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Compose Multiplatform

Compose Multiplatform development for one shared UI across desktop, Android, and iOS.

Compose Multiplatform goes further than Kotlin Multiplatform's shared logic — it shares the UI layer itself, written once in Compose, across desktop, Android, and iOS. It's a newer, narrower tool than KMP, and it's not the right fit for every app, but where it fits, the payoff on maintaining one UI codebase instead of three is real.

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01What Compose Multiplatform actually shares

Where Kotlin Multiplatform shares business logic and leaves each platform's UI native, Compose Multiplatform shares the UI itself — the same Compose screens, components, and navigation running on desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux), Android, and increasingly iOS. That is a meaningfully bigger commitment: you are betting the interface, not just the plumbing, on one shared codebase.

The tradeoff worth understanding before starting: Compose Multiplatform desktop and mobile apps look and feel like Compose apps everywhere, not like platform-native macOS or Windows software. For a lot of products — internal tools, cross-platform utilities, apps where a consistent brand UI matters more than platform idiom — that is the right tradeoff. For a consumer app where native macOS or iOS feel is the point, it usually is not.

02Scruto: Compose Multiplatform in production, not a slide

Scruto — a macOS desktop app I designed, built, and shipped — is proof this is not theoretical. It auto-tags, transcribes, and renames video and photo files so editors can find footage fast, running as a real desktop application with a UI built for the job, not a mobile app squeezed onto a laptop screen. That is the standard I hold Compose Multiplatform desktop work to: it has to feel like it belongs on the platform it runs on.

03Where Compose Multiplatform is the right call

A few situations where I would actually recommend it over separate native builds:

  • You need the same tool on desktop and mobile — a companion app, an internal tool, or a utility where UI consistency matters more than platform-native chrome.
  • You are already committed to Kotlin and Compose on Android and want to extend that investment to desktop instead of learning a second UI stack.
  • The product is UI-heavy with genuinely shared screens across platforms, not just shared data underneath different UIs.
  • Team size is small enough that maintaining three separate native UI codebases is a real cost, not a hypothetical one.

04Where I would talk you out of it

If the product needs to feel unmistakably native — macOS menu-bar conventions, iOS gesture idioms, Android Material details that differ meaningfully per platform — a shared UI works against that goal. In those cases I recommend Kotlin Multiplatform for the shared logic — covered on its own page, linked below — with native UI per platform instead, even though it means more UI code to write and maintain.

05How the engagement runs

Same process as everything else here — scope, architect, build, ship, maintain — with an explicit early decision on where the shared-UI line sits, and which platform-specific adjustments (window sizing, keyboard shortcuts, file-system access) get built on top of the shared Compose code rather than forced into it.

Selected work

Products designed, built, and shipped to real users.

A few apps taken from first idea to store release, relevant to this kind of engagement.

Scruto

macOS

Footage, tagged and searchable — automatically

A desktop app that auto-tags, transcribes, and renames video and photo files so editors can find footage fast.

Design, build & release

Client feedback

What clients say after shipping.

Verified 5-star reviews from Upwork clients — backed by a Top Rated Plus badge and a 100% job-success record.

“Andrii is a very high skilled Android developer, I would definitely work with him again.”
Kotlin Multiplatform developer · Upwork · ★5.0

Process

A direct path from first scope to production maintenance.

The workflow stays boring on purpose: define the target, make the technical decisions early, ship in visible increments, and keep the release path clean.

  1. 01

    Scope

    Turn a rough idea into a costed plan — features, milestones, and a realistic timeline.

  2. 02

    Architect

    Design a structure that stays maintainable as the product and the team grow.

  3. 03

    Build

    Ship production code — native Android, Kotlin Multiplatform, and Compose Multiplatform.

  4. 04

    Ship

    Release to the App Store and Google Play with analytics and crash reporting in place.

  5. 05

    Maintain

    Stay on after launch for fixes, OS updates, and the next round of features.

FAQ

The practical questions for this kind of work.

Is Compose Multiplatform ready for a real product, not a demo?
Yes, for the right kind of product — Scruto is a shipped macOS app built this way, in daily use, not a prototype. It's a newer tool than Kotlin Multiplatform and I will tell you directly if your specific app is a bad fit for it.
Will a Compose Multiplatform desktop app feel native on macOS or Windows?
It will feel like a well-built Compose app, with platform details like window behavior and file access handled correctly — but it will not be pixel-identical to a from-scratch native macOS or Windows app. Where native feel is the priority, that is worth discussing before committing to this approach.
What's the difference from Kotlin Multiplatform for my project?
Kotlin Multiplatform shares logic and leaves UI native per platform. Compose Multiplatform shares the UI too. Most projects should start with the Kotlin Multiplatform development page on this site — Compose Multiplatform is the answer only when a shared UI genuinely outweighs native platform feel.
Can an existing Compose Android app be extended to desktop?
Often, yes — if the Android app already separates UI from platform-specific code reasonably well, extending it to desktop with Compose Multiplatform is more incremental than starting a separate desktop codebase from zero. The first step is reviewing how the existing code is structured.
Do you build the iOS target too, or just desktop and Android?
Compose Multiplatform for iOS is part of the toolkit and can be included, but it is the least mature of the three targets. I will be explicit about what is solid today versus what still needs native fallbacks on iOS specifically.

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Next step

Send the short version of what you need to ship.

Include where the product is now, what needs to be true in the next release, and which platforms matter. I will respond with the most useful next move.

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