I work on a Flutter app with a small team that does both iOS and Android from the same code base. It works really well for our use case given the size of our team. I also have experience with both native Android and iOS. The way Android and iOS handle apps is completely different and jumping between the two requires a lot of mental context switching.

Something to think about is all mobile apps come with the typical boilerplate. Think about a screen that displays the results from a REST call. You will need to create the screen for the Android app using either XML or Jetpack Compose frameworks. The iOS will need to create a screen using storyboards or SwiftUI frameworks. That is a lot to maintain. With Flutter you create the screens just once in Flutter and the only framework choice is Flutter. Now at some point in the future when the REST call adds a new field you have twice the work to do with native solutions then you do with Flutter to add it to your screen.

I would also like to correct misconception about Flutter. Flutter doesn't eliminate the need to do cross platform development. You still need to know the native tooling, native build cycles and native programming languages if you want to get a Flutter app out the door.

So how does Flutter really help vs just get in the way - if you have to "do cross platform development" anyway?

You will end up writing less code. You won't have to tackle advanced subjects like managing app state in Android and iOS. You can use a Flutter state management solution that works on both platforms. You won't have to feature match your two apps because they will all use the same code base.

If you are a small teams looking to get something out the door, all of these are points in favour of Flutter. It works better for teams will constraints such as team size, budget and time.