. Heavily custom, brand-driven UI on both platforms → Flutter.
3. Neither constraint applies → pick the one your senior engineers can review best.

The framework is rarely why an app fails. Unclear architecture, unowned quality, and slow release pipelines are. Solve those, and either choice will carry you.