Benefits of Flutter for mobile app development

Let’s talk about cross-platform mobile development, because there is a reason! Not so long ago, namely in December 2018, at an event from Google, “another framework” was brought to us – Flutter. Today we will look at Flutter from different angles. Flutter application development services have also appeared, as the technology is very promising.

Pros and cons of using Flutter

• The technology has clearly caught a wave of success, has an actively developing community and interesting architectural approaches at its core. This, in my opinion, is the key to a long and successful existence of the framework.
• Fast coding. Native rendering, independence from OEM widgets, and a rich developer toolkit significantly speeds up coding and supporting two platforms at the same time.
• The same code runs on two or more platforms. Currently, only iOS and Android are fully supported. Web and desktop are in active development. But their release into production is a matter of the near future.
• Less testing. Due to pixel perfect rendering, testing and elimination of platform-specific bugs and layout nuances will be much faster.
• Compiling to native code leaves no doubt about this statement.
• The same UI on all devices. When you need to write an application with a unique design that must be the same on two mobile platforms, Flutter becomes an indispensable tool for cross-platform development.

But there are also disadvantages

• The youth of the platform is an inevitable companion of Flutter. In this case, React Native is a more established solution that will be easier to find developers for.
• New native UI components. In the case of React Native, they can be included in the project fairly quickly. In Flutter, all new platform-side UI elements must be re-rendered.
• Lack of vacancies in the market. At the moment there are very few of them. This should change in the future. But now this can become an obstacle for a developer who does not want to invest in learning new technology.
• Fears that Flutter is not able to meet the needs of the business. Promising success on anything with a GPU and a screen may be usable everywhere but not in business.

Results

It’s time to take stock! From the main advantages:

+ Cross-platform

+ Perspective and active development

+ The most important libraries are already there, new ones are constantly being released

+ Own graphics engine

+ The interface is easily broken down into separate modules

Flutter is Google’s fresh take on cross-platform. With all the obvious economic benefits, even for large-scale tasks, the technology is relatively new (2018), which is why many developers are in no hurry to use it.

Summing up, I want to draw a parallel between Flutter and the browser. Perhaps this will seem unexpected to someone, but, in my opinion, such a parallel exists. Just as a browser renders web page content on virtually any device and operating system, Flutter renders widgets. Instead of an HTML + JS bundle, Flutter uses compiled Dart code. Instead of the HTTP protocol, code distribution is carried out using vendor stores.