Guide
Choose your stack
Flutter, Kotlin or Swift, and what the choice actually means for you.
Before you start
- None. Read this before creating a project.
- 1
When in doubt, pick Flutter
Flutter builds one codebase that runs on both iPhone and Android. It is the only stack with the live hot-reload preview in the browser, it supports every project type including Shopify storefronts, and it can publish to both app stores. Most people should pick Flutter.
- 2
Pick Kotlin for a native Android app
Kotlin builds a native Android app with Jetpack Compose. You run it by building the Android APK and installing it on a phone or emulator, and it publishes to Google Play. There is no live browser preview on Kotlin yet, but the AI verifies that the app compiles as it builds.
- 3
Pick Swift for a native iOS app
Swift builds a native iOS app with SwiftUI, publishing to the App Store. You need a Mac to run and preview it: the desktop Companion app launches it on an iOS Simulator. There is no downloadable install file for iOS yet, so without a Mac you cannot try a Swift app on a device.
- 4
The backend is the same everywhere
All three stacks get the same automatically generated Node.js and PostgreSQL backend, with login and a database included. The stack choice is about the app itself, not the server side.
- 5
Know that the choice is per project
The stack is set when the project is created and cannot be changed afterwards. If you want the same app on another stack, you create a new project. So choose based on where the app needs to run, not on which language you happen to know.