Why and when you should choose Flutter for app development

When Flutter came into the market, it changed the app development era, and today it has become one of the most accepted cross-platform frameworks. Through Flutter, you can create highly interactive, responsive, and quality applications.

The main reason Flutter is leading the charts of mobile app development is that it makes native-like apps without compromising the quality, speed, and performance of an application.

Moreover, Flutter allows applications to run on multiple platforms using a single code base, saving a lot of work for developers. It is an open-source platform, so developers can easily enhance, inspect, and modify the codes to speed up the work.

Continue reading to get more clarity and understanding of why and when to choose Flutter for app development. 

Why choose Flutter: Top reasons to choose Flutter for your app development

From massive community support to native-like functionality, there are not one but numerous reasons to choose Flutter. By reading below, you will learn about the top reasons to select the Flutter framework for your app development project.

1. Support of community

According to the 2021 survey of JetBrains, Flutter is the most popular cross-platform framework around the globe. It was all possible due to the support of the community of Flutter.

Over the last few years, the community support of Flutter has expanded exponentially. And today, Flutter’s community support has reached to;

1. GitHub-138K
2. Twitter-178K
3. Meetup-60K

Moreover, you can find and connect to the online Flutter community through Discord, Slack, Stack Overflow, Reddit, and Google developer groups. By joining groups, you can talk to other developers and community members to discuss and find answers.

The Flutter community is continuously working toward improving the framework by resolving numerous issues. In such a short time, the Flutter community has shown a massive impact on the framework’s progress.

2. Core elements

Widgets are the core elements of Flutter. Everything you see on the user interface can be considered a widget. It can be an icon, a button, a slider, text, padding, a margin, or a layout.

It is an element of the GUI(graphical user interface) which displays information to the user so they can interact with the application.

Widgets help you see results almost immediately after applying the codes. It makes the development process faster. Also, it allows you to utilize object-oriented programming for all its elements.

In Flutter, all the components render natively. As a result, it improves performance and gives a native feel to the app.

3. Adoption in the industry

There are not one but many factors that draw businesses to Flutter and encourage them to use it.

One of the primary reasons for the adoption of Flutter in the industry is its widgets. It is an immutable description part of a user interface that helps make the development process easy and time-efficient.

Also, Flutter uses a single codebase in which the developer needs to write code once for all the OS(operating systems). Currently, it supports six operating systems.

1. Android
2. iOS
3. macOS
4. Windows
5. Linux
6. Web

Some major companies that use Flutter are Alibaba, GooglePay, Hamilton, Kotak, Philips Hue, BMW etc.

4. Performance

Apps built using Flutter are often compared to native apps, as it gives you a native feel across all platforms. Also, team Flutter ensures the performance of an app at 60 frames per second (fps), which is the speed of a modern display that provides a smooth picture.

According to research comparing Flutter, Xamarin, and React Native performance, Flutter came first with 58fps and a 220-millisecond launch time. Assessing Flutter app performance depends on many factors, such as CPU usage, response time, number of requests, FPS (frames per second) and more.

Fluter provides you with high-performance apps due to direct code compilation and the usage of dart technology. Also, tools like Dart Analysis and Flutter Inspector allow you to assess code and keep up with performance.

5. Native functionality

While creating an app, sometimes we need to use extended functions that frameworks can not support. That’s when native languages come into action.

With the aid of Flutter packages, you can create a bridge with other native languages to provide extra functionality that the framework unable to accommodate. Using the bridge, you can create codes in native languages. Next, you can import the codes into Flutter to create powerful apps.

In the case of an Android application, Flutter takes support from native languages like Java and Kotlin, and in an iOS application, it takes help from Swift or Objective-C.

Using native functionalities, you can add some additional characteristics and create exceptional applications for your business.

6. Code structure

Small or large, having a proper code structure is crucial to save time and increase efficiency for any development project.

Flutter allows you with folder structures to keep similar code sets together. It helps you with maintaining, scaling and working in a team easier. Using Flutter, you can effortlessly find the required code from the folder.

According to the developers and project needs, one can freely fine-tune the directory and project structure. Also, it helps you keep track of widgets, controllers, services and screens.

When to choose Flutter for your app development?

Some might want apps faster; some might want them at affordable rates. There will always be some need when it comes to developing an app. Read below and know when you can choose Flutter for app development.

• When you need the same business logic and interface on multiple platforms

Many businesses consider having an app with the same functionality, UIs, and business logic across all platforms. And as a cross-platform framework, Flutter allows you to do that.

Flutter uses a single codebase across different operating systems to provide similar experiences to their users.

• When you want faster development

Flutter development is for you if you want faster development of an app on platforms like Android, iOS, Linux and more.

Flutter enables developers to use a hot reload feature. The hot reload functionality makes the development process faster as it allows developers to make changes to the app within a fraction of a second. Developers can add certain features to the app without refreshing the app again and again and can see the reflected changes instantly. This reduces the testing time for the app.

• When you want affordable development

If you are a small or medium-sized company and want to keep the cost as low as possible, Flutter is for you.

Developing a Flutter app is easy, less time-consuming, takes less effort, offers one codebase for all platforms, and lowers the testing time, which allows businesses to spend less money and time on developers. It makes Flutter development an affordable choice for you.

• When you wish shorter time to market

With a shorter time for development, deployment of the app becomes fast. As a result, you can launch apps in the market within a shorter span of time. Also, it allows you to focus on other critical business activities by saving a lot of time in development.

• When you need native-like app performance

If you think only having a native app can boost the performance of an application, then you might be wrong. Using Flutter, you can create a user interface that matches the underlying platform’s design standards.

Instead of writing the code for the two apps separately, you can easily create high-quality natively built apps for iOS and Android. Which helps you reduce the size of the application and improves its performance.

Examples: who choose flutter, when, and why?

Let’s take a look at some influential businesses using Flutter to their advantage:

• BMW:

Before 2018, the primary focus of BMW was only on their iOS vehicle companion app. However, they have noticed a big difference in their iOS and Android apps. That’s When BMW decided to offer prime functionality to all their customers without spending significant money on apps.

Keeping these goals in mind, they decided to choose a technology that could fulfil all their needs. And they started evaluating all the cross-platform technologies to develop an app.

After the evaluation, they found Flutter to be the perfect match for their project. And in July 2020, they launched their apps in 47 countries and five continents. As a result, the brand is moving fast, maintaining consistency and delighting the users.

• eBay:

The user experience of the eBay app was not good enough, as auto enthusiasts faced trouble finding cars. So in 2018, the team decided to create a new application for both platforms: iOS and Android.

With the budget being a concern, they decided to choose a cross-platform for the development. At that time, there was a lot of buzz about the newly launched framework, Flutter. First, they were not sure about Flutter but to launch the app faster in the market and get the native feel, eBay tied the knot with Flutter.

With time, the team Futter filled all the gaps faced by eBay and its users. Everyone was impressed by the app built using Flutter, its UI/UX, and its performance. After an internal survey by the eBay Motors team, 100% of developers were satisfied with the Flutter app. 70% felt that the speed is twice of the earlier app.

According to the members of eBay Motors, the app has improved their workflow, making them more productive and happier at work.

• GooglePay

The previous GooglePay app relied on 1.7 million lines of code across Android and iOS platforms, which was hard to manage and sustain as the business was continuously expanding to other countries. Also, they needed to add new code lines to each platform to add new features.

So, GooglePay decided to invest in a cross-platform framework to avoid all the code and sustainability issues.

After a while, to escape rewriting the whole application, faster migration and scale of the application, and avoid a large amount of coding, GooglePay decided to use Flutter.

After the development, the team launched a beta version of the app in Singapore.

The launch was a success. The code base was 35% smaller than its original implementation, even after adding several new features. Also, Flutter reduced the line of codes to 1.1 million lines from 1.7 million.

So, with 100 developers, they decided to relaunch the app with Flutter in India and the US. Now, over 180 developers are gathering data on the beta tests.

Conclusion:

As we discussed above, Flutter is the most popular cross-platform framework used to create applications using a single codebase. Its performance, community support, native functionality and core elements are the main reasons that make Flutter a preferred framework for application development.

In addition, the majority of companies are hiring Flutter app development services to grow their business in this competitive market. If you also want to stand-out and beat your competition, you must consider these “Why” and “When” parameters of Flutter.

Author Bio:

Patel Nasrullah Co-founder Peerbits, one of the leading Top web application development company USA, in 2011. He devotes his time in inspiring young leaders to take the leap of faith. With the experience of 10 years in Web and App development, he now gives full attention to the enterprise by offering mobility solutions about the strategic planning and execution.