Native or React Native app — which to choose?

React Native lets the iOS and Android versions of an app share the same codebase, instead of writing two completely separate projects in two different programming languages. That means faster development (one team builds both platforms in parallel), easier long-term maintenance (a change is written once, not twice), and a lower total cost.

For the vast majority of business apps — internal tools, marketplace platforms, service and information apps — React Native performance is more than sufficient for an excellent user experience, and in practice the user doesn't notice a difference from a fully native app.

Native development (writing separately for each platform) makes sense when absolutely top performance is needed — for example complex games, real-time video/audio signal processing, or graphics-intensive apps.

It is also the better choice when deep integration with very specific platform features is needed (certain sensors, advanced biometric functions, specific OS integrations) that cross-platform tools don't cover equally well on both platforms.

If you're not sure which approach you need — start with React Native. You test the idea with real users faster at a lower initial cost, and if it later turns out you need native performance for a specific part of the app, that part can be moved to native separately without rewriting the whole app from scratch.

The reverse path — starting native and then switching to cross-platform — means throwing away a significant part of already-written code, so it's smarter to start with the more flexible option unless you know from day one that you need maximum performance.