Ever since its launch, Flutter has consistently pushed the boundaries of cross-platform app development. Here are the 4 major reasons why Flutter is proving to be a trendsetter in the mobile app development arena.
Common user interface across platforms
Most of the cross-platform frameworks do allow the developers to share codebase with different platforms. Flutter, however, is the only platform that allows the developers to share both the UI as well as the UI code.
Flutter is able to do so because it has its own high-performance rendering engine named Skia. Using Skia, the developers can launch a UI on a wide range of platforms.
The Flutter app developers no longer have to adjust the UI according to different platforms. Having its own rendering process significantly reduces the app development time using Flutter.
Another major advantage of Flutter is that it does not require any platform-specific UI components for UI rendering. This isn’t the case with other cross-platform frameworks, as they rely on platform-specific components for UI rendering. Other cross-platform frameworks need to map every animation into a platform-specific widget call, and this is a complicated process.
The way Flutter renders UI eliminates inconsistencies in UI on different platforms. Flutter allows the developers to save time and effort as it is easy to share UI and business logic with Flutter.
Near-native performance and custom UI
With cross-platform app development technologies, a major issue is the lack of native performance. A lot of entrepreneurs are wary of building a cross-platform app due to this reason. Flutter addresses this issue as it delivers a near-native performance even with a custom UI.
In fact, Flutter’s performance is even better in apps that have complex user interfaces. What’s the reason why Flutter performs better than its peers? Well, unlike most other cross-platform frameworks, Flutter does not use interpretation or intermediate code representations. Instead, the developers of Flutter have built Flutter directly into machine code.
This way, the Flutter developers have effectively eliminated any bugs that are commonly associated with the interpretation process. Flutter allows the developers to fully compile an application ahead of time, effectively reducing the time-to-market of the application.
A major advantage of Flutter is that it allows the Flutter developers to customize anything and everything with the application. Some might argue that native app development platforms also allow the developers to customize the look and feel of the application. While this is true, the thing is that the effort required to customize an app on native platforms is much higher than what is required with Flutter.
The high level of customization that Flutter offers is due to the wide range of widgets that Flutter provides to its developers. With basic coding knowledge, the Flutter developers can even customize the widgets to suit their specific needs. Flutter allows the developers to customize the widgets according to different screen sizes. However complex the UI may be, Flutter is designed to provide a smooth user experience.
Single codebase and hot reloading
With native app development, businesses need to build two separate apps for Android and ios if they want to publish apps on both platforms. This is not the case with Flutter, as a single codebase is required to build apps that can run on multiple platforms like ios and Android. As Flutter developers need to write code only once, the development process gets accelerated. The single codebase feature of Flutter not only simplifies the process of Flutter app development it also helps bring efficiency into the process of Flutter app development.
With a single codebase, the testing time is also reduced significantly as the testers need to test only a single code instead of testing separate ios and android codes. Hot reloading is another feature of Flutter that makes app development fast and easy. With other platforms, whenever the developers need to see the effect of the changes they make in the code, they need to compile the code and wait for a few seconds to see the results. It may seem that only a few seconds are wasted in the compiling process. Understand that the figure adds up, resulting in several hours wasted when the developers were waiting for the code to compile.
Due to the hot reloading feature of Flutter, the developers and designers can simultaneously see the effect of the changes they make in the code immediately. The hot reloading feature thus increases the productivity of the developers and allows them to fix the bugs immediately.
MVP development and scope beyond mobile
An MVP(most viable product) is one of the best ways to test the waters. Instead of developing a full-fledged app with all the features, MVP development focuses on building an app with only the essential features. This way, you as an entrepreneur can mitigate the risk associated with developing the app. You do not need to invest tons of money into building a full-fledged app and can see what the features that are in demand amongst your users are.
MVP helps you to identify the essential features that you need to add to your app. MVP also helps you to test your business idea because, many times, the reality is different from what we think. An MVP is also a great way to showcase your app to investors. With Flutter, you do not need to build separate MVPs for iOS and Android. You can build a single MVP and get going with your project.
Flutter is compatible with Firebase, meaning that the developers won’t need to separate the backends for building a simple MVP.
Many people think that Flutter is only for mobile app development. This is far from the truth, and Flutter is also used for web applications now. Google has already shown a preview of its Flutter web product. Flutter web allows the developers to run web apps built using Flutter in a browser without the need of doing extensive modifications to the source code. By providing Flutter web, Google has started promoting Flutter as a full-fledged cross-platform application development tool.
An experienced Flutter developer can build a Flutter app that can run smoothly on Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, and even on embedded systems.
Flutter your way forward
Flutter is one of the most exciting app development technologies available in the market today. Robust support from Google, a vibrant and growing community, and attractive features like hot reloading make Flutter a stand-out performer in the cross-platform application development arena. We suggest you avail the services of a top Flutter app development company to leverage the benefits of Flutter for your business.
