I'm building a web and mobile application for transferring virtual digital currencies between 3 types of users for real-world applications, not in-game. I've been contacting companies for recommendations and estimates, and two have come back with Laravel and either Flutter or Android Studio/Swift. I've been studying Flutter, and I think that's the way to go, but for the web app and backend, Laravel just doesn't seem right. Maybe, I'm so used to PHP that it looks like a step backward or being stuck in the past or for bloated WordPress sites and text document management. And the components of Laravel, although they look handy, are rather pricey. Looking at similar kinds of apps, I see them being built in AngularJS, TypeScript, Node.js. What do you folks think? Thank You.
I would go with Flutter for the front end because it is easy to use once you learn Dart, has components for both Cupertino and Material Design, performs well, and has great documentation. For the backend, I've never used PHP so I don't know how good Laravel works, but I would usually use Node.js because of its large ecosystem, or Aqueduct, because if you use Flutter than you can use Dart on both the front and back end.
I would also go for Flutter for the front end as it is an easy and productive platform for creating mobile apps. For the backend, I would go either for Java (SpringBoot) or Node (+express) as both are rock solid platforms for creating API based backends. I may be strongly opinionated but I consider PHP being solely targeted at websites, not enterprise applications.
You could check out Ionic. Angular won't help in creating a mobile app, but with Ionic you can do it, and it comes from Angular. On the other hand, it isn't clear if you're building a mobile webapp or if you need it to be a native APK.
About Flutter, it is really limited for webapps, it's heavily oriented towards creating native Android and iOS apps using Dart.
Thank you, Daniel, yes I'm familiar with Angular and Ionic, that's an approach to this project that I am considering as well.