Flutter: the Future of Cross-Platform App Development

Flutter is a fairly new framework for cross-platform app development created by Google. There’s already a lot of excitement about it, and it became even greater after Flutter Interact 2019 conference, where Google announced a few new features and improvements. At Appstronauts, we are really excited about Flutter, and we think that it will become the first choice for cross-platform app developers in 2020.

Flutter from Google - New Solution for Cross-Platform Apps

Flutter is an open-source, free mobile Software Development Kit for cross-platform app development, released by Google. It allows you to build apps for Android and iOS with only one codebase. One code works on both platforms, and your app looks and acts like a native one, with all the native interface elements.

Why Flutter Seems to Be Better than Other Cross-Platform Frameworks?

Cross-platform apps most often have slightly worse performance than native ones. In the case of frameworks like React Native, they need additional “bridge” to access platform widgets, responsible for animations, swiping and transitions. To create a Flutter app, we use a programming language named Dart. It is compiled into native code ahead-of-time, which means, already during the building process. In consequence, there is no bridge needed, and there’s no performance gap. 

What’s more, Flutter provides its own widgets instead of platform ones. And it resolves another problem, connected to creating the same design for each platform and being able to customize it. With Flutter widgets apps look the same on each platform and, what is more, they look the same on each system’s version. Typically, adjusting the look of the app to the older OS versions requires time and a lot of testing. With Flutter, you can be sure that your app will look perfect, even after the system’s updates.

Pros and Cons of Flutter for Business Owners

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Let’s discover the pros and cons of Flutter from a business owner’s perspective.

Pros:

• With Flutter, your app development team writes literally one code: in most cases, this code can be shared between Android and iOS by 100%. That’s not possible with many popular cross-platform frameworks.
• Flutter is free to use and open-source.
• Flutter apps provide excellent User Experience and flawless performance. The app looks exactly like a native one. The design is constant through all platforms, devices and system versions.
• Flutter widgets allow developers to create a customized design that matches a brand image.
• Time for testing is reduced. Your developers write one instead of two codes. The time spent for testing your app on older Android and iOS versions are also reduced thanks to widgets.
• Flutter is perfect for MVP development. It allows building an app fast to present it to your investors.

Cons:

• Dart is the new programming language developers should learn from scratch. The number of companies and developers that had mastered Dart is still low.
• Apps are a bit large. Because of the widgets, an app weighs at least 4 MB although they work on changing that.

At Appstronauts, we’re really excited about Flutter. If you are looking for a Flutter app development company, drop us a message about your project at [email protected].