While talking about mobile application development, there are certain factors to keep in mind. One of the factors to monitor is the technology we will use to develop our application. Flutter vs Java is a primary option to consider while developing mobile apps. 

Flutter vs Java is an ongoing debate topic. The debate happens while comparing the functions, usage, development ease, and different factors. While Flutter– a cross-platform mobile app development framework, it is used to develop apps quickly. On the other hand, Java has been in the market a lot longer than Flutter and it affirms stability.

In this article, we will have a detailed look at the differences between Java and Flutter and also learn more about each platform. So, let’s begin with the same.

What is Flutter?

Developing a mobile app is challenging. There are many app development frameworks available for developing a mobile app. A feature-rich set of functions are provided by these frameworks. The native framework for Android development is Java or Kotlin; while for iOS is Objective C or Swift. So, there was a requirement for two different languages for creating Android and iOS projects. 

To solve this problem, there are many cross-platform app development tools available to develop mobile apps for both OSs. By using these frameworks, you can write code that is once written and can be deployed anywhere on platforms like iOS, Desktop, and Android. PhoneGap, Xamarin, Ionic, React Native, Flutter, etc., are some of the famous cross-platform app-making frameworks.

The Flutter framework is developed by Google. It is used to develop amazing and fast apps for desktop, web, and mobile using a single codebase and language. The use of the Flutter framework is growing day by day. It is an open-source and free-to-use tool that is maintained by ECMA standards. Flutter uses Dart programming language for developing apps. Dart has the same Kotlin and Swift features that can be compiled into JS code.

Pros and Cons of Flutter

With reliable responsibility for mobile app development, there are prominent challenges of the Flutter framework. Here are the pros and cons of Flutter that one should keep in mind while selecting the Flutter framework.

Pros

• Performance- Flutter aims to provide 60 fps (frames per second) performance on different devices.
• Hot reload- whenever any developer makes any changes in the code, the updates are immediately made visible in the application itself.
• Supported by Google
• Cross-platform support- you can write the code once and deploy it on different platforms or OSs.
• Flutter code is compiled in Native code.
• It is an open-source platform, so one can use it freely without paying a single penny.
• It has an expressive and flexible UI.
• Flutter provides fast development.
• Flutter assists developers with material design.
• It has a singleton codebase.

Cons

• One has to learn Dart programming first if one wants to use Flutter
• No support for a 3D graphics engine
• No proper user documentation
• Less community support
• Only graphics programming
• Lack of promotion

What is Java?

Java is the most popular OOP-based programming language that provides an amazing set of libraries and tools that are used for developing and maintaining phone, website, and desktop apps. It was developed specifically for minimising the implementation of dependencies to as few as possible. This makes Java a secure, reliable, and fast platform.

Before the subsequent popularity growth of the Flutter language, Java maintained a monopoly over developing mobile apps. Different desktop and mobile apps are written with Java codes and also now the Java API is stable and documented.

However, there are some potential drawbacks when comparing Java vs Flutter. For example, Java is not a cross-platform development platform, which means you need to spend more money and time to develop apps for a single platform and will not be able to target multiple OSs.

Pros and Cons of Java

With reliable responsibility for mobile app development, there are prominent challenges of the Java programming language. Here are the pros and cons of Java that one has to think about while selecting the Java framework.

Pros

• Java provides a set of libraries for developing phone apps, websites, and desktop apps.
• Java is used developers to develop gaming apps
• It provides an amazing tooling system
• There’s a set of proper user documentation in the Java language
• Many skilled Java developers are available
• It is excellent for performance
• Easy development of phone, web apps, and desktop apps
• It is smooth and quickly understandable language
• Excellent JDK and SDK
• It’s an open-source language

Cons

• There’s a boilerplate code
• The NullpointerException con
• Verbosity- one has to write more than the required code to perform any function
• Java is strict-type than Flutter
• It can return wildcard type
• No different properties are available
• It returns wildcard
• Different floating point errors are available
• Optional parameters missing

Flutter vs Java: Comparison

After getting a basic understanding of Java vs Flutter, we will now see basic comparison points between Java and Flutter. Let’s begin!

Development time

The biggest advantage of the Flutter framework is that it can reduce the app development time. As you can write code that deploys well in Android and iOS both, you can save a lot of time and cost of development.

On the other hand, Java is a time-consuming framework to develop an app. As Java’s an old language, there are multiple tools and frameworks in it. This makes the software development process more complex and rigid.

Hence, based on development time, Flutter takes less time and resources to complete the app development process.

Performance

Flutter is popular for developing high-performance apps. The GPU-accelerated feature of Flutter allows the development of smooth transitions and animations. Flutter apps are smaller and faster than traditional mobile native apps.

Java is also popular for its performance capacity. The JIT (Just-in-time) compiler optimises the code during the runtime environment. Also, the Java apps are known for stability and can handle large amounts of traffic and data without compromising performance.

So performance-wise, there’s a tie between Java and Flutter.

Popularity

One has to look into various factors including the popularity of these two frameworks when picking a mobile development tech stack because of several reasons. One is community support and third-party support. In the development process, we can focus on the bigger community, so we can easily trust the framework and it develops the project without any worries of not having solutions for any unexpected query occurring in the project.

While comparing Java vs Flutter based on popularity, Java is the winner. It has a far bigger user base than the Flutter framework. In Stackshare, Java has 89.2K followers and Flutter has 13.5k+ followers.

On the other hand, Flutter is majorly used for modern mobile app development because it develops cross-platform apps. Java is a general-purpose language that develops only Android apps. It is used for developing web apps, backends, embedded systems, mobile apps, GUI apps for Windows, etc. While in this case, we should also face the reality that many developers are shifting from Java or other languages to Flutter because it provides cross-platform apps super quickly.

Community Support

With a larger user and support community, Java aces this comparison factor. There are various resources available online like tutorials, documentation, and forums. These resources make it easy for developers to search for solutions to problems that they might face during the development process.

However, Flutter has a smaller community than Java. Although it is growing rapidly, and also has numerous resources available online. Google also provides in-depth documentation for Flutter users; this makes it easy to understand for developers.

Documentation

When we are learning any new technology or language, it is quite important to look into the available tutorials and documentation on the internet. Both Java and Flutter have amazing documentation to get started with their development journey. Moreover, many courses and free tutorials are streaming on websites that help developers with learning these frameworks.

Flutter has detailed documentation published on its official website. Whereas Java has a lot of documentation links and resources available from many sources on the internet.

In the end…

We hope that the above article helped you gain all the required information that one has to think of while comparing Flutter vs Java. There are many comparison factors between these frameworks, but in the end, choosing anyone is completely your call. You have to choose a reliable Java development company to assist you with Java development, and a Flutter development company for Flutter development. It depends on the project requirements and business needs whether you go with Flutter or Java. For more such informative posts, stay connected to us. Happy reading!