Researchers evaluate mobile development trade-offs by analyzing Kotlin, Java and React Native through tests measuring three critical aspects which include performance and scalability in addition to developer productivity. Current research studies native frameworks and cross-platform development in separate analyses because developers need insights about their performance in identical development environments. The research fills this deficiency by integrating performance measurements of CPU utilization and memory allocations with survey-based insights and case study data. A direct evaluation of native Android programming languages (Kotlin and Java) with the popular cross-platform solution (React Native) stands as this research’s main contribution for performing thorough strength and weakness analysis. The study provides quantitative efficiency and scalability measurements and information about developer experiences with code maintenance timelines together with guidelines for selecting appropriate solutions that match project demands. The outcomes of this research support practitioners along with academics by providing clear understanding of mobile app development strategy trade-offs which enables better decisions and best practice establishment in the changing environment.