App Modernization & Migration

Your app still works. It just can’t keep up any more.

App Modernization & Migration for Mobile Apps

Old framework. Every new feature takes twice as long as the last one. Store rejections you did not see coming. We move your app onto a current stack in stages, while it stays live, and while your users keep everything they have.

52+ apps and products delivered · 7+ years · Upwork Top Rated Agency · 100% Job Success · 54 client reviews

Apps age in a way that is easy to ignore until it is expensive. The framework goes out of support. The people who wrote it move on. A feature that would have taken two weeks takes two months, and nobody can say exactly why. Then a store deadline arrives and suddenly the oldest decision in your codebase is your most urgent problem.

We move apps onto a current stack in stages, with the old and new code running side by side, so you keep shipping while the work happens. We will tell you which parts are genuinely holding you back and which parts are fine, and we will tell you when the honest answer is to leave it alone.

Who you’ll actually work with

Anand Yadav, Founder of SightInfusion Infotech

Anand Yadav

Founder, SightInfusion Infotech7+ years52+ apps and products deliveredUpwork Top Rated100% Job Success across 54 reviews

Most people who call me about an old app have already been told to rebuild it. Sometimes that is right. Usually it is not, and the person who said it had not read the code.

So I do it in the other order. I read the code first, I send you the rules I judge it by before I have seen anything, and then I tell you which parts are actually costing you time and which parts are just old. Old is not the same as broken. A lot of what gets called legacy is working fine and should be left alone.

And I will put a payback number in writing. If a migration is not going to pay for itself in a time you find reasonable, I would rather tell you that than bill you for it.

What usually goes wrong

What clients say, and what it actually means

“It still works, we just cannot find anyone who knows the old framework anymore.”

What it means

The app outlived the developers who understood it.

“We want to modernize it without touching what already works.”

What it means

Everything in an old codebase is connected to everything else. Nothing moves in isolation.

“Users keep asking why it looks like it is from five years ago.”

What it means

The UI stopped changing the day the original team left.

What you actually receive

What you getDetail
A Modernization Audit reportWritten, 4 to 6 pages. What state the code is really in, what is costing you time, what is fine, what to migrate and in what order. Yours whether you continue with us or not.
A staged plan with cost and time against each stageNot one number for the migration. Each stage priced and dated separately, so you can stop after any of them.
A written payback estimateHow long before the migration pays for itself in development time, and what has to be true for that to hold. Revised in writing if it moves.
The keep-or-rebuild verdict, against published criteriaYou get the criteria before we read the code. The report shows you which one your app failed. See section 10.
A working app after every stageNot after the project. After every stage. Old and new code run side by side and you ship the whole way through.
A hiring noteWhat your stack means for hiring: which parts make a developer hard to find, and what changes that. Nobody asks for this and everybody needs it.
The code, in your repository, from day onePlus build and release instructions, architecture notes, and a credential list.
A rollback plan for every stageWritten before the stage starts, not improvised during it.

Sample Modernization Audit report: Sample report needed

07. The dates you can’t miss

The dates you can’t miss

Checked 11 August 2026 · next check 11 November 2026

Most reasons to modernize are judgement calls. These are not. They have dates, they come from Apple and Google, and they do not move because your quarter is busy.

In force since 28 Apr 2026

Apps uploaded to App Store Connect must be built with Xcode 26 or later, using an SDK for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26 or watchOS 26.

Who it hitsAnyone shipping an iOS update. If your build machine is on an older Xcode, you cannot ship at all.
Source: Apple upcoming requirements
31 Aug 2026

New apps and app updates must target Android 16 (API level 36) or higher to be submitted to Google Play.

Who it hitsEvery Android app. An extension to 1 Nov 2026 can be requested in the Play Console policy status page.
Source: Google Play target API
Ongoing

An existing app below the target API level will stop being available in Google Play to new users on devices running Android OS newer than what your app targets.

Who it hitsExisting installs are not affected. Those users keep the app. You lose new users on new phones, and you cannot ship updates.
Source: Google Play target API
31 Aug 2026

Wear OS and Android Automotive apps must target API 35.

Who it hitsAnyone with a watch or car build.
Source: Google Play target API
Correction

A correction to something we have written ourselves

You will see the Google Play deadline described as “your app becomes uninstallable”. That is not what Google says. Existing installs are explicitly unaffected. It is still serious. You lose every new user on a new phone and you cannot ship updates, but your current users do not lose your app. We would rather you have the accurate version and trust the rest of this page.

08. The end that has no deadline

Framework support, which has no deadline but has an end

Apple and Google publish dates. Frameworks and languages do not. They just stop getting fixes, forks thin out, and hiring gets harder, quietly, with nothing on a calendar to warn you.

Status as of 11 August 2026.

AngularJS (this kills Ionic v1 apps)

Support officially ended January 2022. Not winding down. Ended.

Source: AngularJS version support

Ionic

v8 is active (released 17 Apr 2024). v7 ended 17 Apr 2025 · v6 ended 29 Mar 2024 · v5 ended 8 Dec 2022. Every Ionic below v8 is out of support today.

Source: Ionic support policy

React Native

Supported window is the current release plus the previous two minors. That is all. The New Architecture became the default in 0.76 (23 Oct 2024), and the legacy bridge architecture was frozen on 2 June 2025: no new features, no PRs accepted against it.

Source: The New Architecture

Flutter

There is no published support window. Flutter’s compatibility policy covers breaking changes and a test registry. It does not promise support for any older version, and the team doesn’t remove deprecated APIs on a scheduled basis. Anyone who tells you Flutter supports N versions back is inventing it.

Source: Flutter compatibility policy

Objective-C and Java for Android

Neither is deprecated. Apple has issued no deprecation statement. Google is Kotlin-first, which is a preference, not an end date. This is ecosystem drift, not end-of-life. The real cost is hiring and library availability, not a switch being turned off.

Source: Kotlin-first

Truth in modernization

Apache Cordova is not dead, and almost everyone will tell you it is

Nearly every agency selling app modernization claims Cordova is retired to sell immediate emergency rewrites. We sell Cordova migrations, yet the facts say otherwise.

ACTIVE RELEASES

Cordova Android 15.1.0 & iOS 8.1.1

Actively releasing through July & August 2026. The Apache Board Report confirms 100 committers, 97 PMC members, and “strong” project health.

THE MYTH EXPLAINED

One Product Retiring, Not Apache

Microsoft retired Visual Studio App Center’s support for Cordova. Competitors twisted one vendor’s tool deprecation into “Apache retired Cordova”.

ECOSYSTEM SHIFT

Capacitor 9 Makes Cordova Optional

Capacitor 9 made Cordova compatibility optional. It represents an ecosystem evolution, not a forced retirement or deprecation of the project.

THE HONEST MIGRATION CASE

Real Technical Reasons to Migrate

Thinner plugin ecosystems, harder developer recruitment, and native performance ceilings are honest reasons to migrate. We recommend migrating for real engineering needs, not false claims.

APACHE VERIFICATION

Verify Releases Directly

Apache Cordova remains active and maintained in the open source ecosystem. Check official blog releases directly at cordova.apache.org/blog before committing to an unnecessary emergency rewrite.

Why now

Old code is fine until the day it blocks you

A framework going out of support breaks nothing on the day it happens. It breaks the next feature you try to ship. The criteria below are for judging where your app sits on that line.

A person planting a flag beside a castle

Published evaluation rules

Migrate or rebuild: our criteria, published before we read your code

A rebuild costs more than a staged migration. An agency’s promise not to over-recommend a rebuild is worth little: a published rule is worth everything because you can hold us to it.

RULE 01

Unbuildable Source Codebase

The app cannot be built from source (missing keys, missing dependencies, or lost build machine).

Impact: If it cannot be compiled, it cannot be migrated in stages. There is no running build to migrate side-by-side.
RULE 02

Inseparable Architecture & Seams

Business logic, UI components, and networking layer are bound into one monolithic mass.

Impact: Staged migrations require modular boundaries to migrate along. Zero architecture seams force a clean rebuild.
RULE 03

Obsolete Product & Redesigned Flow

The original app product model no longer exists, having been redesigned multiple times.

Impact: Migrating legacy code nobody uses or wants is the most expensive way to preserve historical tech debt.
RULE 04

Unmaintained Core Dependencies

A core framework dependency has no modern equivalent and no maintained open-source fork.

Impact: When the foundational core engine is abandoned, the migration ceiling is lower than building fresh.
RULE 05

Cost Arithmetic Flip

Staged migration cost estimates exceed the cost of a clean modern rebuild on the audit plan.

Impact: Pure math. We calculate both costs transparently and show you the line-item numbers.
VERDICT 01

Staged Migration

Fail 0 to 1 rules

We recommend migrating in controlled stages. You can stop at any milestone when budget or timeline goals are achieved.

VERDICT 02

Clean Rebuild

Fail 3 or more rules

We recommend a full modern rebuild and back it up with line-item cost comparisons rather than assertions.

VERDICT 03

Leave It Alone

Passing & stable app

If your app ships features at acceptable speed and doesn’t crash, old tech is not a problem. We recommend leaving it alone.

11. Start with the audit, not the migration

The Modernization Audit

Fixed price. Fixed length. Credited back in full against stage one if you continue.

FieldAnswer
What it costsFee needed
How long5 working days from the day we get repository access
What you getThe 4 to 6 page audit report in section 06, the staged plan with cost and time per stage, the written payback estimate, and the keep-or-rebuild verdict against the five published criteria
If you continueThe fee comes off stage one, in full
If you don’tYou keep the report. No follow-up sequence, no checking-in emails.
What we need from youRepository access, or the app binary and store access if the code is missing. If the code is genuinely gone, that is App Rescue & Code Audit, not this page.

Why we charge for it. A free audit has to be paid for somewhere, and it gets paid for by the recommendation. Charging a fixed fee and crediting it back means the verdict is not carrying a sales quota, and it means we can afford to spend five days actually reading the code instead of two hours skimming it to produce a proposal.

12. Ownership and exit

You own it. Take it anywhere.

The code is in your repository from day one. Not ours, transferred at the end.

The Apple Developer account, the Google Play account, the backend, the analytics: all in your name, on your billing. We hold access; you hold ownership.

30 days’ written notice. No minimum term, no exit fee.

If you leave mid-migration, you get a working app. That is what staged migration is for. You do not get half a rewrite and an invoice.

The handover is written and included: architecture notes, what was migrated and what was not, build and release instructions, credential list, known issues, and what we would have done next.

We will do a handover call with whoever takes over from us, including a competitor.

If we have to lock you in to keep you, we have already lost the argument.

13. The reason most people call now

Modernizing to make room for AI

This has become the most common reason clients start a modernization conversation, and it is a legitimate one.

Older apps were not built with any of this in mind. There is usually no clean API layer to call a model from, no structured event history to build on, no feature-flag system to release an AI feature safely to 5% of users, and no place to put the consent screen the stores now require. The AI feature is not the hard part. The three things underneath it are.

Doing both together is meaningfully cheaper than doing them a year apart, because the API layer, the event history and the release tooling are the same work either way. You either build them once for the AI feature or twice, once badly.

What we will not do is sell you a modernization on the promise of an AI feature you have not decided to build. If you know what the feature is, see AI Feature Integration & Assistants. The two pieces of work get planned together and priced together.

13. Standards

How we work to spec

Staged, always. Old and new run side by side. You ship the whole way through. We do not take a product off the road for a rewrite.

Tests before the migration, not after. We write characterisation tests against the old behaviour first, so “nothing your users depend on is lost” is a checked statement rather than a hope.

A rollback plan per stage. Written before the stage starts.

Your data is migrated with a dry run first. On a copy, with a reconciliation count, before anything touches production.

Store requirements are part of the definition of done. A stage is not finished until the build passes review on current SDK requirements.

Accessibility is checked, not claimed. Contrast, dynamic type, screen-reader labels and focus order on the screens we touch. The European Accessibility Act has applied since 28 June 2025, with an exemption for microenterprises (under 10 staff and turnover at or below €2m). Confirm with a lawyer whether it applies to you. We could not open the official EUR-Lex text to verify the exemption wording.

One named engineer, and you know who. Not a pool. Continuity is the whole point on a multi-stage job.

Where we have shipped

Industries we serve

Each item below lists industry and what we have done.
Fintech & Banking
Fintech & BankingWallets, payments, lending, KYC, crypto. Our strongest evidence and our highest-budget work.
Retail, POS & E-commerce
Retail, POS & E-commerceBilling, inventory, invoicing, small-business POS.
CRM, HR & Internal Business Tools
CRM, HR & Internal Business ToolsSales, staff and workflow apps. The best fit for staged modernization, because internal users tolerate a staged rollout.
Events, Media & Community
Events, Media & CommunityEvent, publishing and community apps across three platforms.
Energy & Utilities
Energy & UtilitiesField and monitoring apps, integrated with systems the client already runs.
Legal-Tech
Legal-TechCase management, court data, document automation. Few agencies specialise here.
Healthcare & Wellness
Healthcare & WellnessWe want this work and we will take it. We do not have a published healthcare case study yet, so we are not going to imply one.
Real Estate & PropTech
Real Estate & PropTechOpen to it. No case study yet.
EdTech & Training
EdTech & TrainingOpen to it. No case study yet.

15. Process

How the work runs

First call

What the app does, what is slow, what deadline you are facing. We tell you on this call whether you want this page or App Rescue. No charge.

30 min

Criteria sent

The five keep-or-rebuild criteria in section 10, in writing, before we have seen your code.

same day

Modernization Audit

We read the code, build it, measure it, and write the report. Fixed fee, credited back.

5 working days

The plan and the payback number

Stage list, cost and time per stage, and a written payback estimate. You can stop here and keep everything.

included in the audit

Stage zero: make it buildable and testable

Build machine, dependency update, characterisation tests, CI. Nothing user-visible. This stage is why the rest is safe.

1 to 2 weeks

Stage one: the first real migration

The module with the worst pain-to-risk ratio, migrated and shipped. Old and new side by side.

2 to 4 weeks

Stages two onward

One at a time, released as we go. You can stop after any of them and still have a working app.

2 to 4 weeks each

Handover

Architecture notes, what was migrated and what was not, build and release instructions, credentials, known issues, and what we would do next.

included

WALL OF PROOF

What clients say once the project is over

The SightInfusion team delivered our app with impressive speed, clear communication, and reliable quality. Every detail was handled thoughtfully, and the final result exceeded expectations. A professional team we're excited to work with again soon.

Dimitri Orga
Dimitri Orga
CEO & Asset Manager, FIDEX DLT

Working with SightInfusion was a smooth and professional experience. The team was proactive, technically strong, and always transparent with updates. Our finance app was delivered on time with great care. We look forward to future projects together.

Debi Prasad Naik
Debi Prasad Naik
CTO, EVOS Solutions Private Limited

SightInfusion handled our complex project with patience, expertise, and consistent communication. Their team learns fast, solves challenges quickly, and delivers dependable results. A skilled, trustworthy team we'll confidently partner with again in the future.

Vishal Pulikottil
Vishal Pulikottil
CEO / Founder, Instinctive Studio

19. What we build with

Migrating from
Objective-C
Java
Cordova
Ionic v1 to v7
Old React Native (pre-0.76 bridge)
Old Flutter
PhoneGap
Xamarin
Migrating to
Swift & SwiftUI
Kotlin & Jetpack Compose
Flutter
React Native (New Architecture)
Backend
Unversioned REST
Firebase
Supabase
Node/TypeScript
Tooling we add on the way in
Crash reporting

We are not a Flutter shop. Flutter is what we use most, and it is not the answer to every migration. Native iOS and native Android are the right call often enough that pre-committing to a framework before reading your code would make our audit worthless.

21. Questions

Will our users lose their data or their accounts?

No. Their data and accounts stay exactly as they are. That is the point of migrating in stages rather than rebuilding. Before anything touches production we run the data migration on a copy, with a reconciliation count, and we write characterisation tests against the old behaviour first so that “nothing your users depend on is lost” is a checked statement and not a hope.

Is this cheaper than a rebuild?

Usually, and not always. The audit gives you both numbers on the same page: the staged migration total and an honest rebuild estimate, plus the five criteria in section 10 and which ones your app failed. If migration costs more than rebuilding, that is criterion 5 and we will tell you.

How do I know you won’t just say “rebuild” because it bills more?

Because you get the criteria before we read your code, and the report has to show you which one your app failed. You can disagree with the evidence. That is a much better position than disagreeing with an opinion.

How long does the whole thing take?

There is no honest answer to this before the audit. It depends on how many seams the code has, which is not visible from outside. What we can tell you is the shape: 5 days to the plan, then stages of 2 to 4 weeks each, releasing at the end of every one.

Can we stop halfway?

Yes, and this is the main reason we work in stages. After every stage you have a working, shipped app. You can stop after stage one, or stage four, and what you have is finished rather than half-migrated.

Is Cordova dead? We keep being told to move off it.

No. Apache Cordova was still releasing in July and August 2026, and the Apache Software Foundation’s own board report describes the project’s health as strong. What happened is that Microsoft retired App Center’s Cordova support, and that got repeated until it became “Apache retired Cordova”. There are real reasons to move off Cordova (a thinner plugin ecosystem, harder hiring, performance ceilings on some apps) and we will make those arguments if they apply. “It is dead” is not one of them. Full detail in section 09.

Our app is on an old React Native version. How bad is that?

Depends how old. React Native supports the current release plus the previous two minors, and nothing else. The New Architecture became the default in 0.76 (October 2024) and the legacy bridge architecture was frozen in June 2025: no new features, no fixes accepted. If you are on the old architecture you are not getting fixes, and each release you skip makes the jump bigger. This is the one framework where waiting genuinely costs you more.

What about old Flutter versions?

Flutter publishes no support window at all. Its compatibility policy covers breaking changes and a test registry, not support for older versions. So the question is not “is my version supported”, it is “how many breaking changes are between me and current”. The audit counts them.

Is Objective-C deprecated? Is Java for Android deprecated?

Neither. Apple has issued no deprecation statement for Objective-C, and Google’s “Kotlin-first” position is a preference rather than an end date. This is ecosystem drift, not end-of-life. The real cost is hiring (finding developers who will happily work in these stacks is harder every year) and library availability. Those are honest reasons to migrate. “It stops working” is not.

We have a Google Play deadline. Can you just fix that and nothing else?

Yes, and sometimes that is the right call. Getting to target API 36 is often a much smaller job than a modernization, and if that is all you need we will do that and tell you the rest can wait. The deadline is 31 August 2026, and an extension to 1 November 2026 can be requested in the Play Console.

Do you need our source code?

Yes, for this service. If the source code is missing or nobody can build it, you are on the wrong page. Start at App Rescue & Code Audit, which is written for exactly that situation.

Can you add AI features at the same time?

Yes, and it is normally the cheapest way to do it, because the API layer, event history and release tooling an AI feature needs are the same work the migration does anyway. What we will not do is sell you the migration on the strength of an AI feature you have not decided to build. Detail on AI Feature Integration & Assistants.

Who owns the code?

You do, from day one, in your repository. Store accounts, backend and analytics are in your name on your billing. 30 days’ notice, no exit fee, written handover included, and we will do a handover call with whoever takes over, including a competitor.

What if the answer is that we should leave it alone?

Then that is what the report says, and you have spent an audit fee to avoid spending a migration budget. It happens often enough that we put it in section 10 rather than leaving it as a surprise.

Have something in mind

Tell us the problem. We bring the engineering.

A short call, an honest answer on whether we are the right team, and a scope you can hold us to.

Start a project