Flutter App Development: Pros and Cons
Mobile Applications are getting bigger & better day by day. In the current scenario, new technological advancements have made mobile apps able to run on multiple platforms. There are 3.5 billion & more smartphone users worldwide, and it keeps on growing.
Even its Global revenue was nearly 318 billion dollars in 2020 alone. The major contributor to this recent growth is Flutter App Development Company.
Flutter is an open-source framework for building apps. This Framework is developed & maintained by Google and supports the dart language. It helps render apps on multiple platforms and helps compile the front-end of apps natively. For now, let’s dive into the technology and analyze what makes Flutter the best choice of mobile app development companies.
Understanding Flutter Development
The main components for Flutter Development are as follows-
- Dart Language
- Flutter rendering engine
- Library
- Widgets
Flutter uses all the dart’s advanced features and helps in a better experience. For developers, when developing and debugging apps, the default app runs on a dart virtual machine & which has an in-built feature known as a just-in-time execution engine. That allows Flutter to have a hot reload feature. This feature helps render the changes directly in the app, then re-running the whole code and restarting the app. Dart also compliments this with a stateful hot reload. That helps in not changing the state while compiling the new code. Helping developers pick up the problems, making development easy.
With the launch of Flutter 2.5 & Dart 2.14, it has become easier to develop flutter apps for Windows, macOS, Linux & Web. They have also added support for Google’s Material You for better UI changes.
For Developers, Flutter can adapt to almost all the IDEs in use nowadays. It Provides developers with unlimited options for setting up their development environment, boosting productivity & creativity.
Wonder of Widgets
Speaking of creativity, Flutter has introduced one more breaking change into app development.
Widgets enable you to reuse code & components as-in according to need. It helps in reducing code-base and significantly reduces the performance overhead. These have also provided developers with a new means to showcase creativity. The developers have started focusing & rethinking tiny bits of functionality. It has opened up people’s minds in terms of creating & reusing functionalities. Widgets also help in bringing OOPs concepts to the table. Almost all the modern desktop apps take advantage of OOPs design principles & methodologies. Flutter brings these to all platforms to help organize code better.
Pros of Flutter Development
Code-base
Before Flutter, we had teams developing applications specific to one platform. These applications had different logic & codes, which meant expensive development. But the Flutter apps have one code base maintaining all platforms. It reduces efforts when building code-breaking changes & testing.
Widgets
As discussed earlier, widgets open many new possibilities in creativity and organization. It is one of the main advantages flutter has.
Library Support
Flutter has rich library support from Skia Graphics. This library uses the power of C++ low-level rendering, which helps Flutter Engine load new view changes as quickly as possible. Flutter is also compatible with Material You, an enhancement of Material-UI by Google. Material You helps by bringing a new ready-to-use skeleton for apps, redefining the flutter apps UI.
Testing & Problem-Solving
Flutter’s hot reload functionality helps developers work on problems without changing the application state. Flutter can retain global data when inducing a new change. It happens because of the functionality of the widget. Rather than reloading the whole app, Flutter focuses on refreshing the components comprising the changes. It helps retain the global state & data while working on problems.
Cons of Flutter
Memory Intensive
Flutter Apps are large in file sizes and are not easy to download & updating flutter apps can be memory intensive too.
New in Town
Flutter is relatively new & experimental compared to other competitors. Though the popularity of Flutter is ever increasing, the technology is relatively new. It also means a lack of support & libraries.
Some Big Success Stories
Flutter has seen an early adaptation from many of the big app companies. Some of the giant Google apps like G-Pay are powered by Flutter now. Also, some major industry-leading apps like Uber have migrated to this technology to gain a higher edge. Automotive Groups like BMW & Toyota have also pleaded an early loyalty to it, using Flutter’s UI to create new & engaging experiences for its customers. Stadia is a technology that aims to make computational powers for games more accessible using networks. Stadia takes advantage of Flutter’s cross-platform compatibility, making it easier for stadia to work towards its primary aim. Stadia also takes Flutter’s UI as an advantage. It helped Stadia create a seamless UI for its customers. Tencent Group has also widely adapted Flutter for its development. Flutter claims to have helped reduce 80% of debugging efforts, making 90% code multiplatform & 33% reduction in development effort for Tencent. E-commerce Solutions like Alibaba Group & eBay have also adapted & successfully migrated to flutter. Developers at eBay believe that Flutter has made development twice faster than before. Alibaba Group confirms that higher FPS & smooth UI helps in the betterment of User experiences, helping app’s customers achieve their goals intuitively.
Conclusion
We understand that Google’s open-source Framework has opened up multiple possibilities. It has enabled developers to become more creative and work with the real problem by reducing code & bringing organizational tools to the picture. For organizations, Flutter has helped reduce the overhead cost of maintaining separate codes & has helped build responsive & reactive UI & UX. These all benefits are also backed by Google’s maintenance & many industry-leading applications as they have adapted this technology. But Flutter is still young and lacks support & libraries. At the time, it can be a little memory extensive too. But the future of computational power promises these problems to fade with time, and Flutter’s advantage will rule out most of these issues. Finally, It is said & proven that Flutter has changed the App Development industry.
