Cross Platform Development — professional stack.
For each requirement below, pick the option that fits your build — recommended first, then free and cheaper alternatives — or skip what your project doesn't need. Tap the info icon next to any requirement to see why it matters.
Cross-Platform Build Farm (iOS + Android)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsEAS Free: 30 builds/mo. Starter $29/mo 100 builds/mo $0.50/build over. Pro $99/mo unlimited iOS+Android concurrent. Codemagic Free 500 mins/mo $0.05/min over ($0.095/min macOS). Bitrise $90/mo 1500 credits $0.046/credit over. GH Actions Free 2000 mins Linux $0.008/min $0.08/min macOS 10x multiplier
CI/CD Orchestration (macOS + Linux runners)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Free: 2000 mins/mo (Team 3000 mins). $0.008/min Linux $0.016/win $0.08/macOS. Team $4/u/mo ($44/u/yr). Bitrise $90/mo Starter 1500 credits, $180/mo Teams. Codemagic Pay-as-you-go $29/mo 1800 mins $0.05/min over
Code Signing - Apple Developer Program (mandatory)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsApple Developer Individual/Org: $99/yr ($8.25/mo avg) - 1 year renewal. Includes App Store + TestFlight + App Attest. Enterprise $299/yr for in-house distribution. No free tier. $99 billed annually Jan/Dec
Code Signing - Google Play Developer (mandatory)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsOne-time $25 lifetime fee ($2.08/mo amortized). No recurring monthly. Mandatory for Play Store. Additional $0 for Play App Signing (Google manages keystore free)
Code Signing Management / Certificate Sync
Encrypts traffic between your users and your servers. Without it browsers flag your site as insecure and you lose trust and search ranking.Pricing & free-tier limitsFastlane Match OSS Free (storage $0.023/GB S3). EAS Credentials included Free in EAS Build (Free 30-day rotation). Bitrise Apple Service included in plan ($90/mo). No extra per-cert cost
OTA / Hot Update Service (avoid App Store review)
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsEAS Update Free: 1000 MAU, 10GB bandwidth. Pro $29/mo 10k MAU bandwidth 50GB $0.01/MAU overage. Shorebird Free 10k installs/mo, $20/mo Starter 50k installs, Growth $75/mo 250k installs $0.01/install overage. Bundle storage $0.023/GB
Crash Reporting & Error Tracking (RN/Flutter SDK)
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsSentry Free: 5k errors/mo, 1 project 30-day retention. Team $26/mo 50k errors $0.00029/error overage 90-day. Business $80/mo 100k. Crashlytics Free unlimited errors (Google). Bugsnag Free 7.5k sessions $99/mo 100k sessions
Source Control Hosting (Git for shared codebase)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Free: unlimited repos, 500MB packages, 2000 CI mins. Team $4/u/mo ($44/yr) 3000 mins 2GB packages. Enterprise Cloud $21/u/mo. GitLab Free 5 users 400 CI mins. Bitbucket Free 5 users
Artifact Storage & Distribution (IPA/AAB/APK)
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsEAS Free 30-day retention. Pro $29/mo 90-day retention 50GB. S3 $0.023/GB/mo storage $0.09/GB egress. Free 5GB 12mo trial. GitHub Releases Free 500MB package. Artifactory Cloud $41/mo 10GB storage
Push Notification Service (APNs + FCM unified)
Reaches users on their phone via SMS or push. Useful for verification codes and re-engagement; watch the per-message cost.Pricing & free-tier limitsFCM Free: unlimited pushes (Firebase). OneSignal Free: 10k opted-in subs, unlimited mobile push, 1k email/mo. Growth $9/mo from $9/mo 1k-10k subs $0.002/sub overage, Professional $99/mo 50k. Airship $199/mo Starter
Beta Distribution / TestFlight Alternative
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFirebase App Distribution Free unlimited testers (Spark). TestFlight Free included with $99/yr Apple (10k external testers 90-day). App Center Distribution Free 30-day retention $40/mo Team. Runway Free 1 app 2 releases $150/mo Team
Device Farm - Real iOS + Android Device Testing
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFirebase Test Lab Free: 10 virtual tests/day 5 physical/day. Then $5/device-hr physical $1/device-hr virtual. AWS Device Farm $0.17/min unmetered first 250 mins free $199/mo unlimited slot. BrowserStack $129/mo App Live 1 parallel $199/mo 2 parallel $0.15/min overage
Automated UI Testing Framework Cloud
The visual and experience layer of your product. Good design drives conversion and trust.Pricing & free-tier limitsMaestro OSS Free unlimited local. Cloud $99/mo 500 flows $0.15/flow overage, $199/mo 1500 flows. Detox Free OSS. BrowserStack Automate $129/mo 1 parallel. Firebase Robo Free 10/day then $5/hr
Analytics SDK - Mobile Product Analytics
Understands your users and supports them. Drives product decisions and retention.Pricing & free-tier limitsFirebase Analytics Free unlimited events. PostHog Free 1M events/mo $0, Growth $248/mo 1M included $0.000248/event overage 7-yr retention. Mixpanel Free 100k MTU Starter, Growth $28/mo $0.28/1000 MTU. Amplitude Free 50k MTU Growth $49/mo
Feature Flagging & Remote Config
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsFirebase Remote Config Free unlimited fetches. GrowthBook OSS Free self-host. Cloud Free 20k flag evals/mo, Pro $20/mo 100k evals $0.0001 over. LaunchDarkly Free 1k MAU, Starter $10/seat/mo 10k MAU $8.33 billed annually
Backend as a Service (BaaS) / App Backend
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsFirebase Spark: 50k reads/day 20k writes 1GB storage Free. Blaze payg $0.06/100k reads $0.18/100k writes $0.026/GB. Supabase Free 500MB DB 50k MAU 1GB storage, Pro $25/mo 8GB DB 100GB bandwidth $0.0035/MB over $0.021/GB storage
Secrets Management / Env Vars for CI
Stores API keys and credentials safely, separate from your code. Leaking secrets is one of the most common breaches.Pricing & free-tier limitsGitHub Secrets Free unlimited env secrets per repo. EAS Secrets Free included. Doppler Free 5 users 25 apps 50 secrets, Team $12/u/mo unlimited. Vault Cloud $0.03/hr cluster $0.50/1000 reads. Infisical Free self-host.
Package Registry / Private npm/pub
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsGH Packages Free 500MB storage 1GB transfer, Team $4/u includes 2GB storage 10GB transfer $0.25/GB over. npm Pro $7/mo unlimited private. Cloudsmith $45/mo 10GB storage 100GB bandwidth $0.20/GB over. JFrog $41/mo
Deep Linking / Universal Links Hosting (.well-known)
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Pages Free unlimited bandwidth 500 builds/mo $0. Branch Free 10k MAU deep links, Growth $59/mo 50k MAU $0.001/MAU over. Firebase Hosting Free 10GB storage + 360MB/day transfer $0.15/GB over
CDN for App Assets / OTA Bundle Delivery
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsCloudflare Free unlimited CDN (fair-use), R2 Free 10GB storage 10M Class A 10M Class B requests/mo. Paid $15/mo 50GB storage $0.015/GB over + $0.36/M req. CloudFront $0.085/GB first 10TB $0.02/10k req. Fastly $50/mo min $0.12/GB
Logging & Observability (Mobile Logs)
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsAxiom Free 500MB/mo ing 30-day retention. $25/mo 10GB 30-day $0.25/GB over. Logtail Free 1GB/mo. Datadog Logs $0.10/GB ingest $1.70 per 1M indexed $0.13/GB archive. Team $31/mo minimum
Performance Monitoring / APM Mobile (RUM)
Tells you when things break and why. You cannot fix what you cannot see — this is how you keep downtime short.Pricing & free-tier limitsFirebase Performance Free unlimited traces. Sentry Perf Free 10k transactions/mo, Team $26/mo 50k transactions $0.0004/trans over. Datadog RUM $1.50/1k sessions $15/mo 100 sessions $1.50 over. New Relic Free 100GB
Local Database Sync / Offline Sync Backend
Where your code actually runs and serves requests. Picking the right host affects speed, scaling, and how much ops work you do.Pricing & free-tier limitsWatermelonDB OSS Free. PowerSync Free 10k sync users 1GB storage, Starter $49/mo 50k users 10GB $0.0008/user over. Realm Device Sync Free 500k reads/mo $57/mo Shared cluster 10M reads $0.20/m over
Authentication Service (Mobile OAuth + SSO)
How users sign up, log in, and are authorized. Getting roles and access control right early prevents painful rewrites.Pricing & free-tier limitsFirebase Auth Free 50k MAU then $0.0055/MAU tier1 (to 100k) $0.0046 tier2. Supabase Auth Free 50k MAU $0, Pro $25/mo includes 100k MAU $0.00325/MAU over. Auth0 Free 7.5k MAU, B2C Essentials $130/mo 10k MAU $0.09/MAU over
Localization / OTA Translation Management
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsCrowdin Free 1 proj 60k hosted words MT, Pro $59/mo unlimited projects 1M words. Tolgee OSS Free self-host, Cloud Free 1000 strings $20/mo 10k. Lokalise Starter $120/mo 500 keys $0.08/key over. Phrase $135/mo Starter 1000 keys
App Store Screenshot / Metadata Automation
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsFastlane OSS Free (self-hosted). EAS Metadata included in EAS subscription ($29/mo). Runway Free 1 app 2 releases/mo, Starter $150/mo per app $0.15/release over, Team $450/mo 3 apps unlimited. No extra licensing for fastlane
Container Registry for Build Images (Docker for CI)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsGHCR Free 500MB storage 10GB egress/mo. Team $4/u includes 2GB 10GB transfer $0.25/GB over. Docker Hub Free 1 private repo 200 pulls/6hr. AWS ECR $0.10/GB/mo storage $0.09/GB egress. GCP Artifact Registry $0.10/GB
Data Backup & CI Cache Storage
Where you keep files users upload or you serve — images, videos, documents — and how fast they reach visitors around the world.Pricing & free-tier limitsGH Cache Free 10GB repo cache 7-day retention $0.008/GB-hr overage. EAS Cache Free 1GB, Pro $29/mo includes 10GB $0.05/GB over. S3 Standard $0.023/GB/mo $0.09/GB egress. Glacier $0.0036/GB/mo restore $0.03/GB
Monorepo Build Caching (Turborepo / Nx Cloud)
Automates testing and deploying your code. Saves enormous time and prevents “works on my machine” releases.Pricing & free-tier limitsVercel Remote Cache Free 5GB remote cache. Turborepo Pro $20/u/mo 100GB cache $0.10/GB over. Nx Cloud Free 500 execution hrs 150GB cache, Pro $30/mo 1500 hrs $0.02/hr over $0.15/GB cache over
Network Tunneling for Local Dev Device Testing
A piece of your stack you may or may not need, depending on scope. Pick the option that fits — or skip it if your project doesn’t require this capability yet.Pricing & free-tier limitsExpo Tunnels Free unlimited dev. ngrok Free 1 online agent 100 req/min limit. Pro $8/mo + $5 per extra endpoint 10k req/min $10/mo 40k. Cloudflare Tunnel Free unlimited 1GB per tunnel. localtunnel Free OSS no SLA
How this professional cross platform development checklist works.
Each requirement below is something a professional cross platform development build typically needs. Pick one of the four researched options — recommended, free, cheaper or paid — add your own with "Other", or skip the requirement if your project doesn't need it. Nothing is mandatory; the plan on the right tracks what you've decided so nothing gets forgotten.
Your picks are saved in this browser automatically, so you can come back anytime. Options are researched per build level and refreshed as vendors change their plans — always verify details on the provider's page before committing.