What Is Flutter?
Flutter
makes it possible to create a variety of apps using a single codebase,
taking the guesswork out of releasing apps on multiple platforms.
Developed by Google, the open-source framework comes with everything
developers need to finish projects quickly without sacrificing quality.
What Can It Do?
Flutter
comes with various developer tools, making it easy to build and test
native apps. Flutter3 was recently introduced by Google in 2022, which
has the long-awaited Linux Desktop support. Flutter 3 is the next big
step in Flutter’s journey to enable multi-platform application
development across what is now six platforms: iOS, Android, Web,
Windows, macOS and Linux.
Advantages of Flutter
A
significant advantage of Flutter is that you can use the same UI across
multiple target platforms. React Native uses a separate renderer for
each platform, increasing complexity. Flutter eliminates this problem by
combining UI logic with the needs of the business, delivering a
consistent experience without making things more complex. Flutter
bypasses the system UI widget libraries in favor of its own widget set.
This set is rendered to the screen by the Skia graphics engine, which is
embedded within Flutter. As a result, users are less likely to
encounter errors that make your app more difficult to use.
Flutter
also helps developers save time, allowing them to deliver completed
apps much faster than with older tools. One way Flutter reduces
development times is by providing access to customizable widgets.
Instead of creating all code from scratch, a developer can use these
widgets to create new features, speeding up development schedules.
Flutter also has a hot reload feature, allowing developers to see their
changes almost instantaneously instead of waiting for their code to
recompile.
Disadvantages of Flutter
One
of the most significant drawbacks of Flutter is that it produces large
apps. If you’re developing an app for users who are concerned about
taking up too much space on their devices, this may limit the number of
people who download the app. Additionally, it’s more challenging to
import other frameworks into Flutter, which may limit the tool’s ability
to meet your needs. Finally, Flutter is only five years old, so its
developer community is rather small. If you need a lot of support, you
may be better off choosing another tool. However if you’re hiring an
experienced Flutter developer this won’t be an issue.
Flutter uses
Dart language for development so if you choose to have your own
internal development team you would need to hire Dart developers
separate from your back-end server team which you may develop in Node
JS, Golang, or Rust.
Flutter Use Cases
Google
used Flutter to revamp Google Pay, a global payment system that makes
it easier for businesses of all sizes to accept credit cards and other
payment methods. Initially, the iOS and Android versions of Google Pay
were built on nearly 2 million lines of code. Google developers felt
this amount of code was rather cumbersome, especially since the company
planned on expanding Google Pay into more countries, all with different
regulations regarding secure transactions.
If they continued
creating code for both iOS and Android, Google Pay developers would have
had to do twice the work every time the company expanded into a new
market. They decided to migrate to Flutter to streamline the development
process, resulting in a 35% reduction in lines of code and a 70%
reduction in engineering effort.
BMW
also migrated to Flutter when its developers realized that the company
wasn’t delivering a consistent experience to all users of the BMW and
MINI connected apps. Developers at BMW also have to contend with a
significant amount of complexity, as the company operates in multiple
countries, all of which have different rules for the automobile
industry. BMW developers used Flutter to create a universal experience,
increasing brand loyalty and making it easier for the company to comply
with local rules and regulations.
Learn about our Flutter app development service at Zco.com.