Retroarch cores vs bespoke apps, what's better?

[cricri-pingouin]

It's good to see Retroarch as part of the image build, especially since most apps don't get updated anymore, leading some to not work on MiyooCFW v2.0.
For those apps that work as both a Retroarch and a standalone app (e.g. gpsp, mame4all, etc), which one is better to use and why?
I think that the advantage of Retroarch cores are that they may be more up to date (maybe?) and using Retroarch means you have unified controls mapping (e.g. button to access the menu and exit), but aren't standalone apps offer better performance by their nature rather than a core that is designed to be cross platform?
Thanks!

[Timman6866]

My two cents... Bespoke apps all the way. Retroarch has severe performance issues, at least for the v90. I couldn't even get some GBA games to load with the gpsp core (sims 2). The games that did load had very poor performance. Installing the discrete gpsp cleared up all my issues.

[Apaczer]

This is debatable see: #287 also every port is mostly from another platform.

For comparison you could refer to: #358 (might be outdated). Please wait a bit for next BETA release (or grab nigthly build) for performance improvements.