Advantages Of Using Flutter For Cross-Platform Development

Businesses are constantly searching for ways to streamline their production processes and get their products to market quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively. To achieve this, they need to have the right tools and a well-crafted plan in place.

One major challenge for startups is synchronous app development across multiple platforms. This can be a significant bottleneck and lead to extra expenses, such as hiring various teams, which can quickly deplete cash reserves and shorten the project’s runway.

To overcome this challenge, businesses need to find a Cross-Platform framework that enables a unified team to build a multi-platform product using a single codebase. Whether for mobile, web, or desktop, businesses can save time, money, and resources by not assigning teams to different platforms for the same job.

Flutter is a tool that can help businesses achieve this. It can speed up product development and synchronize release schedules, thus broadening the customer base and increasing the profit margin. Furthermore, the framework is particularly beneficial for aspiring industry leaders, as the constant presence of mobile and desktop technology makes interconnectivity and Cross-Platform support necessary for any budding project.

What Is Flutter?

Flutter is an open-source framework created by Google for building smooth and scalable Cross-Platform applications. The framework allows developers to create high-performance apps with functional and attractive user interfaces that rival native Android and iOS programs.

In simple terms, Flutter is a portable UI toolkit that allows developers to build beautiful, natively compiled applications for any platform using a single codebase. With the Dart language, developers and organizations worldwide use Flutter to quickly and efficiently release their minimum-viable projects.

To achieve this, Flutter uses a library of pre-made widgets and a host of plugins that simplify and speed up application development. The framework is written primarily in the Dart language, a modern and concise object-oriented programming language that is easy to read, remove, and customize for desired widgets.

Aside from being a Google-developed product, Flutter offers a plethora of competitive advantages, including:

Why Flutter Is A Good Choice For Cross-Platform Projects

Reason 1: Smooth Cross-Platform App Development

Flutter’s popularity has skyrocketed primarily because its framework is platform-agnostic. The leading mobile OS platforms are Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Native app projects are mainly written in the language used by the OS. For example, iOS applications use Swift and Objective-C, while Android uses Java or Kotlin.

While this allows for a UI that matches the user experience with that of the OS, the nature of native apps requires organizations to create multiple codebases for each device with its version of the app. This, in turn, creates additional costs for hiring developers to build and manage a code base for each platform and extends the timeline for developing multiple builds for the same product.

Having natively coded android and iOS applications will require the business owner to, yet again, employ the use of their employee base. This recurring expense could have been avoided with a Cross-Platform framework. While enterprises can afford it, startups or scale-ups might need help to handle the cost.

Another benefit of Flutter’s platform-agnostic nature is that it promotes feature parity amongst applications. If one platform fails to update its application version in sync with the others, then feature parity is broken, leaving lasting negative implications for your company’s reputation.

Flutter comes in as a solution to this problem. Hailed as one of the best Cross-Platform development frameworks, Flutter introduces one codebase for all platforms through reusable widgets used for more than just mobile app development. On top of this, Flutter is also one of the complete SDKs available on the market, as it’s usable for more than just mobile applications but also progressive web apps, desktop applications, and so much more.

It’s important to note that Google’s goal with the Flutter framework was to promote Cross-Platform app development in one composable repository, giving its end users immense control over the final product. Its widget-based technology allows developers to reuse the same lines of code across multiple projects and rapidly refine and evolve the application as seen fit by the organization.

And so long as the editor can support the Dart language, the Flutter framework is compatible with most significant editors and IDEs, including Android Studio, IntelliJ IDEAS, and VS Code. Flutter’s focus on offering an excellent user experience in an easy-to-learn package makes collaboration more accessible, no matter who you are or your involved stage in the production process.

Business Value

Reduced spending Flutter is known for maximizing the value of each dollar. Optimizing development costs is a concept Google understands, given its extensive experience in introducing new features and launching products. Given that knowledge, Flutter’s convenience and budget-friendliness make sense. It’s even been shown that developing apps for multiple platforms simultaneously via Flutter has halved the price of development. How? Flutter includes less code for products. Considered a simple and convenient venue, Flutter provides its users with beautiful widgets that offer the same level of performance in less code than native applications would require. Code reusability is another prominent feature of Flutter. It allows developers to create engaging, feature-rich applications with Cross-Platform friendly UI components that can use up to over ninety per cent of the code to save time, effort, and app development budget.

Quicker Time To Launch

As separate apps take longer to develop, time to market has become a crucial part of any business strategy. With Flutter, using a single codebase allows for faster development and launch times. This is because developers only need to write code once, which can be used across multiple platforms. This eliminates the need for separate teams working on different codebases, which can slow down development and prolong the launch time. Additionally, using pre-made widgets and plugins also speeds up development and reduces the time needed to launch the app.

Overall, the platform-agnostic nature of Flutter and its use of a single codebase and pre-made widgets and plugins make it an ideal choice for businesses looking to launch their products quickly and efficiently across multiple platforms. It helps to reduce costs, improve feature parity, and speed up development and launch times, ultimately leading to increased profitability.

Reason 2: Exceptional Performance

When choosing a framework for Cross-Platform development, performance is a crucial factor. Flutter is known for its exceptional performance, providing users with a smooth and fast app experience.

How Fast Is Flutter?

Flutter has been proven to be one of the fastest frameworks in the market. According to a study by inVerita, Flutter compiled 95% faster for the Gauss-Legendre and Borwein Algorithm CPU-intensive tests for iOS and Android. The results show that Flutter can perform just as well as native development languages like Swift and Objective-C. This makes it a solid alternative for building native apps.

Flutter achieves its high performance in the following ways:

Flutter’s DevTools provide profiling, display code coverage, and a performance overlay.
Skia is a 2D graphics library that serves as the primary graphics engine for Google Chrome, ChromeOS, Android, Flutter, and many other products.
The Dart language is optimized for fast-performing apps and uses Ahead of Time compiling to create fast, almost native apps in Flutter without using a javascript bridge.

Business Value

High performance is essential for user engagement and retention. A poor-performing app can lead to high bounce rates, uninstalls, and loss of customers. Flutter’s exceptional performance ensures a smooth and fast app experience, which leads to better user engagement and retention. This results in higher ROI for businesses.

Reason 3: Popularity

Flutter has become one of the most popular frameworks for app development, with over two million developers using it in the last three years. Created by Google in 2015 and officially launched in 2018, it quickly surpassed React Native to become the number one mobile app development framework.

Popularity Statistics

According to Statista, the usage rate of Flutter among software developers has continued to increase, from 30% in 2019 to 42% in 2021, taking the top spot away from React Native for the first time in 3 years. Over 500,000 Flutter-based applications on the Play Store alone constitute 3.55% of the world’s mobile applications and 8.33% of the new apps involved. Major companies such as Toyota, BMW, eBay and Alibaba have also used Flutter in their app development.

Why Is Flutter So Popular?

Flutter’s popularity can be attributed to its Cross-Platform support, the use of a single codebase for Android and iOS applications, and the ability to reduce production time while delivering high-performance applications with complex features. Additionally, Google’s support for the framework and continuous investment in its development also increase its popularity among developers.

Business Value

As Flutter continues to increase in popularity, it is a good idea for businesses to invest in its development. The continuous support from Google ensures that the framework will not become obsolete shortly. The growing popularity of Flutter and the Dart language also means that it will play a significant role in the native application market, making it a wise choice for businesses to invest in.

Developing A Cross-Platform App With Flutter

Flutter has become a popular choice among businesses because it provides smooth and cost-effective Cross-Platform app development. The framework’s platform-agnostic nature reduces the amount of coding required, resulting in lower overall costs compared to building separate native apps. Additionally, apps built in Flutter perform similarly to native apps, providing a seamless user experience.

Manish Surapaneni

A Visionary & Expert in enhancing customer experience design, build solutions, modernize applications and leverage technology with Data Analytics to create real value.

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